To blame the victims for this killing spree defies both morality

To blame the victims for this killing spree defies both morality and sense

• Seumas Milne
• The Guardian,
• Wednesday March 5 2008

The attempt by western politicians and media to present this week's carnage in the Gaza Strip as a legitimate act of Israeli self-defence - or at best the latest phase of a wearisome conflict between two somehow equivalent sides - has reached Alice-in-Wonderland proportions. Since Israel's deputy defence minister, Matan Vilnai, issued his chilling warning last week that Palestinians faced a "holocaust" if they continued to fire home-made rockets into Israel, the balance sheet of suffering has become ever clearer. More than 120 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces in the past week, of whom one in five were children and more than half were civilians, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. During the same period, three Israelis were killed, two of whom were soldiers taking part in the attacks.

So what was the response of the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, to this horrific killing spree? It was to blame the "numerous civilian casualties" on the week's "significant rise" in Palestinian rocket attacks "and the Israeli response", condemn the firing of rockets as "terrorist acts" and defend Israel's right to self-defence "in accordance with international law". But of course it has been nothing of the kind - any more than has been Israel's 40-year occupation of the Palestinian territories, its continued expansion of settlements or its refusal to allow the return of expelled refugees.

Nor is the past week's one-sided burden of casualties and misery anything new, but the gap is certainly getting wider. After the election of Hamas two years ago, Israel - backed by the US and the European Union - imposed a punitive economic blockade, which has hardened over the past months into a full-scale siege of the Gaza Strip, including fuel, electricity and essential supplies. Since January's mass breakout across the Egyptian border signalled that collective punishment wouldn't work, Israel has opted for military escalation. What that means on the ground can be seen from the fact that at the height of the intifada, from 2000 to 2005, four Palestinians were killed for every Israeli; in 2006 it was 30; last year the ratio was 40 to one. In the three months since the US-sponsored Middle East peace conference at Annapolis, 323 Palestinians have been killed compared with seven Israelis, two of whom were civilians.

But the US and Europe's response is to blame the principal victims for a crisis it has underwritten at every stage. In interviews with Palestinian leaders over the past few days, BBC presenters have insisted that Palestinian rockets have been the "starting point" of the violence, as if the occupation itself did not exist. In the West Bank, from which no rockets are currently fired and where the US-backed administration of Mahmoud Abbas maintains a ceasefire, there have been 480 Israeli military attacks over the past three months and 26 Palestinians killed. By contrast, the rockets from Gaza which are supposed to be the justification for the latest Israeli onslaught have killed a total of 14 people over seven years.

Like any other people, the Palestinians have the right to resist occupation - or to self-defence - whether they choose to exercise it or not. In spite of Israel's disengagement in 2005, Gaza remains occupied territory, both legally and in reality. It is the world's largest open-air prison, with land, sea and air access controlled by Israel, which carries out military operations at will. Palestinians may differ about the tactics of resistance, but the dominant view (if not that of Abbas) has long been that without some armed pressure, their negotiating hand will inevitably be weaker. And while it might be objected that the rockets are indiscriminate, that is not an easy argument for Israel to make, given its appalling record of civilian casualties in both the Palestinian territories and Lebanon.

The truth is that Hamas's control of Gaza is the direct result of the US refusal to accept the Palestinians' democratic choice in 2006 and its covert attempt to overthrow the elected administration by force through its Fatah placeman Muhammad Dahlan. As confirmed by secret documents leaked to the US magazine Vanity Fair - and also passed to the Guardian - George Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Elliott Abrams, the US deputy national security adviser (of Iran-Contra fame), funnelled cash, weapons and instructions to Dahlan, partly through Arab intermediaries such as Jordan and Egypt, in an effort to provoke a Palestinian civil war. As evidence of the military buildup emerged, Hamas moved to forestall the US plan with its own takeover of Gaza last June. David Wurmser, who resigned as Dick Cheney's chief Middle East adviser the following month, argues: "What happened wasn't so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen."

Yesterday, Rice attempted to defend the failed US attempt to reverse the results of the Palestinian elections by pointing to Iran's support for Hamas. Meanwhile, Israel's attacks on Gaza are expected to resume once she has left the region, even if no one believes they will stop the rockets. Some in the Israeli government hope that they can nevertheless weaken Hamas as a prelude to pushing Gaza into Egypt's unwilling arms; others hope to bring Abbas and his entourage back to Gaza after they have crushed Hamas, perhaps with a transitional international force to save the Palestinian president's face.

Neither looks a serious option, not least because Hamas cannot be crushed by force, even with the bloodbath that some envisage. The third, commonsense option, backed by 64% of Israelis, is to take up Hamas's offer - repeated by its leader Khalid Mish'al at the weekend - and negotiate a truce. It's a move that now attracts not only left-leaning Israeli politicians such as Yossi Beilin, but also a growing number of rightwing establishment figures, including Ariel Sharon's former security adviser Giora Eiland, the former Mossad boss Efraim Halevy, and the ex-defence minister Shaul Mofaz.

The US, however, is resolutely opposed to negotiating with what it has long branded a terrorist organisation - or allowing anyone else to do so, including other Palestinians. As the leaked American papers confirm, Rice effectively instructed Abbas to "collapse" the joint Hamas-Fatah national unity government agreed in Mecca early last year, a decision carried out after Hamas's pre-emptive takeover. But for the Palestinians, national unity is an absolute necessity if they are to have any chance of escaping a world of walled cantons, checkpoints, ethnically segregated roads, dispossession and humiliation.

What else can Israel do to stop the rockets, its supporters ask. The answer could not be more obvious: end the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and negotiate a just settlement for the Palestinian refugees, ethnically cleansed 60 years ago - who, with their families, make up the majority of Gaza's 1.5 million people. All the Palestinian factions, including Hamas, accept that as the basis for a permanent settlement or indefinite end of armed conflict. In the meantime, agree a truce, exchange prisoners and lift the blockade. Israelis increasingly seem to get it - but the grim reality appears to be that a lot more blood is going to have to flow before it's accepted in Washington.

大屠杀反责受害者 天理难容

【本译文为经过多人次修改润色后的版本】

大屠杀反责受害者 天理难容

本周，加沙地带再次发生大规模屠杀，西方媒体和政客们试图将此定义为以色列的正当防卫，或充其量是又一场势均力敌的争斗。不得不说，这种妙想堪能媲美《爱丽丝梦游仙境》。以色列国防部副部长马坦·维尔奈（Matan Vilnai）于上周发出严重警告称，如果巴勒斯坦人继续向以色列发射土制火箭，他们将面临一场“浩劫”，因为双方遭受的损失已显而易见。上周在加沙，120余名巴勒斯坦人惨遭以色列军队杀害，据以色列人权组织“神形”（B’Tselem）统计，受害者半数以上为平民，五分之一是儿童。以色列方面死亡3人，其中2人是参与袭击的士兵。

面对骇人的屠杀，英国外交大臣戴维·米利班德（David Miliband）又当作何感想？他将这归咎于近来“显著增多”的巴勒斯坦火箭袭击，并称袭击已造成了以色列“大量平民伤亡”。他谴责火箭袭击是“恐怖主义行径”，并支持以色列“依照国际法规”进行自卫。当然，他对众所周知的情况只字未提——以色列占领巴勒斯坦领土长达40年，占领趋势仍在不断扩大，而且，以色列拒绝那些曾被驱逐的巴勒斯坦难民回归故土。

上周这一边倒的伤亡其实并不是新闻，只是双方的差距进一步扩大了而已。自两年前哈马斯上台以来，以色列在美国和欧盟的支持下对其实施了一系列惩罚性的经济封锁。在过去的几个月中，这种封锁已经升级成为对加沙地带的全面围困，切断了包括石油、电力和生活必需品在内的补给。随着1月份埃及边境发生大规模越境事件，经济封锁宣告破产，以色列则依靠军事行动的进一步升级进行应对。此举的成效如何？从2000年到2005年间，约旦河西岸起义的高潮阶段，每一个以色列人的死换来的是四个巴勒斯坦人的生命；2006年，这个比例变成了 1:30；而去年则是1:40。由美国发起的中东和平会谈在安纳波利斯 [注1] 举行以来的三个月内，有323名巴勒斯坦人被杀害，以色列的一方为7人，其中有两人是平民。

但美国和欧洲的反应却是指责受害人，理由是危机总是由他们挑起。几天前对巴勒斯坦领导人的采访中，BBC的主持人们仿佛把占领这个事实完全忘却了，坚称巴勒斯坦的火箭是暴力活动的“开端”。而约旦河西岸，由美国支持的马哈茂德·阿巴斯政府正维持着停火，到目前为止也没有发射过任何火箭。但在过去三个月中，以色列对该地区发起了480次军事攻击，26名巴勒斯坦人丧生。与之相比，那些从加沙发射、最近被以色列作为借口发动大规模攻击的火箭，在过去7年中一共杀死了14人。

和世界其他国家一样，巴勒斯坦人民也有反抗殖民和自我防卫的权利——无论他们是否选择述诸行动。尽管以色列在2005年已经撤军，但加沙在法律上和事实上都依然是被占区，是全世界最大的露天监狱。以色列掌握着该地区陆、海、空的出入权，随心所欲地发动军事行动。巴勒斯坦人也许在反抗的策略上存在分歧，但占主导地位的意见（也许不包括阿巴斯）一直认为，如果不施加一定的军事压力，他们在谈判桌上必定会处于劣势。如果有人说火箭袭击的目标随心所欲的话，以色列也不见得就能理直气壮起来，因为他们在巴勒斯坦被占区和黎巴嫩都造成了可怕的平民伤亡。

事实上，导致哈马斯接管加沙的直接原因是：美国拒绝接受2006年巴勒斯坦人民的民主选择，并鬼鬼祟祟地企图借它的法塔赫喽罗－－穆罕默德·达赫兰之手武力推翻选举出的政权。通过《卫报》了解到的，一份透露给美国《名利场》杂志的文档可以证实，乔治·布什、康多莉扎·赖斯和美国副国家安全顾问 [注2]（因伊朗门事件而成名的）埃利奥特·阿布拉姆斯为了挑起巴勒斯坦内战，长期向达赫兰提供现金、武器和指导。其中一部分通过约旦、埃及等中间国转手。哈马斯在注意到有军队集结的迹象后，先美国一步，于6月占领了加沙。在此后一个月辞去了迪克·切尼首席中东顾问一职的戴维·乌姆瑟尔指出：“更确切地说不是哈马斯发动了突然袭击，而是法塔赫谋划的一场政变被扼杀在了摇篮中。”

昨天，赖斯把矛头指向了伊朗对哈马斯的援助，希望以此证明美国试图扭转巴勒斯坦大选结果这一败笔的必要性。 而以色列对加沙的进攻将在赖斯离开该地区后继续进行－－尽管根本没人相信这样做能阻止火箭袭击。以色列的一些政客希望在把加沙扔给半推半就的埃及之前，至少要削弱一下哈马斯的力量；还有一些人则希望在他们摧毁哈马斯后让阿巴斯和他的追随者们回到加沙。也许还可以用一支多国部队过渡一下，以此保住这位巴勒斯坦总统的脸面。

这两种想法都上不了台面，因为哈马斯不会被武力摧毁－－即便是某些人设想的“血洗”。事实上，还有第三个更合常理，也得到了64%以色列人民支持的选择。那就是接受哈马斯的提议，就停战展开磋商。而哈马斯领导人哈立德·马沙尔本周再次提出了这个建议。这一选择不仅对以色列左翼政治家，如约西·贝林等人颇有吸引力，也引起了越来越多右翼当权人物的兴趣，其中包括阿里埃勒·沙龙的前安全顾问吉奥拉·艾伊兰德、前摩萨德头子伊夫雷姆·海勒威以及前国防部长沙乌勒· 莫法兹。

然而美国坚决反对和一个它长期认定的恐怖组织进行谈判，也不允许别人这么做－－包括其他的巴勒斯坦人。一系列泄密文件证实，实际上，赖斯在指使阿巴斯摧毁去年早些时候在麦加达成一致的哈马斯-法塔赫民族联合政府。这一决策是在哈马斯先声夺人接管加沙后做出的。但对巴勒斯坦人来说，要摆脱这个充斥着高墙、检查站、种族隔离路线、强征暴敛、人格侮辱的世界，建立一个民族联盟绝对是必要的。

以色列的支持者们问道，还有什么可以阻止火箭袭击么？答案再清楚不过了：结束对巴勒斯坦领土的非法占领，通过磋商为60年前因种族清洗而背井离乡的巴勒斯坦人寻找一个合法居留地。这些流亡者和他们的家人构成了加沙地区150万人口的主体。这一点，被包括哈马斯在内的所有巴勒斯坦派别视为基本前提。只有在这个基础上，才有可能寻求问题的永久解决或者无限期终止武装冲突。与此同时，达成停战协议、交换战俘、解除封锁。以色列似乎已经越来越明白这一点。但是，严酷地现实告诉我们，在这一点得到华盛顿的认同之前，还有更多更多的血要流。