Peacetalks: Laila El Haddad on Gaza Strip Situation 07-02-06

Laila Haddad is a correspondant for Al Jazeera living in Gaza. She is currently in the United States but is communicating with family members in Gaza. In describing the incident where Hamas militants tunneled under the International Israeli border into pre-1967 Israeli territory, shot and killed two IDF soldiers, injured four more, seized Cpl. Gilad Shalit (age 19), and are now demanding 1,000's of Palestinian prisoners be released or they will kill him, she said the following:

"The attack against the military base would actually be considered legal according to international law...."
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BECKY: Is she saying that the Palestinians and the Israelis are in an openly declared war and that attacks inside Israeli territory are legal if the targets are military? If this is true, wouldn't the attacks by the IDF against EMPTY Hamas buildings and the detaining of Hamas leaders (prisoners of war?) also be legal??

But she does not say this. In fact, she says the opposite. She calls Israel's response as "completely and utterly illegitimate," but also says she thought it was "inevitable and only a matter of time." Then she makes a completely unsubstantiated claim that she has heard that "...the Israeli soldiers knew there was a tunnel and took no action because they knew they could undermine the (Hamas) government."

"I see this part of a grand slam to undermine this government," she says. Why would the Israeli government want to do that, I wonder. Perhaps because hundreds of rockets have been fired from Gaza since the disengagement last September? Because Hamas has sent in suicide bombers to kill innocent Israeli civilians? Because the Hamas government has insisted there will be no recognition of Israel, no negotiations, and no peace? Just because Hamas (the ruling elected government in the Palestinian Authority) has stated its goal is to destroy Israel?

Haddad does not mention any of these factors. For her, everything bad is Israel's fault.

George Cadman asked about the term "kidnapped soldier." She said that some have said the term "kidnapped" is "highly misleading." She said those sources have claimed Cpl Gilad Shalit should be termed "a captured prisoner of war."

"I think it is an accurate statement," Haddad said. But then she immediately contradicted herself by saying "Actually he would be considered a hostage because the other side is making demands--but not a kidnapping." She then accused Israel of making too big a deal over the captured soldier "when similar attention is not devoted to getting back to the negotiations table." Again she fails to mention that Hamas has overtly refused to negotiate with Israel. Israel has repeatedly stated that all troops will withdraw when the captured soldier is released.

Haddad charges that "there is no mention of the 9,000 people who were really kidnapped from their homes and no charges filed." In debate, we call this a "rationalization." One alleged "wrong" (seizing the soldier) is justified because of an other, unrelated "wrong." What she fails to do is to condemn the attack in the first place.

George Cadman then asked her about the demands the kidnappers were making to release prisoners. She asked what criteria the kidnappers were using to determine which prisoners were to be released.

"I'm guessing they are asking that the most innocent be released," she replied though it was obvious she knew nothing about the relative innocence/guilt of those being held in Israeli custody.

Haddad objected to the administative detention of several Hamas legislators in this hostage crisis. She explained that Israeli law allows for "detaining someone without charges for up to 30 days, but that can be extended." Then she makes the outrageous claim that "There is no law in Israel that actually stipulates the rights of prisoners or governs their treatment." She claimed frequent abuses such as being held in tiny cells, subject to what she called "positional torture" where prisoners are handcuffed into positions from which they cannot change. She claimed this was only one tactic and that there are other kinds of treatment which the prisoners suffer from as well.

She is either unaware of, or concealing that in 1999, the Israeli Supreme Court formally outlawed torture of prisoners. Nor does she acknowledge that most of the 9,000 in Israeli prisons are there because of violent crimes they were caught committing. For Haddad, she can see no act of violence committed by Palestinians as criminal. She justifies the attack which resulted in the abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, and decries the Israeli response.

Using emotionalism, she speaks of family members "carrying pictures of their imprisoned family members" and of "children who have never met their fathers." She ignores that many of these "fathers" were engaged in attempting to kill other people's children!!

Ignoring that the Palestinian chose Hamas to lead their people in a free election with an 80% turnout, she claims that the Israeli response is "collective punishment" of innocent civilians. Aren't the Palestinians culpable for electing terrorists as leaders?

Cadman asked her what she thought of the media coverage of the Gaza escalation. Haddad complained that generally the mainstream media ignored Palestinian suffering.

"You will notice that an Israeli child's death is covered 20 times more than a Palestinian childs death," she claimed.

But is this true? I decided to check.

I conducted a google search with the fields "Israeli child" "killed" and got 14,200 hits.
I then did a google search with the fields "Palestinian child" "killed" and got 423,000 hits!! That is almost 30 times as many hits for coverage of deaths of Palestinian children than for Israeli children. Haddon is not only in error, she is spectacularly in error.

Neither Cadman nor Haddadon mentioned the hundreds of qassam rocket attacks that have been launched from Gaza into Israeli neighborhoods since the disengagement in Sept. 2005. Yesterday, one of these rockets hit an Israeli high school. Thankfully no one was hurt.....this time.

Haddad criticized Ariel Sharon for his "policy of unilateralism" which she claimed "can never achieve peace." Sharon had claimed he lacked a peace partner with the Palestinians, and had embarked on a policy of unilaterally determining where Israel's final borders would be. The Gaza disengagement was one such choice he made, abandoning the territory to Palestinian control. Terrorists immediately used the new territory to launch rocket deeper into Israeli territory.

She concludes by demanding that the Israelis must return to the negotiation table. But it is Hamas which has explicitily stated that there would be NO negotiations with "the Zionist entity."

As usual, George Cadman and her guest get it all wrong.

Continuous aggression by Israel to the people of Palestine, and then they wonder why they are shooting rockets...

Ummm. Hamas wants to destroy Israel?
Ummm. The Palestinians ELECTED Hamas in a free election with a huge turnout?
Ummmm. The kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit??
Ummmm. Suicide bombers?
Ummmm. 15 dead Israelis from those rocket attacks over the fence?

Israel has sufficient reason to enter Gaza to stop the rocket attacks and to find
and save the captured soldier.

Why don't the Palestinians want peace?
That is the question Northern California peace advocates should be asking yourselves.

The question is, why does Israel continue to murder babies, commit extra-judicial assassinations, confiscate/steal land????
And then they wonder why the people elect a govt. that will stand up to the terror state of Israel.
Hmmmm.

A people living under occupation have the right according to international law to attack the military which is actively engaged in occupying them. An occupying power does not have the right to kill civilians, in fact it has the obligation to protect civilians.

Israel does have the right to use the force necessary (maybe a paramilitary force to go in and get their soldier, killing his captors if necessary), but they do not have the right to use collective punishment against a whole people. That is what the government of Israel did when it bombed bridges, civilian infrastructure and the main power plant in Gaza, taking out the electricity and running water for 1.4 million Palestinians and seriously disrupting hospital services. It does not have the right to arrest the Palestinian elected leaders, many of whom have called upon the soldiers captors to release him. Israel does not have the right to kill civilians, which the Israeli army routinely does. Israel does not have the right to close the border between Egypt and Gaza stopping the flow of foodstuffs, medical supplies and fuels through commercial crossings, which may (in combination with the other factors mentioned above) lead to a serious humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. These are violations of international law.

In January 2005, Hamas announced its resolution to replace armed struggle with political struggle and agreed to a unilateral ceasefire. In the 17 months since then, Hamas has not perpetrated terrorist attacks. Since the election, Hamas has not launched rockets from Gaza, most of which are launched by Fatah, until last month after the Israel army killed Jamal Abu Samhanada, who had recently been appointed head of the security forces of the Interior Ministry by the Hamas government. And after the Israeli army shelled Gaza, killing eight members of a Palestinian family on a beach and killed nine Palestinians when they shot a missile to destroy a rocket. Ambulance drivers and children were among those killed because the Israeli (American made) F-16 fired another missile into a group of civilians who came to the aid of the injured. There have been about 40 Palestinians killed in the last couple of days, civilians among those killed and seriously injured.

Who is refusing to negotiate? Hamas reportedly has recently accepted a two-state solution, thereby implicitly (if not openly) accepting the existence of Israel. But, Israel refuses to deal with the Hamas led govt. and has withheld millions in Palestinian tax dollars to their govt. Israel may have pulled settlers out of Gaza, but the Israeli govt. remains in control of the borders (imports/exports), airspace, sea and water sources. They are not even allowing taxes collected from Palestinians to reach the Palestinian people. Many govt. workers have gone months without pay.
In addition, those holding the Israeli soldier have offered to exchange him for the release of all female Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel has absolutely refused to negotiate with those holding the soldier.

I encourage people to listen to the interview for themselves, as Johnson did a poor job of patching together "quotes" of Haddad. One example, Johnson says that Haddad contradicted herself by saying, "Actually he would be considered a hostage because the other side is making demands--but not a kidnapping." In fact Haddad was not stating that herself, but was saying that a representative from Human Rights Watch (who had a somewhat different point of view than Haddad)had said that the soldier would be considered a hostage.

I did a google search for "Palestinian civilians killed" and I got 8,580,000 hits, as opposed to 12,000,000 when I did a google search for "Israeli civilans killed". So, the Israeli civilian deaths got more hits. But really so what? How many of these were mainstream, American news sources (that was what Haddad was talking about). A wide Google search is too broad to be used as a basis to try to challenge her statements about mainstream, American media. But, really, we do not have to look very far for the obvious slant in the American media. When Israeli civilians are killed, there is often front page, full color coverage and plenty of heart wrenching detail, (as there should be). But, when Palestinian civilians are killed, it almost never makes the front page, if there are photos at all they are rarely in color and the painful personal details are often lacking.

Be your own judge of the American media, be your own judge of the interview with Haddad and do your own Google searches. Don't take anyone else's word for any of this. And while you are at it, do your own research and read from a wide variety of sources. then you might get a complete picture.

JUDGE FOR YOURSELF WRITES: "And after the Israeli army shelled Gaza, killing eight members of a Palestinian family on a beach..."

BECKY: While the writer accurately reports that Hamas started shelling Israel after this incident, it is unlikely that Israel was responsible. Shrapnel removed from survivors treated at Israeli hospitals showed that it could not have come from an Israeli shell fired that day.

The PA announced that day on their national media that Israel had bombed the beach killing the family and interspersed video of a surviving girl on the beach crying over her family with shots of the IDF firing shells from a ship at sea. But the IDF is accused of having fired a canon from the Northern border of Gaza from land! So the PA is culpable for doctoring the news.

Add that the cameraman for the footage who was interviewed by German television, got vaguer and vaguer when they asked questions such as "when did the paramedics arrive?" And "why were the paramedics walking around the beach picking up evidence rather than treating victims?"

see: http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Gaza_Beach_Libel.asp

JUDGE FOR YOURSELF also claims that "resistance" to "occupation" is legitimate.

First, it is NEVER legitimate to attack a civilian population---and that is exactly what the rockets fired from Gaza and the suicide bombers do.

Second, Israel LEGALLY controls the security and borders for the West Bank (they gave up Gaza in Sept 2005). They do so under International law, specifically UN resolution 242.

In 1967, shortly after Israel's stunning victory in the "6-day War," The UN passed this resolution which LEFT ISRAEL IN CHARGE until a peace agreement could be negotiated. Israel has since negotiated a peace treaty with Jordan (the former occupier of the West Bank) and with Egypt (the former occupier of Gaza). NOTE that at no time was a "Palestinian State" even a party mentioned in this resolution. THe reason for that is that there was no Palestinian State in 1967. IN fact, there were very few "Palestinians."

At that time they were called "Arabs." There was no push for an "independent Palestinian State" because up until then, the move to wipe Israel off the map had been for a "pan-Islamic' empire stretching from Morocco to Iran and covering a land size that is 800 times as large as Israel.

Nor did the agreement say that Israel should return to the 1967 "borders" which were actually cease-fire lines and NOT borders.

What JUDGE FOR YOURSELF is not taking into account is that Israel won territory in a DEFENSIVE war in 1967. The rules are very different for a victor in a defensive war than in an offensive war. Under these rules, it is allowable for Israel to set up military installations and to allow its own citizens to settle in the territory provided they don't displace the current population.

The Palestinian population on the West Bank has tripled since 1967, so no one can say that Israel displaced anyone, much as the above writer screeches about "international law".

The occupation of Gaza and the West bank in 1948, by contrast, by Egypt and Jordan respectively was completely illegal.

Laila has fled Gaza because of the violence caused by Fatah fighting with Hamas.
Even as she and her son, Youseff, were waiting at a border crossing for it to open
so they could escape the deadly Palestinian internecine violence,
she was blaming Israel for it all. But do note, that to save herself and her son from
PALESTINIAN VIOLENCE she left Gaza and went to Israel and then to the United States.

see: http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/