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| Volume XVI, Spring 2009, Number 1 |
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EXCERPT
Gaza, Israel, Hamas and the Lost Calm Of Operation Cast Lead
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| Sherifa Zuhur |
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Dr. Zuhur, the author of Hamas and Israel: Conflicting Strategies of Group-Based Politics (Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College, 2009), is director of the Institute of Middle Eastern, Islamic and Diasporic Studies.
A shadow has fallen over the new years of 1430 and 2009 from Israel’s air assault and ground invasion of Gaza, Operation Cast Lead. Not that any aspect of the Palestinian experience has been easy or well communicated to the global public, but it does seem that post-9/11 Western discourse on Arabs and Muslims has led to particularly biased reporting of the conflict, a glib assumption by major networks that their American viewers see the world just as Benjamin Netanyahu or Michael Oren do. Comprehensive reportage was really impossible; the Israelis barred journalists from Gaza, and the wildest sorts of allegations are being made. Still, we have an idea of the human impact: more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed and more than 5,300 wounded, compared to thirteen Israeli deaths (some by friendly fire), as of January 18, 2008. The “why” of this latest adventure is harder to fathom, unless Israel truly desires to remain in a state of conflict, and for that conflict to worsen. This ought to be given serious consideration; it is not for nothing that Israel has become an exporter of weapons, security systems and “security training.” Moreover, most Israelis remain physically segregated from Palestinian suffering and many maintain a comfortable and secure lifestyle that may not be much of an incentive to peace. Others live far less comfortably, travel by public transport but lack any sympathy for Palestinians, not only due to their separation from or ignorance of them, but due to fear, enlarged by the media.
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