(C) OpenDemocracy
This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Paul Rogers: Israel must learn from 9/11 and avoid war with Hamas [1]
[]
Date: 2023-10
After the devastating failure of the Israeli intelligence to foresee the sudden Hamas assault at the weekend, many Israelis are describing the huge loss of lives as ‘Israel’s 9/11’,
Although the two events cannot be fairly compared, given the attack on Israel came from a country it has occupied and inflicted a deadly and brutal regime of apartheid on for many decades, the assault by Hamas has had a similarly visceral impact.
The Israeli loss of life is actually almost ten times worse than the US’s in 2001, relative to population size. This is despite successive Israeli governments having spent massively on the military, putting a premium on the Jewish population’s security. Security specialists across the world saw Israel as one of the leading states when it came to defence tactics and equipment to control dissenting peoples.
That reputation is now in tatters at a time when Israel has its most hard-line ultranationalist government in its 75-year history, headed by an utterly determined political survivor, Binyamin Netanyahu. Israel’s response to Hamas has been the extreme use of force. Its defence minister has described Hamas supporters as “human animals” and has sealed the border to Gaza, putting 2.3 million people under siege, with access to food, water and power denied.
Help us uncover the truth about Covid-19 The Covid-19 public inquiry is a historic chance to find out what really happened. Make a donation
In the aftermath of 9/11, openDemocracy was one of the few sites to argue that the US should not rush into war. As I wrote in my first column on the site, 22 years ago: “The group responsible for the attacks has engaged in detailed planning over many months and has substantial numbers of supporters with total dedication to its aims.
“A core aspect of the current situation is that the group responsible for the attacks needs a strong US counter-reaction. Indeed, this should be recognised as one of the prime motivations for the attacks.”
The US did indeed take such action, first in Afghanistan and two years later in Iraq and it seemed to work. The Taliban was defeated in barely two months in late 2001, and 18 months later US troops got to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in barely three weeks.
It didn’t last and multiple wars ensued: killing some 940,000 people – many of them civilians – maiming hundreds of thousands more for life and displacing 38 million people. Over three million have died prematurely from the indirect impacts of the post-9/11 wars, which have cost around $8trn.
What’s more, Iraq and Libya remain deeply unstable, while al-Qaida, ISIS and linked groups are active across North and East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia and, above all, the Taliban has taken back control of Afghanistan with all that means for the loss of human rights, especially for women.
Does this have a bearing on what is happening now in Israel? The harsh answer is probably yes. From Netanyahu’s perspective, he sees no alternative but to launch a counter-attack; any elected government, let alone his extreme-right government, would struggle to remain in power if it did not respond to such an attack with great force.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/israel-hamas-palestine-ceasefire-needed-avoid-war-9-11-paul-rogers-us/
Published and (C) by OpenDemocracy
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/
