Rep. Andy Barr’s writing on Israel-Hamas conflict ignores both facts and history | Opinion
At last, U.S. Rep. Andy Barr holds forth on Gaza in the Herald-Leader. His words are a balm to the shrill. Imagine considering Gaza, Israel, Palestine, and Hamas and not using the words or phrases “occupation,” “military blockade,” “Operation Cast Lead” or “Operation Protective Edge.” Imagine writing a piece on Hamas and Israel and omitting that Israel is a warehouse for U.S. arms and is second only to Turkey as the region’s most lethal military. Many of Rep. Barr’s claims are either false or disputed.
Rep. Barr writes, “Israel, in contrast, has continued to provide innocent Palestinians with humanitarian assistance and uphold the laws of armed conflict even as it fights an enemy who deliberately breaks them.” Sounding like someone who needs an AIPAC check, Rep. Barr divides Palestinians into guilty and innocent. The documentary record known and the deepest chasm can’t hold the vastness that is Israel’s permanent punishment of Gazans in proportion to what it suffers in periodic Hamas attacks. Compare Rep. Barr’s claims to the painstaking scholarship of Norman Finkelstein’s “Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom.” Finkelstein’s record of intentional Israeli savagery is damning.
No legitimate discussion of Palestine, Israel, and Gaza starts on Oct. 7, 2023. You can jump in there if you like.
The current state of Israel is the embodied 1917 dream of British Jews and Christians, for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The dream, the Balfour Declaration, was a requirement of the Mandate for Palestine, a League of Nations mandate, that saw Britain assume Palestine from the Ottoman Turks. At the time of the Declaration, Jewish people were a minority in Palestine.
After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel won Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan. Israel sieged Gaza with a blockade after Hamas defeated the Fatah party in the 2006 Palestinian elections. Refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and their descendants, make up most of the population of Gaza. Half of Gazans are under the age of 18.
Today, Gazans live as they have since 1967; either solely or with a combination of occupation, siege, or war. Israel divides Palestine from Haifa to Egypt in the south. Gaza is starved for resources and the siege has prevented the establishment of any but the barest of institutional structure sufficient for the public interest. Israel has destroyed agriculture in Palestine. During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli Defense Forces razed thousands of acres of farmland in retaliation for Hamas’ electoral victory. Israel bombs Gazan utility infrastructure and scores of buildings that housed what Palestinian institutions did operate. Clean water is rare and healthy food is restricted via siege or not grown because of danger.
Hamas has no air force, army, or navy and uses an arsenal of rockets primitive in comparison to Israel’s responsive arms. The arrows that Hamas fires into Israel prove the resource starvation that Israel imposes. Meager is the restraint IDF uses in their Gaza wars. Compare the Palestinian and Israeli dead, the incidence of disease, the life span, the infrastructure loss, the unemployment rate, or GDP. British Prime Minister David Cameron described Gaza as an open-air prison. Baruch Kimmerling described Gaza as history’s largest concentration camp. The weakness of Gaza seems to attract Israel.
Rep. Barr writes, “Moral clarity is required in (sic) this moment.” According to the Intercept, “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is advocating the US Congress for the funds to ‘thin’ the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip “to a minimum,”. Does Rep. Barr’s moral clarity see Gaza as a game preserve or as part of an independent Palestine safe from Israel?
Todd Kelly is a nurseryman and gardener from Lexington.