Israel will not be able to uproot Hamas

My new year was ushered in with tears as relatives telephoned me from Gaza. My brother, my sister and several cousins, describing the daily nightmare they are enduring under Israeli bombardment. Their main concern is neither politics nor history, nor even the appalling injustice of the present genocidal assault... but their children.

These are ordinary people, not guerrillas; the Hamas fighters disappeared underground many days ago, emulating the tactics used by Hezbollah when the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 2006. Hamas has several thousand fighters, a small proportion of the 1.5 million population of Gaza who are all now suffering a relentless assault. Yes these men will emerge to fight the incursion that has now begun on the ground as the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) sneak across the border like thieves in the night - should they simply abandon their people to the imminent blood bath?

But Hamas is not the Israeli target. The target is the same target it has been for 60 years. Ordinary Palestinian people who have first suffered the indignity of having their land stolen from them, then endured 60 years of appalling conditions within Palestine or exile outside it. Sixty years of physical and psychological violence and oppression.

Ordinary people like my brother, my sister and my cousins in Gaza. People whose children cannot sleep at night, who scream in terror every time yet another Israeli bomber screeches overhead; who will now have to face the terrifying roll of tanks and the clatter of machine gun fire indelibly etched in my own memory from my childhood days in Deir Al Balah refugee camp.

One of my little nieces is already so traumatised that she has given up speaking. A three-year-old suffers panic attacks. "We are going to have a whole generation of mental breakdowns," my brother in Rafah refugee camp laments.

My cousin joined a queue for bread in Deir Al Balah; his children were starving. After two hours he was told there was no bread and the family dined on two handfuls of rice again. The Israeli blockades also mean that there is no fuel for heating at this time, the very coldest time of the year. The almost constant shelling has broken every window in my sister's house in Gaza refugee camp allowing the freezing air to take up residence alongside her seven children. But perhaps she should consider herself lucky to have a house - two of my cousins' homes have been flattened.

In Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated areas, there are 4,000 people per square kilometre and not one of them can escape. All the borders are firmly shut, including the Rafah crossing into Egypt whose government has shamefully colluded with the US and Israel in this attempt to bring about a Nazi-style "final solution".

An imprisoned people in the world's biggest concentration camp are being randomly and indiscriminately massacred. It's like throwing a hand grenade into a bowl full of goldfish. And every bit as de-humanised as the metaphor.

As the financially embarrassed Western powers turn increasingly to oil-rich Arab states and corporations for help, the Arabs are in a position of unprecedented power to insist on a ceasefire and to broker a fair and lasting settlement for their Palestinian brethren. It is a scandal that they have not yet done so.

Boiling point

Though governments remain silent, the Arab world is at boiling point as ordinary people respond to the suffering of Gaza's children, evidenced day after day on their televisions, on the internet and in newspapers.

Western, Israeli and even Arab politicians seek to justify the massacres by portraying Gaza as a hotbed of insurgency and Hamas as a terrorist group which seized power in Gaza. How quickly it has been forgotten that Change and Reform (Hamas' political party) were elected in free and fair election three years ago because the people of Gaza felt that Fatah had let them down. Recognising the right of Israel to exist and renouncing violence had brought the Palestinians no nearer to a just settlement. Nor is Hamas about turning Gaza into a Taliban-style state, it is about seeking justice for the people it represents.

Today's tragedy in Gaza was preceded by the tragedy of internecine struggle as the US and Britain backed and paid for an armed attempt by Fatah to seize power from Hamas by force. As IDF ground forces march into Gaza, these brothers are reconciled in the fight against an enemy intent on annihilating all the Palestinians.

The proud and courageous Palestinians will fight as they have always fought, with stones against tanks, with home-made rockets against F-16 fighter planes.

Israel will not be able to uproot Hamas. It can kill thousands of innocent children, women and men but Hamas is everywhere. It is part of an extended and ever growing network of Islamic organisations throughout the Arab world. The tragedy unfolding in Gaza now will galvanise the Arab people on the street who are thirsty to reclaim their honour and dignity and who will be increasingly at odds with governments and regimes who kneel to the US and Israel.

The Muslim world's sorrow and rage over the US invasion of Iraq led, indirectly, to tragic acts of terror in Madrid and London. Arab and Western governments fail to restrain murderous Israel now at their peril.

Abdul Bari Atwan is editor of the Pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi.

I think what is happening in Palestine should shame everyone and not only Muslims. .i am a Muslim myself but I have Hindu and Chrsitian here and who are all sad and ashamed that there are people barbaric and inhuman to the extent of launching this unjustified war on Gaza.We should all be ashamed as humanitarians and not only as Muslims or anything that.
Amit
Adelaide,Australia
Posted: January 05, 2009, 12:59

What a shame on Arab Countries!I have seen demonstrations in the US, Australia, Turkey and other countries but not Dubai. No sense of compassions is expressed towards the innocent people being brutally Killed by the Israeli forces. When Russia stormed in Georgia, the whole world espacially US and EU went Crazy..but where are they now?
Shavkat
Dubai,UAE
Posted: January 05, 2009, 12:55

US has made UN a mere tool in its hand to further its interest. Injustice prevails in the world and the highest world body has become a mere spectator. I sometimes wonder whether its a conspiracy to portray Muslims as terrorists and then attack and ruin them from time to time.
Shabbir Ahmad
Dubai,UAE
Posted: January 05, 2009, 10:06

I think as Muslims we should be ashamed of what is happening in Palestine. We should convince authorities to take a firm stance against this.
Damra
Karachi,Pakistan
Posted: January 05, 2009, 10:02

This brought tears to my eyes. The fact is that most of the Arab countries are scared of the economical turmoil that might result from the cut in oil supplies. We should stop importing all American goods. It is a shame that a country like US which has human rights etched in its very base, is committing the worst crimes against humanity. It is a shame that the great Arab world is unable to take desperate measures to stop their children from dying. If the athorities do not change the situation, and don't be fair in judgement towards the Palestenians, then why won't normal people take matters in their own hands and respond with another attack in UK, or US, or who knows where. It is very important to give them protection, so that the depressed do not commit crimes, misguided by the darkness of their depression, and the fire of revenge.
Imbishque
Abu Dhabi,UAE
Posted: January 05, 2009, 09:30

May Allah make it easy for all those innocent people, and mostly the children.
Sam
Dubai,UAE
Posted: January 05, 2009, 08:39

The article seemingly pinched my heart. Too bad, there are lots of innocent civilians caught up in the fight. I hope that the Arab countries will help Gaza and their Arab brothers. Since beginning, I have always admired how Arabs kissed each others cheeks as they meet. They love each other. How can they ignore a nation that is a part of them?
Ivyliz
Dubai,UAE
Posted: January 05, 2009, 08:30