2006-06-13-deaths_Palestinian

By Ira Sharkansky

JERUSALEM—It was a great day for the Palestinians when a family of seven died in an explosion on the beach of Gaza. A video photographer filmed a young daughter running, finding her family dead, screaming and throwing herself on the sand. The pictures appeared time and again on television news programs: Arab, Israeli, CNN and many others. The girl appeared in repeated interviews, and received a filmed visit from the President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinian National Authority proclaimed three days of national mourning and lowered its flags to half-mast.

It was just what they wanted: an Israeli massacre caught on film. In order to be sure that there would be no challenge to the Palestinian story, Authority personnel removed all traces of shrapnel from the beach. They did not respond to Israeli authorities wanting evidence for an investigation as to who was responsible.

The IDF and government authorities expressed their regret, and brought some of the wounded to Israeli hospitals. As usual, they stopped short of apologies. The area of the disaster was one of the places that Palestinians use to fire rockets at Israel. The IDF had warned Palestinians to stay away from what would be an open field of fire.

Now the IDF has concluded that it was not responsible. There was a gap of 8 minutes between the time of the last cannon fire and the explosion; it does not take that long for an artillery shell to fly a few hundred meters. There was no crater in the sand of the type an artillery shell would create. And the Palestinians did not get all the shrapnel in their combing of the beach. Some remained in the people taken to Israeli hospitals. Analysis of the metal found it was not the type used in Israeli munitions.

It was not the first time the Palestinians celebrated an Israeli massacre that turned out to be their own work. The view of IDF personnel is that this one may have come from explosives that the Palestinians had buried in the sand, perhaps to use against an Israeli invasion from the sea. Some time ago a group of fighters paraded with a tender filled with their rockets; they exploded and killed a number of bystanders. That, like the most recent incident, produced a rain of missiles on Sderot and other Israeli sites.

This is a tragedy that goes beyond the death of seven family members on the beach, as well as the fury of Israelis who are living under the threat of primitive missiles. The greater tragedy is that it reveals the Palestinian reliance on deaths among their own civilians to provide them with support in international media and—if there are enough deaths—the intervention of international forces against Israel. This is a piece with encouraging their young people to commit suicide for the sake of Palestine.

With an adversary like this, it is impossible to reach an agreement. Israel has offered compromise. But compromise violates religious doctrines and national pride. Better to kill and to die. The more who die the grander the spectacle.

There is not much Israel can do to break into this cycle. It can use its military power to punish those who are violent. Civilians who do not vacate areas from which the gangs fire their missiles become collateral damage. But civilian deaths are just what the Palestinians want! The more who die the more certain that the world will support them.

We are left with the less heroic actions of targeting the violent, seizing or killing them, and wearing down the Palestinians.

This is not a war that we can fight until the Palestinians surrender. Many of them suffer no less than the residents of Sderot. They are tired of the conflict which has killed and hurt many of them, and made almost all of them poorer in resources, health, education, and other opportunities. But Palestine is not a disciplined society. It is a collection of extended families, some of which provide the basis of official security forces or armed gangs. Their loyalties to themselves and their rivalries take priority. Some owe greater allegiance to the religious and political leaders of Iran or Syria than to the nominal leaders of Palestine. Iran and Syria funnel money and munitions over the border between Gaza and Egypt. Thus they fight Israel directly, and the United States via Israel. The deaths of Palestinians serve them no less than the death of Israelis.

This is a war of attrition, whose current chapter is likely to continue until the Palestinians are sufficiently weakened and tired of their heroism. We have reached a level of violence significantly below what prevailed four years ago. It remains unpleasant, and currently the residents of Sderot are demanding a more severe response to protect them and their children from the fear of missiles. The frequent shrieks of warning mechanisms are no less fearful than the occasional explosions.

More Israelis suffer from road accidents than from Palestinian violence. One set of our officials struggles to reduce the level of road accidents. They have had a measure of success via better roads and vehicles, more policing, and driver education. Another set of officials struggles to reduce the Palestinian violence directed against Israel. There is no final victory on the horizon for either the campaign against road accidents, or the campaign against the Palestinians.

Sharkansky is an emeritus member of the political science department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem