Scaling the Heights of Hypocrisy              by Gilbert Schramm

The ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has unveiled new heights of Israeli hypocrisy. Yesterday I was especially struck by the bizarre Israeli government response to the FAA’s suspension of US flights into the Israeli war zone.

In the wake of the tragic downing of a Malaysian airliner in the Ukraine, any rational human being would hope that civilian airliners would avoid war zones. Au contraire!!! Israel is complaining vigorously against the suspension of US flights into Tel Aviv.

That’s right! After pleading to Americans all week about how intent he was on minimizing Palestinian civilian casualties as he conducts the vicious and unnecessary incursion into Gaza that has killed over 700 Palestine (75% civilian by UN reports), Netanyahu then demonstrated how little he really cares about potential Israeli, European and American civilians.

For in spite of a rocket landing only a mile or so from Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport, Israeli spokespeople railed against the FAA suspension of flights and insisted that the Airport was perfectly safe!  It is a supremely odd argument to make after the whole Israeli PR establishment has railed all week about the dire existential danger posed to the entire state of Israel by Hamas rockets.

I hope we can all agree on one thing: being in range of Hamas rockets (Tel Aviv is only 53 miles from Gaza) should certainly rule out any and all civilian air traffic unless and until there is a lasting peace in the area.

Yet Israeli officials were today stuck desperately making the case that the airport is one of the most secure places in Israel. There were rumors that Netanyahu himself pleaded with the US state department to reverse the FAA ruling. So it seems that Netanyahu is quite willing to openly place US civilians at risk. (Unless of course you are cynical enough to believe that he is just lying about the risk posed by Hamas rockets…)

The facts are clear—Netanyahu can no more guarantee the safety of a plane coming into or out of Israel than he can predict a lightning strike. Ben-Gurion Airport might well be safe from any Hamas ground attack, yet Israel certainly knows that a Hamas rocket could land anywhere almost anytime.

Now I’m sure that Hamas was not targeting the airport any more than it is really targeting Israeli civilians. It must take a good deal of planning to fire 2000 rockets in a few days and only kill 2 civilians (actually, one of them was delivering food to Israeli troops). If he had been on the other side he would have been labeled a “Hamas supporter” and therefore a terrorist.

But these nasty little wars all have unintended and sometimes quite unexpected consequences. For example, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 led to the creation of Hezbollah. The first Intifada in 1987 led to the first violent resistance against Israel by Hamas. Israel’s attack on Lebanon in 2006 made Hezbollah into a regional force.

Netanyahu’s “Protective Edge” operation has now exposed a vital flaw in Israel’s defenses.

From now on Hamas need not bother with trying to maintain the charade that it is trying to kill Israeli civilians. It can cripple Israel’s economy by merely claiming it is aiming rockets at the Ben-Gurion airport. First, the airport is a big enough target that even unguided Hamas rockets might (possibly) be able to come close to it regularly. The greater advantage is that you can probably hit it often without really hurting anybody. Finally, Israel set the precedent by bombing Lebanon’s airport in 2006.

Further, Israel has argued all week that the people of Gaza themselves are guilty for all the deaths that have clearly been caused by the Israeli attack. If that is true, then IF a chance Hamas rocket were to hit a plane coming into or out of Ben-Gurion international airport the victims—including the governments that permitted it and the airlines that participated— would have only themselves to blame!

So thanks to the unintended consequence of Netanyahu’s misguided war, he has handed Hamas a perfect strategy that will finally give them real leverage: the ability to close down Israel’s main air link to the world can cripple Israel’s high-tech industries, the produce industry, and the tourist industry virtually at will.  All of these, and doubtless many others, depend heavily on reliable air service. Ninety percent of Israel’s international air traffic goes through that one place. This jugular vein that Netanyahu’s policy has exposed will make Israel an increasingly risky place to invest in.

I predict that this event will emerge as a game changing moment. It will be interesting to see how Netanyahu addresses the issue going forward. Clearly, he would like the airport to remain open—even if it means placing US lives at risk to make Israel appear safe (or, as his spokesman put it, to avoid “giving a prize to terror.”

Will Israel continue to portray Hamas rockets as an enormous existential threat, or will Israel suddenly present itself, (as it started to do yesterday) as supremely safe and open for business as usual—thus exposing the threat of Hamas as a sham and thereby completely undermining Netanyahu’s rationale for inflicting massive civilian casualties in Gaza?

After all, you can’t have it both ways…at least not forever. In the meantime, I hope you will all join me in urging the FAA continue to suspend all US flights to Israel until there is a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in Palestine.

(Gilbert Schramm is a peace activist and international educator who lives in Oregon. He has studied Middle Eastern affairs for almost 35 years.)

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