The sanctity of the soaring Qassam

Perhaps Hamas thinks the Palestinians in Gaza were ready for another
high-tech Israeli onslaught, for another IDF video game in which
children playing on a roof are identified as lookouts and sentenced to
death.

By Amira Hass

The Hamas authorities once again forgot that the neighbor/occupier to
its east is crazy. Fact: Over Shabbat, Hamas' military wing fired more
than 50 mortar shells at Israel. Or perhaps it didn't forget: Perhaps it
merely thought the Palestinian people in Gaza were ready for another
high-tech Israeli onslaught, for another Israel Defense Forces video
game in which children playing on a roof are identified as lookouts and
sentenced to death.

In this testosterone-rich competition, there will always be more
checkmarks on the Israeli side. But Israel is clever enough to act like
the threatened party and to hide its deadly performances. Who cares that
the "appropriate Zionist response" to 50 mortar shells, which sowed fear
but did not kill, was the killing of two 16-year-olds? Imad Faraj Allah
and Qassam Abu Uteiwi, from the Nuseirat refugee camp, were the people
killed by Israel's retaliatory bombing later that evening - not "two
terrorists," as our media obediently said, parroting the commanders'
dictation.

[PHOTO]
Injured Palestinian in Gaza - Reuters - March 22, 2011
A Palestinian carries an injured boy into Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza
City, after Israeli tank fire struck a home on March 22, 2011
Photo by: Reuters

Those 50 mortars were the "appropriate Hamas response" to the death of
two members of its military wing, Iz al-Din al-Qassam, in an Israeli
airstrike. That teaches us that armed men are worth more than boys: The
response to the teenagers' death was a lone Qassam rocket.

Nor did the dialogue of testosterone end there. Tuesday morning, we
learned of another Israeli assault that wounded some 20 Palestinians,
including children. Due to lack of space, we won't detail what came in
between or what came before. But what will come next is frightening.

In the binary thinking of those who oppose the Israeli occupation
(Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners ), public criticism of the
tactics used in the struggle of an occupied and dispossessed people is
taboo. It is as if criticism would create symmetry between the attacker
and the attacked. To a large extent, this taboo has been broken with
regard to the Palestinian Authority: Many opponents of the occupation
have no qualms about portraying the PA as a collaborator, or at least as
the captive of its senior officials' private interests. But when it
comes to Hamas' use of arms, silence falls. As if there were sanctity in
the Qassam soaring high into the sky, only to fall amid the clamor of
Israeli propaganda.

The Goldstone report - so widely reviled by Israelis, but endorsed by
the Palestinians - actually did force Palestinian human rights
organizations to accept the application of the term "crime" to
Palestinian rocket launches at Israel's civilian population, both before
and during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2009. In other words, it
forced them to distinguish between the Palestinians' right to defend
themselves (albeit unsuccessfully ) by force of arms against Israeli
military assaults and their lack of right to put on an act of being an
army, one that targets civilians, and thus provide Israel with more
ammunition for its victim show. But this distinction is not in use for
whatever doesn't appear in Goldstone's report.

Though they didn't denounce those 50 mortars, Palestinians who are not
Hamas supporters did give them a political interpretation. This wasn't
"the attacked party's right to respond" (or, more accurately, the fly's
right to play Ping-Pong with the elephant ), but a clear message to
young Palestinians, reinforced by the brutal suppression of their
demonstrations: You aren't in Cairo or Tunis, so stop pestering us with
theories about a smart popular struggle in our emirate.

But the neighbor/occupier to the east is crazy. It's wrong to provide it
with pretexts that would enable it to once again put Gaza's children and
old people through an ordeal like Cast Lead, or even one half as bad.

So for all those who demonstrated in support of the Gazans when they
were trapped under Israeli fire, all those planners of past and future
flotillas, this is your moment to raise your voices and say clearly: The
Qassams merely feed Israel's madness. It is not the Qassams that will
ensure the Palestinians, both in and out of Gaza, a life of dignity. It
is not the Qassams that will topple the Israeli walls around the world's
largest prison camp.

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