1. Misleading ConscienceofIDF---How Israelis destroying Generations in Gaza
By HARRY CHEN
Today, everything points to an apocalypse in Gaza: whole neighborhoods were flattened from
Beit Lahiya in the north to Rafah in the south. Dense smokes were billowing at every street
corners, dubbing a deadly grim on this crowded Mediterranean shore; Dewey-eyed children,
some just reached toddlers, stood quietly in an ocean of fallen concretes. Beneath it, their baby
dolls, plastic toys and bedroom furniture laid far beyond reach in the netherworld of death.
Their rosy lips turned livid, when sorrow has lost its expression. When ineffable frustrations
seeped in, kids turned to their parents. The whole family who survived turned to the little ones,
defying the highest natural order of humanity: With their hardscrabble houses destroyed and all
household valuables buried, parents were called to muster every last scrap of composure. It
doesn’t matter if they were with 2-year-old Mohammads or 8-year-old Omars, when everything
but their own lives were saved by the will of God, parents were repeating the two words over and
over again, unmistakably in this order: first rebuild, then revenge.
“I am still young. I will have many more children with my husband, and they will all become
martyrs under Hamas, God willing.”
“My cousin died fighting with the filthy Zionists. He has always dreamed of the liberation of our
people. A true Palestinian never fears death.”
“IDF asked us to leave our home. Where can we go? We were driven out of Palestine during the
US-funded wars. When wandering Jews settle, they are sending their hosts to exile.”

2. These belligerent yet articulate voices, echoing around the globe thanks to intensive media
coverage, are merely few pieces of mosaic in a mosque of lament and sufferings. I see this
mosque in a lens of phantasmagoria. In this spacious domed chamber where Gazans used to pray
three times a day, it now stood empty, forlorn and hollow out. The white plaster surface of the
mosque interiors was turned to a panoramic album of bitter testimonials, each screaming for
attention and sympathy. But there are just too many at one time, and the world cannot keep up
with them.
These photos in the thick war album move and pause. When one Gazan family heard the
ominous clank of a probe rocket dropped by an IDF plane, they rolled out of timeworn coaches,
they waddled out of rare showers, and they hopped away from squeaky beds. For members of the
family, everything in Gaza has weathered hard knocks of trials and tribulations, even the coaches,
showers and beds. Local families were whipsawed between two options: collecting as much
belonging as they could---though some of them do not even fetch an American dollar---Or
simply hurrying away, leaving their straw baskets, tiny TV monitor and screechy FM radio
behind. These cheap baubles many Westerners would not even consider buying to enrich their
quirky collection, to Gazans, these are what take for life to continue in an infinite life journey of
expulsion and absorption.
Some twenty days later into the Operation Protective Edge, the West is still scratching head to
come to terms with the happening. Is this self-imposed exile that no other party is liable for their
decision or hard-pressed decision to survive? But we know what the last 15 minutes of a Gaza
family looks like before they lost home. A warning plop on the rooftop of the house to signal
immediate strikes, and then all is left for the family to decide: evacuation or stay. Israel does not
play phony drills. Some minutes later, the same jet would pinpoint the house in its black-and-

3. white viewer and off goes the missile. A smoke mushroom then engulfs the area. The IDF pilot
runs such a line of justification: “I give you warning, that must be very nice of us. If you don’t
have a connection to Hamas, I am sorry to hear that, but your house is to be destroyed because
Hamas may have hidden rockets in your cellar, or dug a tunnel in your backyard, or themselves
even maybe concealed in the bushes next to your front door.”
Israel said it has long proved that Hamas use civilians as human shields, which constitute a war
crime, whereas the West is receptive of the claim but remained at best noncommittal. There is a
simple factor that has clouded the truth of the ongoing war in Gaza, and much of the endless
warfare between Jews and Palestinians---incompatible claims. Not only are the two sides
accusing the other unceasingly, they have also consolidated their own defensives over time. The
battlefield rages not just across this miniscule Mediterranean pocket but also up in the air of
political sound bites.
America has balked at Israeli assertion on Hamas’ use of civilian sacrifices, neither confirming
the systematic existence of such a brutal tactic nor naysaying the incrimination completely.
While America seems to have engaged in intelligence sharing with Israel throughout the history,
its mouth is now sealed.
To understand why America does not toe the line of argument this time, it’s crucial to be aware
of some facts on how American views Hamas today.
Of paramount importance, Hamas is a terrorist organization according to the U.S. State
Department. America has been relatively unaggressive in meting out such a label on radical
groups, compared to the more cautious Australia and United Kingdom. Therefore, Hamas was
not tagged dirty by the state until late 2008, almost 20 years after the organization itself (The

4. Islamic Resistance Movement) was founded and 16 years after the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades, Hamas’ military wing was formed. The belated identification from the state
department revealed something telling about America’s confusion over the Palestinian leadership.
Throughout the decade prior to the establishment of Hamas political wing, the PLO fighters had
built a vexing “Fatahland” in southern Lebanon, which planned to exhaust Israel’s resources in a
long haul by sporadic rockets and surprising infiltrations into northern Israel. The first Lebanese
war between Jerusalem and Beirut was proved to be a historic failure for the Begin office, since
the offensive fell far short of the goal to exterminate key Fatah terror bases in Lebanon’s
mountain ranges in the south. The majority of Israeli war historians agree that for all the heavy
Israeli and American casualties (not to mention the Sabra and Shatilla Massacre) sustained in this
long-winding war, the Jewish state hardly achieved anything. Israel’s occupation in West Beirut
and its endorsement of the Christian Phalangist militia turned out to be tragic miscalculations. It
failed to neutralize Fatah’s weapon-storage infrastructures. After all, the operation did not even
extract a severe death toll on the alleged “Fatah terrorists” that may have otherwise sent a strong
deterrence to their resistance activities.
Compared to Fatah, Hamas was sowed in a season of populism marked by exploding
exasperation. Though it was widely acknowledged that the first intifada was far less violent
compared to the second at the start of the new millennium, it nevertheless sounded an alarm to
the Israeli authority of Palestinian’s fury over pallid economy and colonial occupation. From its
early start, Hamas has built close relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic religious
movement founded by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt in 1928.

5. Riding a tide of pandemonium in the Arab Spring, the past three years of Egypt were charged
with frenzied malcontents over government mismanagement, and equally important, the war of
Armageddon between the Sunnis fundamentalists and more secular elements in Egypt’s
multilayered social fabric. The snappy downfall of the age-old Mubarak regime breathed chills
down to Egyptians’ spine. Under the auspices of the American electoral supervision, Mohammed
Morsi was elected president, the first democratically chosen one in the meandering river of
Egyptian history. During his one-year reign, the chief Brotherhood ideologue Morsi conceived a
handful of political miscarriages that backfired on him, launching a slippery slope of trust and
credibility during his ephemeral theocratic governance. America found two instances particularly
infuriating.
In November 2012, perhaps fearing a further proliferation of the Arab Spring, Morsi sought to
flex his muscle of executive prowess by declaring a categorical impunity over the State
Constitution. His attempt to leapfrog the common sense of benevolent governance turned out to
be the prelude for a groundbreaking campaign against the state. Though Morsi eventually called
off his move of self-aggrandizement, Egypt saw rebellious crowds everywhere during the
ensuing months. The Tahrir Square, which nestled in the center of political Cairo, watched tens
of thousands of piqued Egyptians occupying the city center in opposition to the leadership. Their
message had grown stronger in increments: Above all it was retraction of Morsi’s I-am-before-
law edict, and retract he did.
Then came the rebels’ request to release hundreds of protesters who had been detained by the
state police for disrupting the public order and harassing Brotherhood members. Morsi was not
that quick to cave in to external pressure of his statesmanship, so he declined to grant amnesty to
any prisoner. As such, the flame of Arab Spring was not to be contained. Last July, Morsi was

6. ousted following a coup-d’état led by the Former General Command of the Egyptian Army
Abdul Fatal al-Sisi, who was sworn in president after a landslide victory in the election.
Under Sisi, Hamas now lives in an abyss, even worse than the years of the second intifada from
2000 to 2003, when the organization found itself desisting squarely from international
condemnation and isolation. There is no doubt to say that Hamas has never won any recognition
beyond its Islamic allies and sympathizers. In this intricate world stitched together by strategic
and military proxies, Hamas was a friend to a few but never a confidant. Its closest terrorist bloc,
the Islamic Jihad, was a far-flung al-Qaeda offshoot existing in a vacuum. It does not have a
standing political leadership compared to Hamas. While the latter has a farrow of suit-wearing
bureaucrats, such as Ismail Haniyeh who lives in Qatar, the Islamic Jihad was built to fight the
Zionists to its end, the first step of establishing an Islamic caliphate in the Levant. Whereas
Hamas also allegedly aims at the destruction of the Jewish state, its ideology centers on resisting
Israeli persecutions, as its full name implies, rather than the founding of a Sharia land.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been comrade-in-arms since at least 2008 during the Operation
Cast Lead, so the absence of the latter in the current war is puzzling. News media have turned a
blind eye on this palpable silence of Hamas’ fellowmen. In the past, they have been launching
rockets into Israel together, they have been building tunnels across border together, and they
have been guarding strongholds from skirmishes together, but now, Hamas was the only headline
in Gaza situation. One may ask---What is happening?
It needs to be said that Islamic Jihad is more mysterious to the West, which is reflected by the
scant coverage of the Western media. The reason is simple. When militants don tony suits and
silky ties, they are no longer completely militants. Hamas’ political branch has been remarkably

7. successful in improving the living standard in the Gaza Strip. Despite its despicable condition
still, without Hamas chauffeuring the development of this tiny Mediterranean enclave for the
past seven years, Gaza could have been worse to live than do North Korea.
Hamas’ Shi’a neighbor in the North, Hezbollah, tells a knottier tale. Also established in the
turbulent 80s prior to Hamas in 1982, it addresses the vengeance of Lebanese Shi’ites after Israel
invaded Lebanon, which is known as the First Lebanese War in Israel. Hezbollah gained its
foothold in Lebanon in a period of political uncertainty and sectarian strife, with Hafez al-
Assad’s Baathist’ regime seeking to colonize half of Lebanon and Christian Phalangist mounting
its ambitious bid to presidency. With American help, Bachir Gemayel, became the president-
elect, the first time for the Lebanese Phalanges Party to achieve such a feat. Bachir’s
assassination before the formal sworn-in did not prevent his brother Amine Gemayel to replace
him to take the central command of the state. Over the period between the late 70s and 80s,
Lebanon was being “Shi’itized,” with the Shi’ite population surpassing the Sunnis in the mid-80s.
Nowadays, Shi’a constitutes at least 80% of Lebanese population.
Hezbollah’s climate for fighting, however, does not bode well for Hamas either. The Syrian civil
war now has a great longevity to attract vast Hezbollah fighters eastbound. They have effectively
become the émigré bodyguards for Bashar al-Assad, who’s an Alawite belonging to an offshoot
of Shi’ite Islam. Hezbollah, who had always maintained a genial relationship with Bashar,
rushed to consolidate the Syrian regime. They are so entangled in Northern Syria that northern
Israel has seen its best days of security for almost two years now. Rockets ceased to be fired
from southern Lebanon, attempts of ground infiltration also appeared to be stalled, and its anti-
Zionist propaganda was largely removed from rhetoric tropes. Nevertheless, it is still wise to say
that Hezbollah was not weakened but distracted. As a consequence, the Third Gaza War is

8. missing a potent Islamic player. It must have been soothing for the IDF not having to brace two-
pronged attacks simultaneously from both north and south. In essence, Hamas was blamed on the
kidnapping of the three Israeli yeshiva students, and Israel found its justification for a ground
assault in Gaza after Hamas fired into Israel indiscriminately. Hezbollah was out of the picture
from the chain of event entirely, and it does not feel collaborating with Hamas will advance its
end goal of eliminating their Jewish enemies, provided its reduced expendable force and lack of
an auspicious moment.
Parsing the engagement potential of Hezbollah is interpreting Iranian state at the same time.
Given that Hezbollah has long been the proxy of the Iranian Islamic Corps and receive point-to-
point purveyance of military apparatus and technological assistance, the situation in Gaza
naturally raises the question of possible Iranian ties. The analysis predicated on the recent events
of the regional hegemony projected that Iran does not possess enough stake in this war, thus
becoming improbable to involve itself in any significant channel.
The West is reminded that Hezbollah and Iran is one of the most evident and indisputable
alliance in the chaotic Middle East. The theocratic state, following the Islamic Revolution in
1979, made no efforts to conceal its commitment of building its action squads in the
mountainous Lebanon. The principle binding force between Iran and Hezbollah, at its surface, is
their shared Shi’ism. When it gets to the ground condition of Israeli national security, the two
have a common vision far more definitive---the destruction of the state of Israel. Note the
neutrality of the reference here, and I will explain why this is the most proper narrative.
Israel does not negotiate with terrorist states and organizations, as decades of its diplomatic
history have shown. While the West has not been reluctant to accept the notion of a “state of

9. terrorism,” Israel has kept its consistent speech of who are the rogues in the world. This does not
automatically indicate that the Jewish state sees a certain state forever an “illegitimate and
indiscriminating,” but it has been particularly adept at standing to its ground in the current.
For example, the once highest pan-Arabic dictator across Africa and Middle East, Gamal Abdel
Nasser, was commonly recognized as a terrorist who footed lethal operations against the nascent
Zionist state during the first decade of life. If Menachem Begin were the model of Revisionist
reviled all across the Arab World for his extensive involvement in Jewish underground activities
of the 40s and hawkishness on his treatment of Palestinians during his premiership, Nasser
would have been his counterpart as an iron-clad dictator and demagogue.
Interestingly, despite of the historic confrontation between Egypt and Israel, acts of tit for tat
came to an alleged end publicly in 1979 when Begin signed the peace treaty with Sadat, the
beloved Egyptian president who succeeded Nasser when the latter died from a heart attack. From
then on, the formal relationship between the two neighbors was changed to non-aggression.
Although rampant anti-Semitic speeches still flared up intermittently in Egyptian recent
leadership, the most prominent being Mohammed Morsi, they still kept a thin cover of normalcy,
which is all it takes to maintain a balance of interests in the extremely fluid Middle Eastern
geopolitics.
Iran is not Egypt, unfortunately. Israel has always labeled Iran as the single most dangerous
player in the world. Its threat theory has centered on the Iranian nuclear program as early as the
West can remember. In fact, Israel initiated its own nuclear activity in the early 1960s out of
concern over other regional superpowers. Ben Gurion’s prescience on the indispensability of
Israel’s nuclear capability, in retrospect, is a double-edged sword.

10. Barely a decade old, was Israel in the early 60s coasting through a stint of impressive economic
prosperity and improvement of living standard. The state did not really tighten its spending when
the nuclear program went into development. Quote to the opposite, the capital capacity of Israel
was so great prior to the Six Day War that it was still used as a template of international business
to prove how can a start-up nation rose to excellence in a matter of a few years. The
contemporary leadership of Israel, including Dayan, Ben-Gurion, Eshkol and Meir, embraced the
concept of the power of nuclear deterrence from the start. The state declaimed that it would only
resort to the nuclear weapons for defense and never would it be used for aggression. This
political motto, sacred and reassuring, did last to this date.
On the other hand, Israel has also been taking heat from the international community for its
contempt to other regional nuclear players. It unilaterally bombed the Osirak Nuclear Plant near
Baghdad in 1981, only faced embarrassment abroad. Up until today, Israel still considers the
destruction of the Iraqi site the highest achievement of its war against nuke. The Resolution 487,
adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council, called for an immediate cessation of all
hostile activities and right for Iraq to ask for compensation. It fell short of condemning Israel for
its hotheaded assault. The Operation Opera, as it was named, landed Israel under IAEA’s
supervision for its foolhardy action.
From then on, Israel has reserved the possibility to neutralize Iranian nuclear power sites in
theory. Whenever it perceives the laxity from the West over the nuclear supervision on the
Islamic state, the Jewish nation unequivocally reaffirms its natural right to strike Iran when it
sees fit. On this regard, the world has not fully understood Israeli internal deliberation. Most
clearly, should Israel attacks Iranian nuclear facility, it would have amounted to the most blatant
breach of international trusteeship. Historically, Israel has been perceived as both a bully and a

11. victim. The 1981 incident in Iraq, sure enough, did not go down to the drain. The West still has a
paramount responsibility in responding to Israeli nuclear propagandas. So far, it has not done
enough, at least not forcefully.
With the nuclear talk among the Europe, America and Iran entering another deadlock, Israel is
walking on an eggshell, trying to find a proportionate position without provoking a backlash
from the key international players, the very peoples who are negotiating with Iran in favor of
Israel. After months of stringent blustering on the West’s mistake to talk to the “terrorist state,”
the radio wave went dead. Ironically, people understand that even though Israel aspires to be a
regional police state being the “only democratic country in the Middle East,” it was not born
with the superpower of multitasking. The war with Gaza for the third time in six years has again
dragged the country into rounds of emergency meetings and situation room melodramas.
Therefore, the catchphrase goes: “We don’t care to care a nuclear Iran during wars.” This is
indeed a break for Iran from Israel’s huckstering.
Regardless of whether Iran is supplying Hamas in live time during this war---almost impossible
given the naval blockade in Gaza---it is still precarious to assume that Iran assumes a substantive
role in this existential campaign.
After studying some of the staunchest players in Hamas network, it is worth noting the general
attitude of civilians in Gaza. It goes without saying that Hamas has never fallen out of favor by
the majority population since it expelled Fatah government after a military coup in 2007. Hamas
has dedicated itself to the welfare of Gazans for the past eight years with several interruptions.
Were it not been for these three wars between Gaza and Israel, people in this “biggest prison of
the world” lived outside a prison. As a matter of fact, during peaceful times, civil servants in

12. Gaza got paid more regularly than did Palestinians in the West Bank. Because of sordid
corruption and malfeasance, Palestinian Authority was eclipsed in popularity compared to
Hamas in Gaza.
This trend is readily manifested by many testimonies of Palestinians who were disenchanted with
the military occupation and economic stagnation in the West Bank. After many of them
committed crimes against Israeli settlers, they confessed that they were ready for the martyrdom,
and more than a few of them openly identified themselves with Hamas fighters. This
reverberation of combative ideology between West Bank and Gaza saw its result in the two
recent reconciliations between Hamas and Fatah. More and more often, West Bankers stand in
solidarity with Gaza. Not only are they worrying about their fellow compatriots in Gaza but also
the discord between the two main factions in the Palestinian Authority.
The most recent rapprochement between the two rival camps led to the creation of an innocuous
technocratic government led by Rami Hamdallah, a Palestinian professor in English. After the
demotion of Salaam Fayyad, Westerners have been very suspicious of Abu Mazen’s any intent to
share his authority over Palestinian affairs. Prior to his forming of a new government, Hamdallah
tendered his resignation in July after Mahmoud Abbas appointed him the prime minister of the
Palestinian Authority. Now, the international community bite its lips to admit that the new unity
government is not working, and Abbas is still the commander-in-chief from the West Bank who
still has on latitude in influencing Hamas’ behaviors. The utter ineffective Palestinian leadership
is shocking to its many people, who are expressing a buildup of discontent with Ramallah.
It should be argued that after Israel’s pullout from Gaza almost ten years ago, Hama-controlled
Gaza strip has been far more turbulent than the West Bank, much of which is still controlled by

13. Israeli military. Countless demonstrations in PA territory were cracked down immediately by the
IDF’s patrol police. The Emmy-winning “Five Broken Cameras,” a documentary that depicted
the painstaking life under Israeli occupation in a Palestinian village Modi’in, encapsulated the
life under Israeli military order. If the heavy-handedness of Israeli control has effectively
stamped out possible major uprisings in the PA territory, Gaza is another ballgame. Since Hamas
took the Gaza Strip in 2007, the territory has virtually entered an interregnum. Many could argue
that the political wing of Hamas has been representing Gazans, but this claim does not stand for
scrutiny. The first- and second-in-command Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh, served as a
bold-lettered profile for Hamas leadership, however, it remains debatable whether Hamas truly
speaks for Palestinians in Gaza. Despite of the nationalistic populism endemic in this coastal
enclave, Gazans have few contacts with Hamas other than through radios and TV stations. An
allegiance found in airwave is not failsafe, which is common sense in the West.
This is exactly what characterizes the psyche of Gazans at the moment. As a consequence of
Egypt’s tightening of border policy with Gaza, Hamas found itself castrated with the power of
persuasion. The Morsi era is over and Sisi just brought on a tough game.
Israel has explained its intention of IAF’s airstrikes in the Gaza Strip---Eliminating terrorist
bases in the narrow strip and destroying all discoverable tunnels Hamas uses to continue
infiltrating into southern Israel. Its goal is unambiguous but lacks of deliberation on
contingencies. I believe that Israel intentionally refuses to consider all the consequences of
massive displacement of the Gaza population, and it may even be the case that Israel has hoped
the situation as such from the day one. We all know that many residents in Gaza today are
refugees from the West Bank as a direct result of the Nakba in 1948 and the Naksa in 1967. They
are living in the fear of being doubly displaced because of the war. They ruminate on the thought

14. woefully---I fled to Gaza because you stole my ancestors’ land, and now you even want to steal a
land that’s my last refuge?
The reports on Israel’s bombings of the Shifa Hospital, the main treatment center for the injured,
and an UN-run school-turned-shelter have added a new dimension to the episode. These are truly
unsettling accounts of Israel’s violation of the Geneva Convention and international
humanitarian laws. Volleys of accusation have been emerging, lambasting Israel for its
unmasked revenge killing of innocent civilians. In response to all these accusations, Lt. Col.
Peter Lerner promised that IDF will look into these matters but later denied the charges, citing
the targets were either hit by strayed mortar fire or underreached rockets launched by Hamas.
IDF has posted some satellite photos of the trajectory of Hamas’ missiles and impact points, but
it is not clear if these evidences are conclusive.
Another dialectical argument IDF often invokes is the hypocrisy that it does not intend any
collateral damage during any operations, and it does not want to watch civilian being slaughtered
in the process. While Israel is at least paying lip service to discerning intended targets and
unrelated personnel, its actual conduct shows exactly the opposite. As of Thursday evening, the
Gaza Health Ministry has tallied a death toll of at least 1410 in the Gaza Strip, and over 300 were
children. As such gruesome information is trickling out into the global media, a tsunami of
outrage overwhelmed many world citizens, who took to the streets to condemn Israelis’
continued indiscriminate killing in the Gaza Strip. I shall address the possible motive of these
rallies and Israeli response later.

15. “Where can we go? Israelis have driven us out decades ago, and now it warns us to leave our
home in Gaza yet again. This house is going to be bombed that I know, but I want to die here in
the Palestinian land in honor and dignity.”
Perhaps this psychology really occurred to a certain number of Palestinians who were killed
during the airstrike. Of course, it’s also a palatable narrative for IDF to sell for it will absolve its
liability from targeting civilians. Unfortunately, the “they-choose-to-die-here” excuse cannot
explicate why IDF would even target who buildings where the demographic is almost unknown.
It is plausible that Israel did obtain intelligence about suspected terrorist activities in these
facilities, but it did not even attempt to confirm the information. Even an outsider understands
that the Jewish state does not want to send a single soldier to the grave, so it avoids
implementing ground reconnaissance for fear of close-range crossfire. When Bibi eventually
decided to deploy ground forces in Day 9, he did so out of much desperation and little
rationalization. After that day, Israel saw a spike of casualty directly resulted from ground
campaign.
Nevertheless, no matter it’s before the ground invasion or after, IDF made few attempts to obtain
additional data on its missile targets. Many videos IDF has made available showed its piloted
plane or drone circling locked on a building and fired the missiles in a few seconds. To viewers
who are curious to watch these raw videos, they are frustrating at the best. These clips did not
record any evidence that Hamas or Islamic Jihad is related to the bombed buildings: no physical
movements, no geothermal pictures and no signs of weaponry. According to a video by Al-
Arabiya, an entire neighborhood of Beit Hanoun was flattened from 4-5 p.m. on July 27. It
showed a series of short video clips of the missile impacts on the buildings in the civilian block.

16. At 5 p.m., no structure in the foreground was left standing, which sent a clear message that IDF
decided to level the entire area.
Though one can also argue that this concentrated operation proves that Israeli airstrike in Gaza is
meticulously planned with precaution, the erasure of a locale cannot convince the international
community that Israel was assured that no significant civilian damage would be incurred. Quite
unexpectedly to many Israelis, such large-scale operation created an ungainly image that Jews
are really massacring the local population with surgical operations.
Having touched on the actual killings of civilians, it’s the time to assess the reactions from IDF
to the charges of committing murderous acts on the innocents. To be fair, Israel did express its
regret for a handful of cases, in which the evidences against IDF were so coherent that it could
not shy from them. Amid these bashful exposures, the Israeli military command remained
unflappable, issuing statements noting that unconcerned persons have died as a result of the
operation. After all, these quasi-apologies speak tons about what’s the real attitude of the Israeli
leadership in such incidents. Bibi does not feel the pain of Palestinians, not a bit. He’s a true
nationalist, who learned to steel himself for tragedies that befell on his enemies and mourn for
tragedies that befell no his people. This pattern was spelled out clear during wars.
The media took notice that Netanyahu delivered his condolence to the killing of Mohammed Abu
Khdeir, but he never called the relatives of Mohammed personally. In 20/20 hindsight, it’s very
likely that Bibi was simply performing a public relation task demanded by the world. His
impassivity for the dead in Gaza, especially children and women, makes it apparently clear that
he would like the civilians to pay a price to continue supporting Hamas in the territory, and he

17. believes that it’s inevitable for myriads of Gazans to die before Hamas could be contained for the
time being.
Based on the latest information, at least 200,000 people have left their homes in Gaza, and most
of them have been temporarily sheltered in improvised camps built mostly by the UNRRA
(United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). However, the recent bombing of a
U.N. school in Jabaliya Refugee camp that killed at least 20 bodes ill for Israel. It is true that the
actual perpetuator of this strike was still in dispute, but Israel must try hard to exonerate itself.
Let’s look at the rationale. Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel, and a small fraction of them
were said to have fallen short of Israeli territory and landed in Gaza. In comparison, over 3,000
targets in Gaza have been hit by IDF since the Operation Protective Edge started on Jul. 8.
Jabaliya is located slightly northeast of Gaza City, and the camp has also been one of the focuses
during this Israeli anti-terrorism operation. It is far more likely that Israel misfired during its
routines than did Hamas because of both its motive and attack frequency.
The heart-wrenching pictures of hijab-wearing women grieving in hospitals have become iconic
symbol of Palestinian disaster. Now, trends are shifting. Not only are the mothers mourning their
children and husbands, Palestinian men---who would otherwise look calm and resourceful---are
seen broken down into tears. One of the most touching photo shot by Sergei Ponomarev of the
New York Times, in which two brothers from an El Agha family consoling each other for the
loss of their father in Khan Younis, has a lasting impact in my conscience. These two middle-
aged men, who looked muscular and toned, were jolted by such news. The man in the chair was
in unpronounceable anguish while his brother cupped his face from behind to mollify him. Both
men’s shirts were splattered with outsize blood stain as if they just ran out of a killing house.

18. Thanks to the presence of foreign and local media, the war and its consequences are extensively
documented. Israel bans all Israeli journalists to report from Gaza but only issued warnings for
international correspondents. This implicit permission gave global media some oxygen in
reporting from the Gaza Strip, but there have been confirmed news that an unknown numbers of
foreign press corps have been either recalled or relocated because of Israeli censorship. These
journalists have either written about the psychotic celebration of Israeli kibbutzniks across the
Gaza border or macabre scenes of the civilian suffering on the ground. Once again, journalism
becomes a profession of courage and humanitarianism. Journalists crave for the public’s better
understanding of the intolerable crisis in Gaza. They are fearless and energetic, oftentimes in the
face of intimidation and threats from the Israeli government.
The most recent development, reported by Jodi Rudoren at the New York Times, rendered a
glimpse of an internal readjustment of Bibi’s government to reexamine the infantile unity
government between Hamas and Fatah. The author noted that this tactical shift has not been
made public but is authentic and reliable.
If true, this report contrasts sharply with a recalcitrant Israel in April when the news of détente
between the two rival parties reached Bibi. It instantly removed the lid of the Pandora Box of
Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. Earlier in March, when Secretary of State John Kerry from the
United States, formally accepted a depressing collapse of his negotiating plan---so-called “The
Framework”---he vowed to recede from the seat as the U.S. chief negotiating diplomat from the
peace talks, signaling one another denouement of American-sponsored peace talks. After being
called “frenzied” and his efforts “messianic” by Naftali Bennet, the Israeli right-wing Knesset
member from Yisrael Beiteinu, his records on leave was certainly not as lustrous as those of Bill
Clinton in public opinion. The mainstream U.S. evaluation of his endeavors has underscored

19. fairness and objectivity. There the sentence goes: “Kerry has been diligent, conscientious and
well-intentioned, but he does not understand the Middle East and wanted to achieve too much in
one time.”
Isn’t it a comment all too familiar to conflict historian? Whenever the peace talks falls flat with
trilateral involvements among the Palestinian Authority, Israel and the United States, Israel was
quick to blame P.A. and U.S.
With Abbas, Israel would say he never wanted peace with the Jewish state, and Israel had tried
and failed, and when it expects a different result, it’s simply not happening. When it comes to
U.S., Israel would run character studies of the chief negotiators and reached an almost identical
conclusion---Despite of their backbreaking perseverance, they really don’t know what they are
talking about.
In the same episodes, P.A. usually lifted a middle finger on Israel. Actually it would remain quiet
most of the times during the negotiation. It would wait until U.S. expresses its disappointment
with the progress to join the finger-pointing game. The criticism is frequently similar to the one
ran by Israel---Netanyahu has not and is not preparing to make peace with Palestinians.
Quite ironically, such he-does-not-know-peace blame competition gives a deep impression that
U.S. has factually been the babysitter all the time when Jews and Palestinians refuse to soften.
America helps change their diapers and hope this would be the last wet time, when it realizes the
two cannot resist the call of nature, Uncle Sam sometimes says “Sorry, diapers have run out. You
guys have to wait.” The other times, it would say “Okay, let me swap a babysitter to change your
diaper, maybe I didn’t do it right.” Of course, the “call of nature” is the obduracy of their own
interests, and “swap a babysitter” is to wait for the next secretary of state.

20. Of course, the babysitter can get tough sometimes. For example, when Kerry discovered that his
times and energy were going nowhere, he fumed on both parties. The Western media has created
the situation drama that Kerry was madder at Netanyahu for his continuing building of illegal
settlements in the West Bank, but in the end, he did not only bite one side of a tart apple. Kerry
was equally indignant when Abbas proceeded to apply for membership in more than a dozen
international conventions and organizations, including those that could potentially prosecute
Israel for its violation of laws. The reason that the West perceived a higher decibel of
dissatisfaction on Israel from Kerry is quite simple. Israel has been building housing projects for
more than three decades with total disregard of external pressures, so Israel is a recidivist in such
notoriety. Abbas’ move to further burnish their global standing is seen as a no-confidence vote in
Kerry and Israel, but the action itself was not a provocation per se except for Israel.
The hand-shaking between Abbas and Mashal came one month after the dissolution of Kerry’s
shuttle diplomacy, drawing profound frustration and anger from Israel, which challenges P.A. of
its legitimacy of being the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Bibi interpreted this
reconciliation as a token that Abbas is incorporating terrorists in the new authority. Bibi believed
that although Abbas planned to install a panel of technocrats in the next government, he did so to
mask the real intention of burying the Hamas’ leadership beneath the surface and granting them
to play the puppet.
Netanyahu just decided to reconsider his initial judgment, as the Times reported. If he desires
another season of backdoor diplomacy talks, now it’s the high time for him to realize that the
unity government will still probably be in place after the war, and he needs to adjust his strategy
accordingly to face a new dynasty of Palestinian Authority.

21. For now, he needs a ceasefire. No Israeli passes by without noticing the ill wind of negative
reaction abroad, especially in Europe. Almost all major European cities have protested Israeli
offensive in Gaza, and this general sentiment against Israel did not exist alone in the “anti-
Semitic” Europe---the diction that many pro-Israel politicians and academics used---people in
India, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and many other Asian countries, let alone other
developed countries, have gone to the streets in solidarity with Gazans. So far, I have not read
about any pro-Israeli rally outside Israel.
During recent years, Israel has increased channels of economic partnership with many rising
Asian countries, such as India and China, hoping to not only harvest business profits but also
political consensus. The silence of these Asian governments about this war displays the futility
of expecting diplomatic paybacks for Israel. Rather, the peoples know better about the difference
between humanity and inhumanity, and they act accordingly. New Delhi saw its pro-Gaza rally
on Jul. 13 and Beijing five days later.
A few days ago, an emotional video went viral on YouTube. UNRWA Spokesman, Christopher
Gunness, broke down in tears during a live broadcast, having learned that a U.N. school-turned-
shelter had been struck by Israeli shells, killing at least 20 people. Gunness cried inconsolably in
the background as the camera was turned away from him. UNRWA has been the primary
international relief agency that provides foods, shelters and healthcare for the displaced persons.
No ceasefire agreement is yet in sight, and the world is weeping for the dead, both Israeli and
Palestinians. One fact is clear however, amid all the uncertainties of where the Third Gaza War is
going---IDF, under the full command of Netanyahu, is bombing the livelihood of all living
generations in Gaza. The price will be incredibly dear.