 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Prof. Ajaz Ahmad and we will be discussing what is happening in Gaza. Ajaz, this fresh attacks on Gaza. How do you read it? Is it basically because of the impending elections in Israel or is it a deeper strategic issue that Israel is trying to resolve? Well, it's hard to read. At a certain level, it looks like the replay of 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza in which some 1400 Palestinians were killed, 5,000 injured and so on. It was a devastating attack. That came immediately after the U.S. elections, before the inauguration of the U.S. president and just a few months before the Israeli elections. That is exactly the scenario right now. Obama has been re-elected on the 6th and this began on the 8th. They are probably going to wind it up before 20th of January when it starts the second time. The timing is eerily like that invasion. The operation cast lead of 2008-2009, December-January that year. Number of people including the chief of the army staff in Israel have been bragging for an attack. They are saying that we have to neutralize this new capacity of the missiles in Gaza and so on and so forth. So they have been building up towards this and it sort of appears as if they were just waiting for Obama to get over his election campaign and do it. It all appears as if they are all set for a whole big invasion, a repeat of that kind of invasion of Gaza. The Israelis seem to be. Just last time, their supposed goal which is to take out Hamas militarily did not succeed. In fact, Hamas capacity to retaliate still continues. This time, why does Israel think it will be different? Eventually what they achieved at that time could have been achieved without that level of massacre. And again one wonders what the real agenda even then was. You will recall that most of the bombings took place in the north where there were no such missile batteries or anything of that sort, not closer to Israel. There is a view that the idea was to terrorize the population and make it flee, which has been one of the objectives of the Israelis. To achieve what they set out to achieve last time and fail to achieve, now they wish to achieve, to really achieve it, they'll have to reoccupy Gaza altogether. Short of that they cannot do it. Now what you have is that the missiles are not or rockets are not controlled by Hamas alone. Islamic jihad seems to have more sophisticated, I mean quite sophisticated missiles now in fact, one of the rockets that fell outside Tel Aviv. Islamic jihad says that it was theirs and they say it was Fajr 5 which Iranis have given them. That is what they say. There are other jihadi groups not controlled by Hamas who are rising, saying Hamas is colluding too much, Hamas is making peace with Israel and so on. These long term ceasefires that they are constantly negotiating and so on. Hamas has not delivered. You will recall that Hamas grew so much because the Palestinian Authority did not deliver. Now the same discourse is happening in Gaza with these smaller groups. So if you now delegitimize Hamas any further, you may not achieve what is said to be the objective but you may achieve two other objectives. One, you weaken the Hamas thereby you strengthen relatively these other jihadi groups which are under control of nobody. I mean they may be under the control of the Qatari or somebody but they are not part of that process of negotiations with Israel. And secondly one thing that is being talked about, about which there isn't much evidence to my knowledge is that there are growing fissures between the leadership of Hamas that is inside Gaza and the leadership the Politburo members who are spread across the Arab capitals and now primarily in Doha. That between the external and internal which is a classic situation of conflict, it is said that Jabari was part of Amr Jabari too which will come in a moment. Who is the head of the military wing of the Al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas was part of that conflict representing more than internal forces as against the external forces which are much more and the external forces are said to be much more in conversation with Arab governments particularly after Hamas evacuated Syria and went on to primarily be in Doha although then spread in some other capitals as well. It might well be that that is one of the objectives. So there are sort of series of hidden objectives. If Israel cannot achieve its military objectives without full-scale occupation, reoccupation of Gaza at least for a period of time and if it does that then it has other consequences. What does Israel gain in the region? Because right now the situation is that the Islamicist governments of Qatar, of Egypt, of Turkey are all doing the dirty work of the Israelis in Syria. We'll just come to that in a moment. Let's go to the Gaza issue further. As you said Jabari assassination when particularly when there was already a ceasefire which had been negotiated by Egypt and there was also a proposal on the table for a long-term ceasefire with Israel which had been negotiated and Jabari was the man who was doing it and he received a full-fledged draft of it which had come from Israel approved from the Israeli side of his negotiators for presentation to the Hamas leadership just a few hours before he was assassinated. So as the person who was negotiating that ceasefire as said it's a pre-emptive strike against the ceasefire. So how does one read this? Does it mean that Israel needs war to continue at a low level in order to hold its population into the kind of genocidal policies it has adopted? Do you think that is its political requirement? I don't know. What is very eerie about this is and I have no evidence but I'm just wondering if the delivery of that to Jabari was not the point at which they found out where he was. That this was in fact itself a ploy to get him more and more exposed to the intelligence networks of Israel that Israel was never serious about it to start with about this long-term ceasefire. So it appears then that one target of course is the election in which now Avigarh Liberman and Netanyahu have combined to a very right wing I mean within Israel it's difficult to say who's more right wing but certainly this is the more fascistic this is the far right so the far right agenda and the far right agenda really needs a warlike situation all the time in order to rally its population behind it so that's again again I'm confused about that between the two of them they've really got the majority and the Labour Party is in such doldrums that as soon as they started Bombay Gaza their chief made two very significant statements in one he says that people make a mistake when they describe Labour as a party of the left we are not a party of the left and then he congratulated Netanyahu for finally taking the initiative that he needed to take to do all this in Gaza so he has lined up entirely with them and so has Khadima so has Khadima so I mean but but my sense is that Khadima and Labour were in such bad shape anyway that fusion of the two parties had already guaranteed the election for them anyway they didn't need it they didn't need it but you know I mean if you can win win by 60% why not win by 80% and do whatever you then intend to do so certainly certainly elections are certainly what I am talking to at this point and what I'm trying to think through is what is the would be the logic of a full scale full scale offensive of the type that took place in 2008-2009 now on Thursday alone they killed more Palestinians than the Palestinians have killed Israelis in 13 years since Wednesday there have been close to 300 aerial bombardments across Gaza how much more full scale invasion there will be you know is it that now it's perfectly possible that on Friday that is today the Egyptian delegation will come they will initiate the discussions for a ceasefire they will make speeches in the Arab League and Security Council and so on meanwhile Israel keeps bombing at this rate and a week from now there is a ceasefire for which Egypt is given the credit is that the game so it's it's very open just how far they intend to go the other thing I would like to bring up is this they thought that this iron iron dome the missile shield that they were building that will effect effectively protect them but 50 more than 50% of the rockets are actually gone through it does seem to indicate that this strategic idea that they can hold off take out Gaza militarily and protect themselves with this kind of shield is not really going to long run absolutely and there's that that's an excellent point beyond that the fact that a rocket that has come from Gaza has fallen so close to Tel Aviv virtually in its suburbs is a game changer because Tel Aviv bourgeoisie has felt so secure all this time and is having a hell of you know hell of a time completely indifferent to the Palestine issue as if it does not exist the fact that two such missiles actually fell in Tel Aviv shows that the the missile shield doesn't work and in fact these cities are more vulnerable than ever before and if that is the case then can they take on his bullet which is a far greater capacity far bigger arsenal far better arsenal far bigger arsenal for far better arsenal and far more seasoned personnel so you know so other things other other interesting point is that this ability of the Gaza militias Gaza militants to strike Israel as well as of course as Gullah is only going to go over to grow with time so effective striking power into Israel can only increase and not decrease so if they want peace the only way for them to get peace is actually to set a negotiate which is not willing to do and you see you see probably the way the media covers these things it is as if after 2008 2009 invasion this is the next one as if there have been four four four years in which Israel has not done anything Israel killed over a hundred people in 2011 in Palestine it injured around 500 people there have been you know 600 Palestinian casualties in 2011 alone so despite this constant bombings assassinations that and the other despite all the blockade they can't even get medicines you know they're heartbreaking stories I was reading Shomsky's piece he tells a heartbreak story about somebody dying because there was no medicine for cancer and yet their capacity rocket capacity has increased dramatically half of Israel is now effectively under the Israel rocket reach the main thing is if you can get to Tel Aviv that is true then it doesn't matter what you know rest of the other yes it is that you know I don't know 60 miles of 90 60 kilometers or 90 kilometers something like that that Tel Aviv is from the from the Gaza strip if you can endanger Tel Aviv and if the Tel Aviv middle classes and upper middle classes can wake up to their own vulnerability you have changed the terms of the game just two other points in what you've just said one is the fact that in the past almost all such temporary ceasefires have been broken by Israel is a study now it says that more than 90 percent of the attacks after in lull has been from the Israeli side yet the western media pretends as if it is always Israeli retaliation and it is always as if the Gaza have attacked I consider it as a complicity in war crimes I I really do it's not a rhetorical position I really do that this is a complicity in war crimes and this has been going on for decades now the second point is that you pointed a bit earlier that it's even this time there is an Israeli minister now who has said who should it attack in a way that the civilian population flees from Gaza so that could be of course a temporary agenda as well to make the people leave for Egypt but even if we think it's not a tenable one this is this is a permanent agenda you know this is a permanent agenda and you know that that is the agenda behind the starvation of you know this minimum nutrition availability per capital as if that minimum gets to everybody in Gaza in equal measure you know this sort of thing you know 400 trucks of truckloads of food used to come into Gaza before this blockade began in 2006 and now 6065 will be allowed that starvation is a constant pressure for people to flee this lack of medicine and so on sanctions and all that so that that is there and that is what I was saying that even now you see the same pattern in bombings that the bombings are all over Gaza from the into the areas that are farthest from from Israel and where there are no missile batteries so that is again terrorizing the population large right either you flee or you terrorize them in such a way that they're incapable of lifting their heads it's a certainly certainly master certainly master we'll come back for a second installment of this discussion be with us when we discuss the Gaza again