Nothing good will come of this

In response to the presumed kidnapping of three young Israelis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck back with a vengeance.

While directly blaming Hamas for the act, he also declared the Palestinian Authority ultimately responsible. 

Netanyahu quickly launched “Operation Brother’s Keeper” — an antiseptic name for a full-scale assault on the entire Palestinian population in the occupied territories.

Hundreds of Hamas leaders were arrested and are now being held without charge. 

Entire communities have been closed off, victims of illegal collective punishment.

Checkpoint verification intensified and in some cities, door-to-door searches are under way.

Houses were destroyed and families dispossessed. Fear is widespread, as is anger.

By any measure, the kidnapping (and I am assuming that is what it was) was a wicked and stupid act. Wicked, because attacking civilians is never acceptable. In no way, can the action be justified as moral, responsible or an act of resistance.

Nothing can justify Israel’s flagrant violations of international law or its demonstrated contempt for human rights. But because the Israeli response was completely predictable, the kidnapping must also be judged to have been stupid and irresponsible.

The perpetrators must be condemned for their callous disregard not only for the lives of three youngsters they now hold, but also for the suffering they have brought to the Palestinian people.

There is another way in which Netanyahu is to blame for this horror.

In a perverse way, he established the logic which guides the behaviour of the kidnappers.

The Israelis have long made a practice of exchanging prisoners. The thousands of Palestinians in their prisons, including hundreds being held without charge, are often treated by Israelis as objects for barter.

Not too long ago, Netanyahu presented Hamas with over 1,000 prisoners in exchange for a captive Israeli soldier. 

With the Palestinian society closely following the weeks-long hunger strike of 100 administrative detainees (held for prolonged periods without any charges or trial), one supposes that some might have assumed that the way to end the torment of those captives was to create the conditions for another prisoner exchange.

While Netanyahu declared with certainty that Hamas is responsible for the kidnapping, no evidence for this charge has been offered, but to a Hamas-hating Israeli public, no evidence appears to be needed.

But guilty or not, Hamas has behaved badly before and after the kidnapping. Despite agreeing to a reconciliation pact with the Palestinian Authority, the group continued to make irresponsible boastful statements, maintaining its right to “armed resistance”.

I am reminded of a quote from the late great Tawfik Zayyad who once said: “You may have the right, but when you use it as badly as you have, you forfeit that right.”

Since the kidnapping, instead of behaving as responsible partners in a unity government, Hamas got cagey. 

It would not condemn the act and, instead, “a high ranking Hamas official” told Al Monitor: “Hamas truly does not know who stands behind the operation, because there is a separation of duties between the military and political branches of the movement. The politicians instruct the military to find a solution to the prisoner dossier, and the men on the ground have the freedom to choose the time, place and operational details.”

The kidnapping has been a godsend for Netanyahu. He was under increasing international pressure for his continued illegal settlement expansion and his responsibility for the collapse of the peace talks.

His rejection of the Palestinian unity government was rebuffed by Europe and the US. And he was on the ropes at home, after new revelations of his questionable spending habits and an embarrassing defeat of his favoured candidate in the recent presidential contest. 

With the kidnapping, Netanyahu has been reborn. Playing the victim card and confronting enemies is what he loves most and does best. 

The kidnappers have given the prime minister an undeserved second wind. No longer “the obstacle to peace”, he has become “the defender of his victim people”.

The PA’s unity government enterprise has also been impacted by these events.

Its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, or Abu Mazen, is clearly not responsible for this state of affairs, but try to tell that to average Israelis.

And try to tell Palestinians that Abu Mazen’s approach to peace through negotiations is correct when they see new settlements going up, their communities ravaged by an unjust siege, their detainees dying and Netanyahu crowing.

The detainees on hunger strike are also victims of the kidnapping. These men are not guilty of any crime — nor have they ever been charged with any crime.

Their plight and their right to be freed from illegal incarceration, once gaining support in Israel and the West, is now forgotten.

With Netanyahu bent on wiping out Hamas, there should be no doubt that this enterprise will backfire just as it did in the past.

Extremist groups, born of resentment and reacting to powerlessness, are only fuelled by more oppression. 

This was the lesson Yitzhak Rabin should have learned when he attempted to destroy Hamas in the early 1990s. It was the lesson that Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert should have learned in the last decade.

They did not, and neither has Netanyahu.

The lesson to all sides should be clear, but they have never learned it: more violent resistance will not end the occupation, and more violent repression will not end the resistance.

Negotiations and non-violent resistance are the only way forward. But right now, in the midst of this unfolding tragedy, no one appears to be listening.