Punishing Gaza in Vain

BEIRUT -- God punished the arrogance and hubris of the Hebrews in the Old Testament by making them wander the wilderness for 40 years before allowing a later, more humble, generation to enter Canaan. The current generation of Israeli Jews is not as proficient at learning these 40-year lessons, it seems, to judge from Israel's current ferocious attack on Gaza.

It was exactly 40 years ago to the day -- December 28, 1968 -- that Israeli commandos raided Beirut airport and destroyed 13 Lebanese civilian aircraft, in retaliation for a Palestinian attack against an Israeli airliner in Athens. Israel aimed to inflict a revenge punishment so severe that it would shock the Arabs into preventing the Palestinians from fighting Israel.

Today, 40 years and countless attacks and wars later, Israel again uses massive retaliatory and punitive force to pummel the Palestinians of Gaza into submission. Hundreds of Palestinians have died in the first 24 hours of the Israeli attack, and several thousand might die by the time the operation ends. For what purpose, one wonders?

The past 40 years offer a credible guide, if anyone in Israel or Washington cares to grasp the historical record instead of merely wallowing in a cruel world of political lies and deceptions. Israel's use of its clear military superiority against Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arabs has consistently led to five parallel, linked, and very predictable results:

1. Israeli power has momentarily shattered Palestinian and Arab military and civilian infrastructure, only to see the bludgeoned Arabs regroup and return a few years later -- with much greater technical proficiency and political will to fight back. This happened when the Palestinians, who were driven out of Jordan in 1970, eventually re-established more lethal bases in Lebanon; or when Israel destroyed Fateh's police facilities in the West Bank and Gaza a few years ago, and soon found themselves fighting Hamas' capabilities instead.

2. Israel's combination of military ferocity, insincerity in peace negotiations, and continued colonization has seen "moderate" groups and peace-making partners like Fateh slowly self-destruct, to be challenged or even replaced by tougher foes. Fateh has given way to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and to militant spin-offs from within Fateh like the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Hizbullah emerged in Lebanon after Israel invaded and occupied south Lebanon in 1982.

3. Israel's insistence on militarily dominating the entire Middle East has seen it generate new enemies in lands where it once had strategic allies -- like Lebanon and Iran. Israel once worked closely with some predominantly Christian groups in Lebanon, and had deep security links with the Shah of Iran. Today -- the figurative 40 years later -- Israel sees its most serious, even existential, threats emanating from Hizbullah in Lebanon and the radical ruling regime in Iran.

4. The massive suffering Israel inflicts on ordinary Palestinians transforms a largely docile population into a recruiting pool for militants, resistance fighters, suicide bombers, terrorists, and other warriors. After decades of Israeli policies of mass imprisonment, starvation, strangulation, colonization, assassination, assault and terror tactics against Palestinians, the Palestinians eventually react to their own dehumanization by turning around and using the same kind of cruel methods to kill Israeli soldiers and civilians.

5. Israeli policies over decades have been a major -- but not the only -- reason for the transformation of the wider political environment in the Arab world into a hotbed of Islamism confronting more stringent Arab police states. The Islamists who politically dominate the Arab region -- whether Shiite Hizbullah, or Sunni Hamas or anything else in between -- are the only Arabs since the birth of Israel in 1948 who have proved both willing and able to fight back against Zionism.

All these trends can be seen in action during the current Israeli attack against Gaza: Palestinian and Arab radicalization, Islamist responses amidst pan-Arab lassitude, the continued discrediting of President Mahmoud Abbas' government, and regional populist agitation against Israel, its U.S. protector, and most Arab governments. None of this is new. And that is precisely why it is so significant today, as Israel's war on Gaza paves the way for a repetition of the five trends above that have plagued Israelis and Arabs alike.

The biblical 40-year time span between Israel's attack on Beirut airport on December 28, 1968 and its war on Gaza on December 27, 2008 is eerily relevant. It is time enough for frightened and arrogant Israelis to learn that in all these years their weapons have promoted neither quiescence among neighboring Arabs, nor security along Israel's borders. The exact opposite has happened, and it will happen again now.

Here's something to ponder as the next 40-year period starts ticking down: The only thing that ever did bring Israelis and Arabs genuine peace was equitable, negotiated peace accords -- with Egypt and Jordan -- that treated Arabs and Israel as people who must enjoy equal rights to security and stable statehood.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.