Victims too

The death toll in the latest Israeli-Palestinian war continues to rise—but all 159 deaths identified as of press time have been Palestinian. The list of injured is much higher: about 1,000 Palestinians in the first six days of fighting. In contrast, the latest available reports say five Israelis have been wounded.

The disproportionateness is a reflection of the Israeli Defense Forces’ indisputable military superiority, including the effectiveness of its “Iron Dome.” The high-technology missile shield has intercepted almost all of the rockets fired into Israel by the Hamas organization from within the Gaza Strip, including a barrage the other day that was aimed at Israel’s biggest city, Tel Aviv.

But beyond military prowess, the overwhelming action by Israel also reflects the state’s post-Holocaust repudiation of the eye-for-an-eye thinking of its own scriptures; for every injury it suffers at the hands of its enemies, it vows to inflict multiple injuries. The Israeli concept of deterrence is based on the precariousness of the state’s very existence: It is a very small country in a hostile region. To discourage any organized violence or military action against it, Israel is prepared to escalate the stakes by several multiples.

The latest eruption of violence may find its proximate cause in the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers last June, which Israel blamed on Hamas, and on the apparent revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager (by a group of Israelis now facing the appropriate charges). But consider the outrageous disproportionateness of the response: some 160 Palestinians killed, in a war that may continue for a few more days, in retaliation for the deaths of the three Israeli teens.

When seen in the context of a much weaker people’s own struggle for statehood, then, Israel’s policy of overwhelming response becomes merely colonial—a projection of its military power into neighboring territory.

Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, tried to summarize the background of the latest conflict with a balanced analysis, but in his view even the facts have an unmistakable bias. “The Palestinians believe—with considerable justification—that the current Israeli government is more interested in colonizing the West Bank and completing the creation of ‘greater Israel’ than it is in making peace or permitting the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. The Israeli leadership believes—with somewhat less justification—that their Palestinian counterparts secretly hope to reverse Israel’s creation and replace it with a state of their own.”

The Philippines has a long history of support for the Jewish state project; during World War II, President Manuel Quezon allowed Jewish refugees from Austria and Germany to escape Nazi tyranny by immigrating to the Commonwealth. In 1947, the fledgling United Nations passed a General Assembly resolution creating the new state of Israel. The country was the only Asian country, and one of only 33 countries in the world, to recognize Israel. Many Filipinos work in Israel, and the country’s democratic traditions resonate strongly with ours.

But Israel’s policy of overwhelming response as applied to Palestine has undermined its own standing in the international community; worse, it weakens its own democratic project.

How can Israel countenance the killing of innocent civilians, when the security threat it faces cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered existential? Over the weekend, Israeli aircraft bombed a mosque (which was believed to hide a weapons cache) and a center for the disabled (a mistake an Israeli military spokesperson said would be investigated). Another strike on the same day killed 17 members of the same family.

A witness to the bombing of the Mabaret Palestine Society, which killed two of the disabled residents and wounded four, including the caretaker, told the New York Times: “They [the Israelis] are bankrupt of targets and of pity. What would the handicapped have been resisting? This is the enemy striking civilians in the places they think they are safe.”

A terrible tragedy: that the victimization of the Jews during the Holocaust would prevent Israel from viewing their weaker neighbors as victims too.