There are, in theory, just wars. But even a just war should be carried out justly. Even if we accept that the rockets of Islamic Jihad and Hamas justified an Israeli retaliation, this use of unbalanced force; this readiness to kill anybody so as to hit a vague target; this deafness to the outcry of world public opinion; this level of arrogance in declaring the future vision of the region cannot be fit into the word "just retaliation." Considered together with the number of civilian casualties, what is being done in Gaza can only be counted as a "crime against humanity." This crime is hurting Gaza first and foremost, indeed; but it is hurting us as human beings also. The millions of people protesting Israel's atrocities in Gaza this weekend were actually in the streets trying to escape the reality of being unable to do anything. The heroic declarations such as "We won't forget!" "Israel will pay for this!" "The blood of these children won't be left on the ground!" are all, in the end, reflections of this inability: We can't do anything for the Palestinian people, and by extension, for humanity other than sending our prayers. This sense of inability may turn and hit Israel, and god forbid, all the Jews worldwide. Israel is doing its best in pushing world opinion to an anti-Israeli position. Negligent people are becoming attentive with a critical eye; anti-Zionist people are becoming anti-Semitic. And whom should we blame for this? Hamas?
After World War II, no other country in the world has done this much harm to the Jewish people. Israel has already missed the target. Operation Cast Lead is already boomeranging.
A major hit against Israel can come from the streets of Arab countries where the regimes are relatively peaceful toward Israel and the leaders are to a large extent allies -- the Arab street would say "puppets" -- of the Western world. A radical change in Egypt, Jordan and even in Syria may turn the calendars back to the late 1940s and reshuffle the lines of military action against Israel. Israel is once again turning itself into an "island" country: an island within the sea of enmities, hatred, memories of Israeli atrocities and unsettled accounts. What Israel is doing to its nation was not even done by Saddam Hussein to the Iraqis. Nobody hated Iraqis for what Saddam's oppressive and aggressive regime was doing.
Israeli atrocities in Gaza are also normalizing the unacceptable and idealizing Hamas. Today Hamas's resistance to the Israeli invasion of Gaza can be dignified self-defense; but this organization had perpetrated terrorist attacks in Israel and killed innocent people in the past and by means of its operational mentality, there is no guarantee that it won't do so in the future. The sympathies of the world, and of Turkey, should be with the Palestinian people, not with Hamas. Equating the 1.5 million people living in Gaza with Hamas, referring the injustice done to them to Hamas and perceiving and presenting this war as a war against Hamas is to believe what Israel wants the world to believe. If you cried this weekend for Hamas, you have been deceived by Israel. Cry for the innocent Palestinian lives lost in the streets of Gaza! Don't reduce the Palestinian cause to Hamas! If we leave ourselves to the temptation of the Israeli war machine, we will regard every fallen member of the Palestinian nation as a Hamas militant. And Israel is fueling this irony. Just as it turned Hezbullah into a heroic fighter, adored not only in the Shiite but also in the Sunni world, it is going to turn Hamas into the symbol of resistance and freedom fighters.
Israel has already missed its objective.
