January 2009

The Israeli War in Gaza, which is officially called Operation Cast Lead but, unofficially, by many Israelis "The Chanukah War," seems to have divided the entire world. American and Canada have come out clearly for Israel; the Arab street in the Middle East, large swathes of Europe, and most of the media are for Hamas; and the governments of Western Europe and even the Muslim world seem uncertain whom to blame, so many of them have castigated both sides, emphasizing Israel’s "disproportionate use of force."

Peter Wehner, writing for Commentary magazine’s blog, "Contentions," characterized the "dominant media narrative" like this:

"Of course, Hamas should not have been launching rocket attacks against Israel. And, yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization. And sure it’s regrettable that Hamas has embedded itself in civilian populations in order to cause collateral damage in the form of Palestinian deaths. We (grudgingly) grant all that. But the real offense is Israel’s response, which, we are told by countless commentators, is ‘disproportionate.’ Israel has a right to self-defense—but, in this instance, it is massively overreacting."

Mr. Wehner, however, pointed out that, if Israel’s response is disproportionate, then so, too, was the US response to the attacks of September 11^th.

"After all, the attacks by Al Qaeda, while deadly, were limited to a multi-pronged strike on a single day. Thousands of Americans died in the terrorist attacks—but, in response, did America have to declare war on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan—a war that merited the support of NATO and has now entered its eighth year?" he said.

To the vast majority of Americans as well as to other nations and even to the UN, the US war in Afghanistan was a just use of force.

"Our response was deemed as proportional in part because of the good being defended and the possible good that may result from the actions. These are among the standards comprising the just-war theory. Israel is acting along the same ethical lines, yet when Israel does it, its actions are met with almost universal condemnation," said Mr. Wehner.

Hamas, like the Taliban, he said, cannot be tamed by "typical state-to-state negotiations; it must therefore be dealt a crippling military blow."

"That is what Israel is now attempting to do, and in this latest battlefield in the larger conflict between civilization and barbarism, we need to unambiguously take the side of civilization. That is, after all, what Israel did with the US in the aftermath of 9-11," he said.

On the issue of proportionality, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who just came back from Israel, put it this way: "If you’re in your apartment, and some emotionally disturbed person is banging on your door, screaming, ‘I am going to come through this door and kill you,’ do you want us to respond with one police officer, which is proportional, or with all the resources at our command? Just think about it in that context. There is no such thing as a proportional response to terrorism. This is not something we are playing by the Marquis of Queensbury rules. People’s lives are at risk."

The Marquis of Queensbury rules are a set of strict tit-for-tat guidelines sometimes used in the boxing ring.

While the Arab-Muslim world is not grappling with the same "civilization vs. barbarism" paradigm presented by Mr. Wehner or Mr. Bloomberg’s proportionality context, the Muslims are divided. None of the players can be called pro-Israel, but some are anti-Hamas, not because the terrorist group murders Jews, but, rather, because they threaten the regimes of some Arab countries.

Those who oppose Hamas include the Fatah president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas and the governments of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Hamas counts among its supporters Syria, Iran, and Iran’s surrogate in Lebanon, the terrorist group Hezbollah.

In the West, Hamas’s most important supporters, besides Arab residents, are large segments of the media.

The US government, especially the Bush administration, and, according to polls, the American people are decidedly pro-Israel.

In Europe, the reaction is mixed.

One place where this has been little disagreement, for a change, is in Israel itself. Domestic opposition to the military action has been much more muted than in the past. Even among Israel’s most liberal segments, the sentiment is that those who castigate the Jewish state simply do not understand what Israel has been through in the past few years.

A poll taken by the left-wing Ha’aretz showed that 71 percent of the public supported continuing the hostilities against Hamas, while only 21percent supported a ceasefire.

On Jan 4, a poll by Maagar Mochot for Israel radio said 81 percent of Israelis back the incursion, even though 39 percent do not believe it will bring peace.

David Breakstone, head of the Department of Zionist Activities of the World Zionist Organization, supports the military operation in Gaza, but does not believe it will lead to peace.

"We really are not fighting for peace. We are fighting to protect ourselves and for our right to some normalcy in our lives. Few, if any, are under the illusion that this military campaign is going to result in peace. Hamas has repeatedly affirmed its commitment to the destruction of the State of Israel, and no amount of bombs is going to alter that. The problem is, neither is any amount of diplomacy. The Hamas covenant explicitly rejects negotiations as a legitimate form of struggle against a Zionist entity," he said.

He said Israel had entered the ceasefire agreement with the hope that "our avowed enemy would use this period of calm to invest its resources and energies in promoting the social agenda on which it rose to power, and, in the meantime, reconcile itself—without ever having to say so out loud—to living alongside its hated adversary."

At the same time, he said, Israel’s fear was that Hamas would take advantage of the opportunity to act with impunity and enhance its firepower.

"Unfortunately, it was our fears that were realized, not our hopes," he said.

As a result, he said, Israel is no longer interested in discussions of proportionality, such as firing back one missile into Gaza for every missile fired from it.

"We are long past the point where dispensing medicine can do any good. Instead, we are interested in radical surgery, in eliminating as much of the cancer of radical Islamist terrorism as possible before it metastasizes throughout the region, and eventually the entire world. If someone, somehow can offer us a noninvasive procedure that will allow us to do that, I am confident with every fiber of my being that we will opt for it, even if the method is considered chancy and unproven," he said.

Mr. Abbas’s position on the Cast Lead has been much less decisive. On one hand, he has castigated Israel for defending itself, but he has also blamed Hamas, mostly for refusing to extend its truce with Israel, thus prompting Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

Mr. Abbas, who lost control of Gaza to Hamas in a June 2007 coup, said that maintaining the truce could have helped the Arab residents of Gaza avoid the Israeli raids.

"We talked to [Hamas leaders] and we told them, ‘Please, we ask you, do not end the truce. Let the truce continue and not stop,’ so that we have avoided what happened," he told reporters in Cairo.

At the UN, however, the PA’s observer, Riyad Mansour, who was appointed by Mr. Abbas, blamed "this Israeli aggression" for the "very dangerous crossroads in the Middle East."

He accused Israel of "threatening the life and prosperity of 1.5 million Palestinians and also threatening to undermine the peace efforts."

Mr. Abbas’s Arab supporters, which include the governments of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, have given similarly ambiguous messages.

More than a week after Operation Cast Lead began, Jordan’s Prime Minister Nader al-Dahabi told parliament that his government, which has a peace treaty with Israel, retained the right to reconsider its relations with the Jewish state.

Jordan, he said, would "not remain silent" about Israel’s actions in Gaza and the "threat which risks the security of the whole area and its stability."

According to Arab papers, the head of Egyptian Intelligence Omar Suleiman has made clear that he, too, supports Israel’s campaign against Hamas. The London-based Palestinian paper, Al Quds-Al Arabi reported at the end of the December that Mr. Suleiman said he hoped Israel would destroy Hamas and "end the suffering in Gaza."

Sources told the paper Mr. Suleiman was angry that Hamas had refused to negotiate with Mr. Abbas’s faction and had "acted haughtily" towards Egypt.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, however, publicly complained to Israel’s ambassador about the IDF’s military actions in Gaza.

"We object to this, and we demand that the Israeli army does not carry out a new invasion," he said.

The chairman of the Egyptian Foreign Relations Committee and former Ambassador to Israel Muhammad Basyouni also criticized Hamas for betraying the Palestinians.

"Where are the Hamas leaders now, when Gazans are being killed? They are all in hiding," he told Cairo’s State TV.

He took issue with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s assertion that "no one cares if the Palestinians are annihilated."

"This is what Hamas wanted, to isolate itself from the rest of the Arab world, but the storm sweeping the Arab nations has proven the Strip has not been forsaken. We have proven the Palestinians cause is in our hearts. All free men believe the aggression must be stopped immediately and that all the crossings must be opened to allow the Palestinian people a free and dignified existence," he said.

Sources in Israel said that, despite these remarks, there are no indications that either Jordan or Egypt plans to alter diplomatic ties with Israel. Both countries receive millions—in Egypt’s case, billions—of dollars from the US, based on their full diplomatic and political relations with Israel, and neither regime seems eager to relinquish that aid.

Nevertheless, Israeli experts recognize that the Gaza conflict exposes its allies in the Arab world to tremendous internal pressure that will force the governments of Egypt and Jordan to address the issue.

Eyal Zisser, director of Tel Aviv’s Moshe Dayan Center, predicted that Jordan, followed by Egypt, might withdraw their ambassadors to Israel, but nothing more.

"What I see now are some demonstrations, as was expected, but nothing more than that. The Second Lebanon War was worse," he said.

Gamal Abdel Gawad, head of the international relations unit at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies, said he, too, saw the possibility that Jordan and Egypt might have to withdraw their diplomats from Israel or reduce their economic ties or exports of gas or energy supplies to Israel.

"Governments are under pressure and might do that to accommodate their public, to release the pressure. If the pressure gets to a certain point, they have to release it or risk escalation or deterioration between the governments and the people," he said.

The issue is particularly sensitive in Jordan, where Palestinians, who make up more than 60 percent of the population, constitute "a strong mobilizing force," he said.

According to Mr. Gawad, satellite TV channels that broadcast continually from Gaza "drive people to anger and make them more easily manipulated by radical ideologies and propaganda."

He did not think either Egypt or Jordan risk being taken over by radical regimes because of the Gaza conflict, but, he said, the pressure their governments experience can present "a challenge."

Jerusalem Post analyst Khaled Abu Toameh suggested the anger against Israel as well as their own Arab leaders could lead to a "third intifada."

"The IDF’s Cast Lead offensive may have severely harmed Hamas’s military capabilities and weakened its tight grip on the area, but it has also further undermined the credibility of the ‘moderate’ pro-Western Arab regimes," he said.

The media in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have been filled with reports suggesting that Mr. Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz had given Israel a "green light’ to attack Gaza.

These reports were fueled when Mr. Mubarak allowed Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to speak to the Egyptian media about Israel’s plans to crush Hamas.

"What would have happened if a Palestinian leader had issued threats to eliminate Israel from the heart of the Egyptian capital? It would have been the end of the world," said Abdel Bari Atawan, editor of Al-Quds al-Arabi.

Mr. Toameh said this could prove more than merely an embarrassment for these rulers. Already, he said, there have been "hundreds of thousands" of protesters condemning not Israel, but, rather what they regard as their own governments’ involvement in the "US-Zionist conspiracy to remove Hamas from power," he said.

Some Arab political analysts, he said, see this as the beginning of a popular "intifada’ against "corrupt, pro-Western Arab dictators, a movement that could intensify as the IDF operation continues and the number of Palestinian casualties rises."

According to Mr. Toameh, most of the "heat" on the Arab street is directed against Messrs Mubarak and Abbas, because they openly blamed Hamas.

Walid Tabtabai, an Islamist member of the Kuwaiti parliament who recently took off his shoe and waived it in the air while hurling curses at Mr. Abbas, is now being hailed as a hero throughout the Arab world.

Other members of the Kuwaiti parliament have called on their government to ban the "traitor" Abbas from entering the country.

In a similar move, several members of the Jordanian parliament took the unprecedented step last month of burning the Israeli flag inside the chamber and calling on King Abdullah to expel the Israeli ambassador.

On Friday, Jan 2, 60,000 protesters in Amman, Jordan, chanted for Hamas to increase rocket attacks against Israel. They also chanted slogans against the US and Arab leaders, especially Messrs Mubarak and Abbas.

King Abdullah reportedly found the demonstrations so offensive, he asked his intelligence chief, who had failed to stop the rallies, to step down.

Mr. Mubarak is being attacked not only for allowing Ms. Livni to speak, but also for participating in the Israel blockade on Gaza by refusing to reopen the Rafa border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

The Arab street is not alone in recognizing this. Writing in the Canadian National Post last month, Lorne Gunter asked, "If Israel is the ‘occupier’ of Gaza, how come it has no troops or military posts in Gaza, and has not had since 2005?"

He argued with the position of many pro-Palestinians that the smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt were dug only because of Israel’s "occupation" and "the siege." Mr. Gunter pointed out that Egypt, not Israel, controls Gaza’s southwestern frontier.

"So how do Israel’s restrictions make Gaza-Egypt tunnels necessary? If Egypt were not just as determined to keep Gaza sealed off, the tunnels would be unnecessary, no matter what Israel was doing," he said.

In fact, Egypt has kept Palestinians out of their country ever since the end of the 1967 Six-Day War. Before that war, Egypt kept the Palestinians in decrepit refugee camps, where, under Hamas, many of them still reside.

"Doesn’t all this make Egypt at least a co-occupier?" said Mr. Gunter.

Several months ago, when Palestinians forced open the crossing into Egypt, Mr. Mubarak’s government brutally resealed it and threw all Palestinians who had entered Egypt illegally out of the country.

During Operation Cast Lead, Egypt has been no less insistent on keeping the borders between it and Gaza shut. Egyptian authorities have called on locals to refrain from assisting infiltrators from Gaza in any way.

Mr. Mubarak’s stated policy is that the border crossing will not be reopened until Mr. Abbas’s loyalists are permitted to return to the terminal, which means waiting for Hamas to relinquish power to Fatah, in Gaza, a position that has enraged Palestinians.

This anger was reflected in a fiery speech given in Lebanon by Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, who publicly called on the Egyptian people to overthrow Mr. Mubarak and his government.

"Mubarak has become the number one enemy of the Arab masses," a Palestinian newspaper editor told Mr. Toameh.

The editor added that Mr. Abbas is also "in big trouble, because he’s being portrayed as someone who supported the Israeli attack so that he could return to the Gaza Strip."

These accusations prompted Mr. Abbas and his aides to initiate a campaign to convince the Palestinians and the Arab world that they have no plans to return to Gaza "aboard Israeli tanks." Further, they insist, they never gave their blessings to the Operation Cast Lead.

It may not matter much. Mr. Abbas’s term is due to expire on January 9, and Hamas leaders have said that, after that date, they will not recognize his position at all. Even many of his own Fatah members see Mr. Abbas as a failed leader who is responsible for losing Gaza to Hamas.

In fact, after January 9, the Palestinians’ only legitimately elected Palestinian government will consist of Hamas.

According to Mr. Toameh, the incitement against Messrs Mubarak and Abbas is likely to intensify as Al-Jazeera continues to broadcast horrific images of dead women and children in Gaza and, simultaneously, depicting the "moderate" Arab leaders as pawns of the Israelis and Americans.

"The message that Al-Jazeera is sending to the Arab and Islamic masses is: ‘You must rise against your treacherous leaders, because they are serving the interests of Israel and the US,’" said Mr. Toameh.

This is not new. During the Second Lebanon War, many Arab media outlets also waged a campaign against Arab leaders, accusing them of "collusion" with Israel.

"Fortunately for those leaders, that war did not last too long. Moreover, it was regarded as a campaign against Hezbollah alone, while the current offensive is being seen as an attempt to punish the Palestinians for having voted for Hamas," said Mr. Toameh.

The media campaign, he said, will probably leave Hamas more popular than ever, not just among Palestinians, but also "on the streets of Khartoum, Amman, Cairo, and Beirut," where Arabs seem no longer afraid to openly condemn their leaders as "traitors" and "Israeli puppets."

By seeking to ban pro-Hamas demonstrations, Messrs Mubarak and Abbas and King Abdullah II have only drawn more fire from their constituents and the Arab media, said Mr. Toameh.

According to Palestinian writer Rashad Abu Shawar, the Arab street is ready for a "third intifada," which he saw at the beginning of January "on the streets of Ramallah, Hebron, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, as well as inside Israel."

In these places, said Mr. Shawar, the Arab regimes of Messrs Abbas and Mubarak are regarded as eager to see the surrender of Gaza "so they can eliminate the term ‘resistance’ from their lexicon."

"The third intifada won’t only finish off the PA; it will also destroy the illusion of peace with the Israeli enemy," said Mr. Shawar.

The radicals’ disillusionment with Mr. Mubarak had already begun when, in June 2008, Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, which Hamas never implemented. While the number of rockets aimed at Israel’s civilian population in the western Negev decreased, they never stopped.

On December 19, after Israel responded to a particularly nasty round of rockets fired on its southern population by destroying some of the smuggling tunnels, Hamas announced an official end to the ceasefire by launching dozens of rockets per day into the Jewish state, deliberately targeting homes, schools, and businesses. The rockets usually began at 7:30 in the morning, just the time when children were walking to school and adults commuting to work.

"In response to these attacks on their people, the leaders of Israel have launched military operations on Hamas positions in Gaza," said President George Bush on his regularly scheduled radio address on January 3. "As part of their strategy, Hamas terrorists often hide within the civilian population, which puts innocent Palestinians at risk."

Mr. Bush said that while a truce between the two sides was important, "another one-way ceasefire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable."

"And promises from Hamas will not suffice. There must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end," he said.

In his analysis, Mr. Bush mirrored the sentiments of most Americans. At the very beginning of the Israeli defensive air attacks, a Rasmussen poll found that only 13 percent of Americans thought Israel was responsible for the situation in Gaza; 55 percent blamed the Palestinians; and 32 percent were unsure.

The breakdown along party lines was surprising, and does not necessarily bode well for Israel when President-elect Barack Obama takes office on January 20. The poll found that while 62 percent of Republicans support Israel’s decision to take military action against the Palestinians, only 31 percent of Democrats agree.

A majority of Democrats, 55 percent, said Israel should have tried to find a diplomatic solution first, a view shared by only 27 percent of Republicans.

Further, while 75 percent of Republicans said Israel is an ally of the US, only 55 percent of Democrats see the Jewish state that way.

On average, 63 percent of Americans see Israel of an ally of the US, and only 3 percent see the Jewish state as an "enemy." Some 27 percent place Israel "somewhere in between," and seven percent are undecided.

Just over half of those surveyed, 51 percent, fear Israel’s actions in Gaza might cause more terrorism against the US.

Like Mr. Bush and most Americans, the Canadian government has fingered Hamas as the cause of the current conflict.

"Canada maintains that the rocket attacks are the cause of this crisis," said Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon.

Messrs Bush and Cannon are not the only Western leaders who consider Israel’s cause to be just. At the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, Czechoslovakian Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, who assumed the presidency of the European Union in January, announced that Hamas had "excluded itself from serious political debate" due to its rocket attacks on Israel.

"Why am I one of the few that has expressed understanding for Israel? I enjoy the luxury of telling the truth," he said.

He said Hamas was responsible for its own growing death toll because it had placed its military bases and gun warehouses in densely populated areas and "steeply increased the number of rockets fired at Israel."

"That is not acceptable anymore," he said, calling Israel’s action in Gaza "defensive, not offensive."

Mr. Schwarzenberg, who will serve as the EU’s president for the next six months, said he intended to work for closer relations between the EU and Israel.

He has his work cut out for him. Almost immediately after he made his statements to reporters, the EU called for a bilateral end to the violence. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the outgoing president of the EU, condemned both Israel and Hamas, but, he said, Israel had displayed "a disproportionate use of force."

Jerusalem Post analyst Gerald Steinberg said the French statement "makes no distinction between Hamas and the IDF, or between aggressor and defender."

"The French government is promoting a vague, ‘humanitarian ceasefire’ which, Israel fears, will allow Hamas to rebuild and even extend its rocket forces for the next round," said Mr. Steinberg.

Like Mr. Sarkozy, Sweden, which is scheduled to take over the presidency on July 1, generally opposes military action, especially by Israel, and tends to see Palestinians as victims.

Once again displaying the PA’s ambiguity, Mr. Abbas’s aid, Saeb Erekat, called for the world to condemn Mr. Schwarzenberg’s position.

In response, the French Foreign Ministry said that Israel’s "dangerous military escalation" had "complicated" efforts to end the fighting and bring aid to the area.

Further underlining the impression that the EU is now divided, a British government source told Reuters, "[The Czech position] is not the position of the British government."

By January 5, positions changed. Mr. Schwarzenberg’s office retracted its support for Israel, while France switched its criticism from Israel to Hamas.

The Czech Republic’s spokesman, Jiri Potuznik, said Mr. Schwazenberg’s support for Israel was "a youthful mistake."

"Even the undisputable right of the state to defend itself does not allow actions which largely affect civilians," said Mr. Potuznik.

Mr. Sarkozy, however, told Lebanese newspapers that Hamas had to accept the lion’s share of the blame for the hostilities.

"Hamas, which decided to break the truce and resume rocket fire against Israel, bears a heavy responsibility for the suffering of the Palestinians," he said.

Despite their contradictory statements, Hamas remains on the EU’s list of terrorist organizations.

In London, British Foreign Minister David Miliband urged both Israel and Hamas to stop hostilities.

But former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind said Israel’s actions were "not unreasonable."

"Imagine if, for several years, the IRA had been allowed to fire missiles into the villages of Northern Ireland from the Irish Republic with the consent and approval of the Irish government," he said, noting that the comparison itself is "controversial,"

But the point, he said, is the same: "Every government has a first duty to protect its citizens."

He pointed out that if Hamas, after Israel "disengaged" from Gaza, had concentrated its energies on economic development rather than on cross-border attacks, "the Israeli government and public would have been much more willing to make a similar withdrawal from the West Bank, where the majority of Palestinians live."

He noted that Israel would never permit a Palestinian state unless the leaders "provide an absolute guarantee of an end to hostilities by all Palestinian parties."

In Britain, the BBC’s pro-Hamas tilt to its coverage of the Gaza conflict "horrified and angered" Tory MP Michael Fabricant, prompting him to file a formal complaint with the chairman of the BBC Trust.

According to British journalist Melanie Phillips, typical BBC coverage ignored the 10,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilians from Gaza over the last seven years, to highlight "human interest" stories "reminiscent of salacious photos in the cheaper red-top newspapers."

One of them, she said, was a "heart-rending report" from a Palestinian in Cyprus who "imagined" that "Gaza’s streets would be running with the blood of dead Arab children."

BBC also featured an "unbiased report" from a British citizen, Hatim Shurrab, who works in Gaza with Islamic Relief Worldwide, a group affiliated with Hamas

Ms. Phillips pointed out that Mr. Shurrab "didn’t just pop up on the BBC." Rather, for the entire first week of January, the BBC website published an "aid worker’s diary," written by Mr. Shurrab. It is, she said, "chock-full of manipulative rubbish about conditions in Gaza."

Mr. Shurrab, for example, expressed approval of the death penalty, presumably without due process, for "collaborators" with Israel or Fatah.

Ms. Phillips commended Mr. Fabricant, but, she said, she would prefer if the BBC’s "collusion with Hamas, along with coverage whose incendiary distortions cannot but have incited hatred of Israel among its viewers and listeners" had prompted an emergency debate in Parliament.

When Ms. Phillips wrote her impressions about the BBC coverage for the London Daily Mail, she said, she was expecting little reaction. Instead, she said, she was "absolutely overwhelmed."

"There is a large groundswell of support for Israel and detestation of Hamas," she said, noting that most of the people who wrote to her were neither Jewish nor Evangelical Christian, who are usually pro-Israel.

"The people I heard from have had no particular view about the Middle East one way or another. This in my view, is a significant shift of opinion towards Israel amongst ordinary people," she said.

Typical of the letters she received was one which called her piece "a breath of fresh air."

"After so many days of BBC-led propaganda, I am sick of seeing pictures of shell-shocked, wide-eyed Palestinians, and not a word hardly about the poor sods in Israel who have had to undergo a relentless bombardment for years," said the letter.

In Germany, there is also a debate. Chancellor Angela Merkel has given her unconditional support to Israel’s strikes, prompting numerous attacks from her coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), as well as from the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Left Party.

Ms. Merkel said Hamas’s rocket attacks were to blame for Israel’s military operation. She stressed that Israel has the right to defend its territory and citizens.

"The terror of Hamas cannot be accepted," she said, demanding that the terrorists "immediately and permanently" stop rocket attacks on Israel.

SPD MP Rolf Mutzenich, who is considered friendly with Iran, accused Ms Merkel of "siding with the permanent Israeli bombing" of Gaza.

He argued that the Second Lebanon War in 2006 showed that "Hamas and Hezbollah cannot be defeated militarily."

The foreign policy spokesman of the FDP, MP Werner Hoyer, said that Ms. Merkel’s "raising the question of guilt" was the "wrong approach to the peace process."

Left Party foreign policy spokesman, MK Wolfgang Gehrcke, demanded that Ms. Merkel and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier publicly criticize Israel.

During the Second Lebanon War, Mr. Gehrcki marched in a pro-Hezbollah demonstration in Berlin, where the most popular slogans were "Zionists are fascists;" "No place for Israel;" and "We are all Hezbollah."

In Germany, at the beginning of January, there were a series of anti-Israel demonstrations throughout the country that verged on outright antisemitism. About 8,000 protesters marched in Berlin and 10,000 in Frankfurt, including Left Party members who waved banners equating Operation Cast Lead with a second Holocaust. Some carried signs saying "Israel, go to hell," while others held signs with the Star of David crossed out and the words "Israel, child murderer."

In Frankfurt, an Israeli flag was burned.

Levi Solomon, the representative of the 12,000-member Berlin Jewish community, filed a criminal complaint saying the demonstration amounted to incitement against the Jews.

"We cannot accept antisemitic taunts such as ‘Jews Out,’" he said.

Sacha Stawski, editor-in-chief of Honestly Concerned, a media watchdog publication in Frankfurt, said he heard chants of "Gas the Jews" and "Merkel Out."

Whom the German media chooses to interview is also an issue. In December, Deutschlandradio radio host Birgit Kolkmann interviewed Moshe Zuckermann, who claims to be an historian and sociologist as well as a regular writer for the aggressively anti-Israel left-wing paper junge Welt, which has been called "the central German newspaper of Hamas."

During the interview, Mr. Zuckermann said Israel had killed "400,000 Palestinians" during the current conflict.

At the time, the reported number of deaths was about 400.

Vienna-based veteran journalist and media critic Karl Pfeifer cited Ms. Kolkmann for failing to question the accuracy of the impossibly large number.

While Deutschlandradio corrected its on-line transcript about eight hours after the broadcast, it did not modify the live tape of the show on-line, leaving the false statistic intact.

Thomas Wische, an editor with Deutschlandradio, called the error "a bad mistake" and, he said, after the broadcast, Mr. Zuckerman was "embarrassed" by it.

Mr. Wische defended Ms. Kolkmann, saying she "did not notice" the error, but had had "no bad intention or ideology."

Mr. Wische said Mr. Zuckermanm was a guest on the program in an attempt to "document a piece of the opinion spectrum."

Another European leader who has refused to blame Israel is Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende.

"Condemning Israel is pointless because both parties have to be addressed," he said in an interview on Dutch TV. "As long as the rocket attacks continue, Israel will always say, ‘We cannot accept this,’ and I understand that."

He said he hoped that a ceasefire would be put in place as soon as possible so that humanitarian aid could reach Gaza and work towards the peace process could resume, "however difficult that might be."

"It is always regrettable when there are civilian casualties, but, at the same time, I see Hamas continuously firing rockets on Israel. It is essential that both parties renounce violence, but then it is essential that Hamas stops firing rockets because it isn’t acceptable that Israel finds itself in a sphere of threat," he said.

Despite most European government’s moderate positions, pro-Palestinian marchers have taken to the streets of Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Austria, Sweden, Poland, Greece, and Cyprus, with reports of skirmishes outside Israeli embassies.

While some of the demonstrators are home-grown, many are immigrants or children of immigrants from Muslim countries.

In Paris, 20,000 people marched in support of the Palestinians on Sat., January 3; 12,000 showed their solidarity with Israel the next day.

More sinister are the news stories indicating that Jews are being attacked by Muslims throughout Europe. According to the AP, government officials and Jewish leaders are concerned that the conflict in Gaza is spilling over into violence in Europe. There have been attacks against Jews and synagogues in Denmark, France, Sweden, and Britain.

On Monday, January 5, Muslim assailants rammed a burning car into the gates of a synagogue in Toulouse in southwest France and unlighted gasoline bombs were found in a car nearby and in the synagogue’s yard. At the same time, a Jewish congregation in Helsingborg, in southern Sweden, was attacked.

A day earlier, slogans, including "murderers…You broke the ceasefire," were scrawled on Israel’s Embassy in Stockholm.

In Denmark, a 27-year-old Dane, born in Lebanon to Palestinian parents, shot two young Israelis in a shopping mall. The Israelis were selling Dead Sea cosmetic products in a kiosk.

Belgian police in Antwerp and Brussels were ordered on high alert after recent pro-Palestinian demonstrations ended in violence and arrests.

In France, from where thousands of Jews have already emigrated to the US, Canada, and Israel, because they felt unsafe, Mr. Sarkozy issued a warning that the country would not tolerate violence linked to the Gaza crisis.

Nevertheless, Jews in the small Strasbourg suburb of Lingolsheim, in eastern France, awoke on Tues, January 6, to find "assassins" spray-painted outside the synagogue. According to the mayor’s office, the Jewish community filed a complaint for "degradation of a place of worship."

French-Muslim leader Mohammed Moussaoui condemned the attack, but Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, a Muslim-extremist monitoring website, and the author of eight books on Islam and jihad, criticized the AP journalist for not asking the Muslim leader "what measures the Muslim community in France would take to make sure that such attacks would not happen in the future and that antisemitism did not spread among Muslims in France."

Even in the US, some who are defending Israel have faced threats, and there has been an increase in vandalism and attacks on Jewish institutions, although the number is still small.

"When things heat up in the region, our attentiveness to security matters also increases. We’re keeping a close eye and closely coordinating with federal and local law enforcement," said William Daroff, director of the UJC’s Washington office.

None of the anti-Israel, antisemitic attacks deterred the UN from a comparably anti-Israel line. Arguing that he had "repeatedly condemned the rocket attacks by Hamas," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon nevertheless waited until Israel began to defend itself before speaking more forcefully. Israel’s efforts left him "deeply alarmed by the current escalation of violence in and around Gaza," he said.

"This is unacceptable," he said, demanding that regional and world leaders take "more action to end the violence."

"While recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself, I have also condemned the excessive use of force by Israel in Gaza," he said. "Israel must keep opening all border crossings necessary for the continued provision of humanitarian supplies."

In 2005, Israel withdrew its troops and expelled 10,000 Jews from their homes, schools, and businesses in Gaza’s Jewish settlement bloc called Gush Katif. One year later, Hamas won the PA’s parliamentary elections, and, in 2007, expelled forces loyal to Mr. Abbas, who was willing to negotiate with Israel.

Hamas and its leaders publicly insist that, ceasefires—which they call "lulls"—notwithstanding, their goal is to destroy the Jewish state.

Israel and the Western world involved in peace efforts, including the US, the EU, the UN, and the Former Soviet Union, have insisted that, to receive aid and a seat at the table, Hamas will have to adopt Mr. Abbas’s concessions: renunciation of violence, recognition of Israel’s right to exist, and acceptance of all agreements signed by the PA.

In an effort to convince the Palestinians in Gaza either to overthrow Hamas in favor of Mr. Abbas’s Fatah or to pressure the terror group to give up terrorism, Israel has implemented an economic blockade of Gaza. As it does at checkpoints throughout Judea and Samaria, Israel also closely monitors the border crossings into Gaza because they have been used by terrorists to infiltrate into Israel as well as to bring arms, designed to murder Jews.

Hamas calls the closures and crackdowns at the border crossings "the siege."

To counteract "the siege," ever since Hamas usurped full control of Gaza, the terrorist group has imported thousands of guns, rockets, and mortars, many by way of underground smuggling tunnels that also serve as a conduit for less lethal commerce.

This ambiguous relationship between Egypt and the Palestinians is nothing new. Cairo has long been determined to support the Palestinians, but, if possible, from a distance.

But the PA’s UN observer, Mr. Mansour, did not have Egypt in mind when he said the Arab sector would work "day and night" to push for a resolution that would "condemn the crimes committed by Israel and stop the military aggression, and provide protection for the Palestinians and lift the siege."

When the UN Security Council tried to pass a resolution calling for an immediate halt to the violence in Gaza, protection for Arab civilians, and opening the Gaza crossings, it failed.

Circulated by Libya on behalf of the 22-member Arab League, the draft resolution made no mention of the incessant missile-and-mortar attacks on Israeli civilians by Gaza terrorists. Rather, it condemned "the excessive, disproportionate, and indiscriminate use of force by Israel."

The US immediately rejected the resolution. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad noted that Washington had seen no evidence that Hamas intended to cease its own fire.

Most analysts believe that, just as happened during the Second Lebanon War, efforts by the West to stop the hostility will eventually result in some sort of ceasefire. The hope is that, if Israel does its job properly, this ceasefire will be more effective than the one with Hezbollah. The appearance of diplomatic foot-dragging is seen as an effort to allow Israel to do what it feels is necessary.

Despite claims by Hamas supporters that Israel was preventing humanitarian efforts, the Jewish state allowed close to 400 people with foreign passports—mostly foreign-born wives and children of Palestinian men—to leave Gaza last month. Only about 200 actually left, mostly for the US, Russia, and other Eastern European countries.

"They were very happy just to get out of Gaza. Each lady came with three, four, or five children. Nobody can guarantee their security when they stay in Gaza," said Anastasia Fedorova, press secretary at the Russia Embassy in Israel.

Imad Abulkhair, 39, a pediatrician in Gaza City, is married to a Romanian woman who was allowed to leave with their three children. However, he said, they would not leave without him.

"Either we all leave Gaza or we all stay. The important thing is for us to be together," said Dr. Abulkhair. The Romanian Embassy in Tel Aviv will provide him with a visa which, he said, he hopes the Israelis will recognize.

During Operation Cast Lead, the Jewish state has continuously allowed hundreds of trucks carrying thousands of tons of supplies, including food and medicine provided by the UN and other agencies to enter Gaza.

In addition, the most badly wounded Palestinians have been transported to Israeli hospitals for treatment. Most of those who have been taken to Israeli hospitals are children, such as 9-year-old Sari Alsamana from Beit Hanoun, who was playing with his cousin outside his house in the northern Gaza town when a Qassam rocket fired by Gaza terrorists landed nearby. Minutes later, there was an additional rocket attack in the same spot.

Both boys were taken to Shifa Hospital in Gaza, but, after the Israeli military operation was launched and the Israeli Air Force began bombing, the hospital was overrun with casualties. Sari was discharged to his home, where his condition worsened.

A neighborhood clinic arranged for the child to be taken to Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv for medical care.

"Now I know he is in good hands. They will take care of him with devotion, said Sari’s father, Mana Alsamana, who was staying with his son until he recovers from his injuries.

"The atmosphere is different; it’s America here. In Gaza, there is nothing but fear, cold, hunger, and war," said Mr. Alsamana.

Other Palestinian children from Gaza have also received care in Israel. On Dec 31, a seven-year-old child with Down’s Syndrome who had suffered a head injury when an Israeli bomb dropped next to his house, was taken to the Schneider Children’s Hospital in Petach Tikvah.

The child, whose father was killed by the bomb and whose mother was wounded, arrived in critical condition with serious injuries to his spinal cord and neck.

"Iran eagerly supplies Hamas with plenty of weapons to fire on Israel, but it provides precious little food or medical aid for ordinary Palestinians. Nor do Saudi Arabia or any of the oil-rich Gulf states come close to Israel’s aid levels," said Canada’s Mr. Gunter.

Ms. Livni denied that there was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. "Israel has been supplying comprehensive humanitarian aid to the strip," she said.

Mr. Bush recognized that living conditions have worsened in Gaza, but he blamed Hamas for the deterioration.

"By spending its resources on rocket launchers instead of roads and schools, Hamas has demonstrated that it has no intention of serving the Palestinian people," said Mr. Bush.

That detail has not deterred pro-Hamas demonstrations across the Arab world, even in Egypt and Jordan.

Those that have been stopped by Egyptian police were generally organized by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, a group with historical and ideological links to Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood, which opposes the government of Mr. Mubarak and could be responsible for an intifada against him, has accused Egypt’s leadership of "collusion" with Israel, a crime punishable by death in parts of the Arab world.

Such accusations have outraged Mr. Mubarak’s supporters, such as Egyptian actor Adel Imam, perhaps the Arab world’s most prominent movie star. Mr. Imam, 68, shocked many of his fans last month by expressing understanding for Israel’s military operation.

A longtime outspoken critic of Islamist fundamentalism, he pointed out that Hamas ignored the warnings of Egypt’s leadership, choosing instead to wage "an asymmetrical war."

"They should have known that Israel wasn’t going to receive the attacks with roses," he said.

Jordan, too, has a huge Muslim Brotherhood presence, which jeopardizes the regime of King Abdullah II.

Some observers maintain that Jordan and Egypt would object strenuously if Israel were to legitimize Hamas by holding direct negotiations with the terrorist group. There would be direct implications for Egypt and Jordan, putting stress on their regimes’ dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood.

"Many countries in the Arab world who are publicly objecting to Israel’s self-defense operations are privately—when the doors are closed—rooting for Israel and hoping Israel puts a real damper on Hamas’s capabilities because they themselves have problems with the radical Islamist groups in their own countries," said Dore Gold, former Israeli Ambassador to the UN.

Large pro-Hamas demonstrations have been held in Turkey, Iran, Syria, India, Lebanon.

Mostly small demonstrations have taken place in areas controlled by Mr. Abbas’s PA. In Ramallah, Hamas loyalists have openly fought with Mr. Abbas’s supporters, calling them "collaborators," which is the accusation that they work with Israel. Even in Mr. Abbas’s area, the punishment for the crime of "collaboration" is death.

In the eastern Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, Israel, fearing violent mobs, deployed riot police who allowed only men older than 55 with Israeli-issued identity cards to enter the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, an action which sparked anger.

Christian support for Israel is also divided. Among Israel’s most ardent supporters are the millions of fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, directed by Orthodox Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, announced it will be providing more than $280,000 to Israeli communities currently under fire from terrorists in Gaza.

But in Bethlehem, Mayor Victor Batarseh, a Christian, said he had shut off the decorative lights in the city, including those on the Christmas tree, "to protest against the massacres committed in Gaza."

When the PA took over Bethlehem in 1995, 90 percent of the city’s population was Christian. Today, Christians represent only 20 percent. Mr. Batarseh has joked that more Christian Arabs originally from Bethlehem now live in South America and Detroit, Michigan.

Officially, Mr. Batarseh blamed the Christian emigration on "the Israeli occupation," but most analysts point to the unofficial and official persecution of Christians by Palestinian Muslims.

In Bethlehem, a few hundred demonstrators have marched in the city, calling for unity between Hamas and Fatah against Israel.

"We call upon the international community to stop the aggression and stop the siege over Gaza and for the Arab countries to take conclusive decisions on Gaza," said Khaled al-Azza, one of the organizers.

In Gaza, which has a Christian population of about 3,000, the takeover by Hamas was accompanied by a series of attacks on Christians and their institutions, including murders, vandalism, bombings of schools and churches, and kidnappings.

Just before Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, terrorists in Gaza fired a mortar at the Erez Crossing into Israel just as a group of Christians were on line, waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas.

Nevertheless, after Israel began to fight back, Pope Benedict XVI lamented that "the holy land" has "seen itself struck by an outbreak of unprecedented violence."

He said he was "profoundly saddened by the deaths, the wounded, the material damage, the suffering, and the tears of the peoples victim to this tragic recurrence of attacks and reprisals."

The left-wing World Council of Churches, which works with the Catholic Church and includes 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican, and other denominations, representing more than 560 million Christians in more than 110 countries, was more explicit. The WCC condemned only Israel’s "violence against Gaza."

WCC General Secretary Methodist Rev Dr. Samuel Kobia, of Kenya, called on "governments in the region and abroad" to protect "those who are at risk on both sides of the border." Nevertheless, he singled out only those killed, wounded, and "traumatized" in Gaza as a result of the "bombardment of one of the most densely populated places on Earth."

The Episcopal Church’s presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori "challenged the Israeli government to call a halt to this wholly disproportionate escalation of violence and the Palestinian forces to end their rocket attacks on Israelis." However, she said, her primary concern was getting "vital humanitarian assistance to the suffocating people of Gaza."

The vast majority of American-Jewish groups have been very supportive of Israel’s counter-terrorist campaign. The exceptions are from the radical left-wing, including Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum, and J Street, which sees itself as the left-wing answer to AIPAC.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and president of J Street, took credit last fall for keeping Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Sen Hillary Clinton (D-NY), now the incoming Secretary of State, from addressing a rally against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,

Mr. Ben-Ami conceded that Israel "has a right to protect itself," however, he said, he did not think "this is a smart thing to do."

"This question we are raising is this: Is Israel’s military response ultimately counterproductive?" He said he and his group think it is.

Debra DeLee, CEO of Americans for Peace Now, agreed, warning that Israel could get "bogged down in an open-ended mission in Gaza."

Richard Gordon, president of the American Jewish Congress, said his organization had been "wary" from the start concerning Hamas’s intentions to abide by the truce, fearing the terrorists would "use this opportunity not to reach out a hand in friendship but in fact to regroup, restock, rearm, and prepare for further aggression."

"We now know that Hamas did precisely that," said Mr. Gordon.

Other pro-Israel groups, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, held daily conference calls with reporters and activists to make the case for the Jewish state.

The Israel Project (TIP) was available to speak to reporters throughout the world.

TIP founder and president Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi said her focus was on the Europeans and the UN. "Our focus is on building support to allow Israel to win this war, so people don’t have to face rockets on an almost daily basis," she said.\.

The Jewish Voice and Opinion is a politically conservative Jewish publication which present news and feature articles not generally available elsewhere in the Jewish or secular media. Articles may be reprinted in their entirety with attribution.