Newsletter No. 242
April 19, 2006

 

TOKYO BENDING ON HAMAS POLICY

When the going gets tough, the not-so-tough begin running for cover. Case and point is the most recent talk coming out of Tokyo in regard to Hamas.

I expressed my surprise in Shingetsu Newsletter No. 192 that Tokyo took a line that was clearly distinct from that of the United States and Europe. Tokyo basically decided to keep their previous policies toward the Palestinian Authority in effect after the victory of Hamas in democratic elections. Even at the outset, I was skeptical about how long this would last, writing that, “we’ll have to see how well this incipient Japanese policy holds up after [Tatsuo] Arima is back home and the Bush Administration tightens the screws on Tokyo.”

I’m not aware of any radical new moves by Hamas in the past couple months, but it seems clear that Washington is bending Tokyo to its will in any case.

Yesterday, MOFA Assistant Press Secretary Akira Chiba indicated that Japan would offer no new aid to the Palestinian Authority until they alter their position on Israel. He said, “Our stance is that we want to see whether it (Hamas) will adopt peaceful measures and participate in the peace process. Until we have a clearer picture, there won't be a situation where new aid would be given… Hamas has clearly had a hostile policy toward Israel, so if that doesn't change we won't be in a situation where we can offer aid.”

It will be noted that this is the very opposite of the earlier Arima Line. Previously, Tokyo indicated that they would make no changes in their aid policies unless Hamas did something serious to alter them. Now they are saying that Hamas must make changes, or else there will be no new aid programs. Clearly, Tokyo has begun falling in line with US-Israeli policy here, much as I suspected they would.

The day before Tokyo’s announcement, a young Palestinian suicide bomber named Samir Hammad killed himself and nine others at a falafel stall in Tel Aviv. A rival party to Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for the attack. Most thinking people realize that the attack was aimed partially at embarrassing Hamas itself, but nevertheless, the Israeli government announced that they are “holding Hamas responsible” for the attack.

This is an old, old game that should fool nobody, but somehow always does. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Israeli government used to blame Yasir Arafat and Fatah for actions in fact carried out by the rival PFLP or the Abu Nidal group. During the Oslo Peace Process era of the 1990s, the PLO was “held responsible” for attacks by rival Hamas. Now we have Hamas getting saddled with anything that might be done by any one of its Palestinian rivals. You can lay money on the fact that if an Israeli soldier so much as stubs his toe in the West Bank, Hamas will now be “held responsible” for it every time by the Israeli government.

The actual press statement issued by Tokyo on Monday’s bombing was relatively evenhanded, but Mr. Chiba’s statement yesterday makes it clear that the Japanese government is losing its will to play their own hand, and is beginning to buckle under… once again.

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Here is an interesting exchange that took place at a MOFA press conference on April 11th, before the latest turn.

Q: What is your updated policy if any towards the Hamas government?

Deputy Press Secretary Tomohiko Taniguchi: About Hamas, the Japanese view is that so far as humanitarian concerns are involved, there has to be a hand extended by Japan to support them, and so we are not giving up humanitarian support to the Palestinian region. Other than that, we are watching very much closely what sort of policies the Hamas government is going to have vis-a-vis Israel and the need to give up violent means to pursue their goals.

Q: If you watch the news you will obviously see that the violent means are done by Israel rather than Hamas, especially yesterday according to various Arabic reports and Hamas and Palestinian statements. There were around 1,000 missiles fired at Gaza. So why do you ignore the violence by Israel and focus only on the so-called violence by Hamas?

Mr. Taniguchi: It is not that the Japanese Government is focusing only on the violent means that the Hamas government may not want to give up. We condemn violent means conducted by anyone, anywhere, anytime, and there is no question about it. So we are sending, on a regular basis, a special envoy to the region. All the time we are sending a clear message that we condemn any violent means by either side, to the Israelis as well.

Q: So I understand from your answer that you condemn yesterday's violence and missile-firing by Israel.

Mr. Taniguchi: Yes.

COMMENTARY

1) From Yoav Herman of Tsukuba University on April 20, 2006.

It seems that the usual double standard, biased rhetoric, of the American and European leftwing activists always find a way to blame Israel in everything, even when nine Israeli civilians were killed and 68 were injured by a Palestinian suicide bomber in the middle of a Jewish holiday. Do you really think that accusing Israel of seeing Hamas - which is the Palestinian government at the moment - as responsible for this terrorist attack will make Israel or Israelis listen to you or the "liberal" group you are representing? Even leftwing Israelis, like myself, are amazed over and over again with how much bias and double standard Israel is being treated from those groups and international media. This is the double standard that is being toward Israel from the day it was created, and this is the double standard that makes Jews feel that there is no other way to protect themselves from that kind of persecution but with a strong, self-sustained Jewish state.

Why is it OK to blame the Israeli government as a whole, when one of its solders or citizens commit a crime against the Palestinians but it is not OK to do the same when a Palestinian terrorist kills Israeli civilians? The Palestinians want to be regarded as a state only when it suits their needs but what they cannot grasp is the fact that being a state means to have one army, one police force and one government that control all of those organizations. Being a state is not having one president- Mahmud Abbas - that says one thing, one government - which is a terrorist organization - that says the opposite thing, and between three to four independent terrorist organizations that do whatever they want in the Palestinian territories.

You want to know why Israel sees Hamas as responsible for the suicide bomber's attack even though another terrorist organization - the Islamic Jihad - did it? How about because the Hamas is the functioning Palestinian government at the moment? How about the fact that this ridiculous terrorist government encourages those independent terrorist organizations to kill innocent Israeli civilians? How about the fact that after the terrorist attack last Tuesday Hamas not only condoned the attack but even celebrated the killings? How about the statistics that shows that 88 such suicide bombing operations were stopped by Israeli security forces since Hamas came into power? The only difference is that this one got through.

And now for the latest news: Israel rules out a military strike after the Tel-Aviv blast. Let see how foreign "liberal" activists put an anti-Israeli angle on this decision. I am sure they will do a "great job" in this case as well.

It is about time for the Japanese government to take a hardline policy towards the Hamas government. I don't understand why it took nine lives and 68 injured civilians to make Japan realize who they are dealing with.

If this is an open newsletter and not a one man show, please forward this text to the rest of the members of your newsletter. People need to see the whole picture of this conflict and choose for themselves.

2) From Wataru Tenga of TransNet International on April 21, 2006.

I think Mr. Herman protests too much. For the most part, the media both in Japan and the US tend to give front-page coverage to Palestinian attacks on Israelis. The incident above received more coverage, for example, than the deaths of civilians at the hands of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan that occurred around the same time. It also received far more coverage than the attacks carried out by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in Hebron recently, which were made known only by the efforts of certain activists who happened to observe them (see the report below).

These settlers are in fact protected by Israeli soldiers and Israeli police. Members of the project team witnessed, in just three and a half months, "120 attacks on Palestinians by the settlers, almost all of them witnessed by soldiers, and none of them prevented by the soldiers. In eight months they haven't witnessed a single significant intervention by Israel police to prevent stonings, beatings, or other acts of settler violence against Palestinians."

http://www.telrumeidaproject.org/reports_chelli.html

So if Hamas is to be blamed for the suicide bombing by a rival, who is to be blamed for the attacks by Jewish settlers, operating under the protection of Israeli police and soldiers? Are some double standards less hypocritical than others? Not to mention the killing of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers that goes on all the time, but barely gets covered in US or Japanese media, and rarely is condemned by US or Japanese leaders.

In any case, I believe Mr. Penn's point was that Japan was forced to change its position due to pressure from the US government. Nothing in Mr. Herman's argument disputes that claim. Like Mr. Penn, I would prefer that Japan make its own decisions on foreign policy, whether regarding Israel, Iraq, Iran, or any other country, without bending so readily to US pressure.

3) From Yoav Herman of Tsukuba University on April 22, 2006.

Dear Mr. Tenga, thank you for your comments.

You said: "I think Mr. Herman protests too much. For the most part, the media both in Japan and the US tend to give front-page coverage to Palestinian attacks on Israelis. The incident above received more coverage, for example, than the deaths of civilians at the hands of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan that occurred around the same time."

Palestinian terrorist organizations invented the suicide bomber strategy for several reasons, one of them is that this kind of attacks generates news headlines all over the world and creates awareness in public opinion for their cause. This strategy turned out to be so effective that it is now being implemented by terrorist organizations and regimes which support terrorism - like Iran - all over the world, including in Iraq, Britain, Spain, the U.S., Indonesia and Afghanistan. They wanted headlines and they got them.

You said: "It also received far more coverage than the attacks carried out by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in Hebron recently, which were made known only by the efforts of certain activists who happened to observe them."

You should read British media more often. Newspapers like the British Guardian are covering the conflict from a biased, double-standard point of view on a daily basis. Try to read the reader's comments in this newspaper and you will get a feeling that you are reading a newspaper in Nazi Germany sixty years ago. Here are a few examples of a typical Guardian reader comment:

"What Israel needs is boycotting, sanctions, and possible nuclear bombing of its major cities."

"...they (the Jews) were the most cursed and hated race on Earth. Wonder why."

No need to wonder anymore. It is because of people like those readers that the Jews were, and probably still are, the most hated race on earth. I thought this was just the sick mind of a radical leftwing minority, but its not. These kinds of accusations are now almost a mainstream ideology in Europe. Just recently, a famous British director had put on a new show in the 'London Royal National Theatre' mocking and presenting Israelis and Jews in a ridiculous light. The 16,000 tickets put up for sale were sold out instantly.

You said: "These settlers are in fact protected by Israeli soldiers and Israeli police... Members of the project team witnessed, in just three and a half months, 120 attacks on Palestinians by the settlers."

I personally see those settlers as racist criminals who commit crimes against humanity on my behalf and on a daily basis. I have nothing to say in their favor.

You said: "So if Hamas is to be blamed for the suicide bombing by a rival, who is to be blamed for the attacks by Jewish settlers, operating under the protection of Israeli police and soldiers? Are some double standards less hypocritical than others?"

The Israeli government is being blamed for their actions, and rightly so -- they put them there in the first place. However, why is it OK to blame the Israeli government for their crimes, but it is not OK to blame the Hamas government for the attack on Israeli civilians last Tuesday, just as Mr. Penn suggested. It is this kind of double standard that I find hard to accept.

I also read the link, which you gave in your last comment. What Mr. Chelli, who is the writer of this article, forgot to mention (what a surprise), is that Palestinian terrorist organizations use children to smuggle weapons in their school bags, use ambulances to smuggle bombs and suicide bombers into Israeli territory, and use teenagers as suicide bombers as well. Maybe that is why the army checks the kid’s school bags, who wouldn't? This article, even if it does have some truth in it, is another example of the double standard being implemented against Israel constantly.

You said: "I believe Mr. Penn's point was that Japan was forced to change its position due to pressure from the US government. Nothing in Mr. Herman's argument disputes that claim. Like Mr. Penn, I would prefer that Japan make its own decisions on foreign policy."

I understood what Mr. Penn wrote when I first read his newsletter. I have no argument with that; Japan should make its own decisions on foreign policy. I wish Japan would take a more active part in resolving the Arab-Israeli crisis, as I think it would contribute a lot to the dead end process we are witnessing at the moment.

4) From John Edward Philips of Hirosaki University on April 22, 2006.

Yoav Herman said that “Palestinian terrorist organizations invented the suicide bomber strategy.”

Factual correction: This is untrue. Suicide bombing was invented by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) a secular Tamil militant group on Sri Lanka. This organization even assassinated a Prime Minister of India by means of a suicide bomb. Despite being a secular organization they have failed to attract significant support from Tamil Muslims and are supported almost exclusively by the Hindu minority on the island. The Muslims are probably the only group in Sri Lanka which refrains from involvement in the vicious fighting, which divides the population more along religious lines than on ethnic lines.

It is unfortunate that suicide bombing has come to be associated in the Israeli, Western, and even Japanese mind, with Muslims, when it is an act condemned by many Muslim religious authorities and which did not even originate among Muslims. There is a lunatic fringe in almost any group, religious or secular. Unfortunately, in more and more movements and even countries, the fringe seems to be getting bigger than the cloth these days.