Sayyid Najm: "Tanks against Flesh is not War"
Aljazeera Arabic this evening interviewed Sayyid Najm, an Egyptian novelist and literature specialist on war in literature. He is author of, among other things, Ayyam Yusuf Mansi (Cairo: Zahran, 1990). He made some interesting points about the structure of war novels, and the way the pacing has to be picked up during the battles. The interviewer then asked about the current fighting.
Q. In light of your experience with war in literature, what do you have to say about Gaza today?
Sayyid Najm: If were were to speak about the literature of war with regard to today, I'd have to say that there is no war in Gaza. In Gaza today, all that we have experienced and lived through and dealt with the meaning of, tells us that a war is a conventional army fighting another conventional army. But here the tanks are going against flesh and human beings; bullets and bombs and fighter jets against bodies and eyes, children and women; death before blood and earth. This is no war. What is going on in Gaza, if we are to express it correctly, is state terror.
/End.
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/07/2009 12:01:00 AM
|
Facebook
10 Comments:
The Gaza caper is not to be classified as ‘war’ but rather as Public Diplomacy™.
The public that voted for Hamás must be persuaded not to pull that kind of dumb stunt ever again -- et voilà tout.
Happy days.
How can it not be war when the party controlling the territory fired and sanctioned the firing of rockets on a neighboring territory and whose founding charter refuses to acknowledge the existence of Israel? Hamas is making war on Israel, and Israel is making war on Hamas.
The notion that it's not a war when tanks kill flesh is absurd. All weapons are aimed at flesh, whether directly or indirectly. The comment is nothing more than a part of the rhetorical battle to undermine Israel's right to make war in self-defense.
Now please don't miscontstrue these arguments with a defense of the wisdom or efficacy of Israel's actions. That is another matter altogether. I'm just pointing out the truth content of the rhetoric you quote, which is zero, even if it's effect on public opinion might be real.
While I sympathise with his position, I don't agree. one shows up to war without tanks (as Hamas has done by breaking ceasefires, and provoking Israel by shooting deadly missiles into civilian areas), he can't complain that he's outarmed. It is a war, but one where Israel is better equipped. Never has an army been expected to stand down because they were expected to win!
"Tanks against flesh is not war." Neither is rockets against flesh, nor suicide bombs against flesh,
Re the comments above:
For you own sakes, I hope your own logic never comes back to haunt you.
For clioandme and yoni r., it is not sport when one shoots fish in a barrel. It is not hunting when the quail are released from a cage, upside down, and flushed to allow Dick Cheney an easy shot. It is not war when the captor nation, Israel, starves its prisoners into rebellion.
It is not war. It is genocide. To paraphrase Rumsfeld, one shows up to a genocide with the PR one has, not the PR one wishes.
Um, a war where one side has such an overwhelming advantage that the other side cannot resist is not a war. It's a slaughter. And I believe it is also, rightly, against international law. Not that that matters with Israel.
if I were blockaded from food an medicine, I'll be firing rockets too. Targeting civilians didn't protect the north in 2006, and it won't offer protection for the south in 2008.
@james speaks: To use "genoicide" as you do is to render the term meaningless. The sporting and hunting analogies are beside the point.
I'm getting tired of Hamas getting a free ride on this one. While I think Israel is acting in an imprudent manner, I do not see why only its actions are being examined here. What is Hamas up to? Why? If you want to understand a war, you cannot neglect the politics behind it. Clausewitz is still relevant in this respect, even if Hamas does not enjoy full control over an independent state. If we look at the severe humanitarian crisis and nothing else, we do nothing else but play into the hands of Hamas. This is not to say that Israel deserves a free ride. But Hamas doesn't either.
You sorta want to win a war by 100 to 0 if you can, not 101 to 98. This aint no ball game.
Post a Comment
<< Home