Tunnel revision

Editorial

A smuggling tunnel was discovered this month running from inside the Gaza Strip to a location inside Israel’s Negev region. The two-and-a-half-kilometre tunnel is presumed to have been intended for smuggling weapons or to perpetrate the sort of raid and kidnapping that led to the five-year captivity of Gilad Shalit.

Tunnels like this one have been part of a broader border-area strategy for the many terrorist organizations harbored by Gaza’s Hamas leadership. This one, though, was notable for its size and sophistication – like a New York subway, in the words of one local Israeli official.

The discovery did not humble those who seek to harm Israel, nor dampen their poetic fervor, according to a quote from a spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing. “The will engraved in the hearts and minds of the men of resistance is much more important than the tunnels dug in the mud. The former will create thousands of the latter,” the official posted on Twitter.

Perhaps. The discovery does indicate that those who conceived and constructed the tunnel are convinced that the conflict in which they are engaged is a long-range one, making viable an investment in seemingly advanced infrastructure like the cavernous tunnel. Looking at the stunning footage of the arched tunnel provides silent affirmation that those who built it may not be in a mood to negotiate towards a two-state solution.

There will be those who draw a conclusion based on the flip side of the same coin. What desperation must drive Palestinians to such extraordinary lengths? Indeed, those looking for a model of national myth forged in fire can find in this tunnel an inspirational story of tenacious determination by a people under siege. In this, as in so many cases, the Palestinians tend to model their national liberation narrative on the example they know best: Israel’s.

It is tough not to look at the tunnel and remember earlier clandestine infrastructure, such as the Haganah’s “Ayalon Institute,” an underground bullet factory cleverly concealed by a kibbutz bakery.

For those who want to find them, historical parallels are easy to conjure. So is apparent moral justification. Some see Palestinian violence as equivalent in form and function as that of Haganah or Irgun fighters of generations past. Many who cheer for the underdog will take heart from the tunnel-builders’ tenacity, just as stories of earlier Jewish derring-do inspire some admiration.

But the parallels are at odds. Early Jewish militias were not fighting an enemy that was willing to sit down and negotiate a resolution; they faced an implacable wall of opposition from the entire Arab world, genocidal in rhetoric, if not demonstrably in fact.

Contrary to the rhetoric, it is not the Palestinians who today face a genocidal enemy – it is still Israel, still the Jews. The promises coming from Hamas of ultimate, violent victory against the “Zionist usurpers” hold no hint of mutual coexistence. In this way, the parallel with Zionist militias is fundamentally flawed.

This is not the first time that parallels have been drawn between the tactics of contemporary Palestinian movements and the Zionist agencies of the past. But it is just plain wrong to pretend that the end goals of the Islamist weapons smugglers – or kidnappers – have any resemblance to the democrats and idealists of pre-state Israel. The vision that inspired this newly uncovered tunnel is one of nihilist intolerance and hatred. It resembles Zionist infrastructure only in the sense that one giant hole dug into the ochre soil of the Middle East looks very much like the next.

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