Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 6:42am

A Suggestion for Israel

Over at Human Events, Ben Shapiro has an article about how Israel will lose the conflict in Gaza again.  His initial premise states that we keep seeing an essentially endless cycle repeated: Hamas strikes Israel, Israel retaliates, the world comes down hard on Israel, Israel retreats and gives Hamas another chance to strike Israel. Elsewhere, the debate about how justified Israel is in its current cycle of retaliations continues heatedly and almost unanimously denounces Israel’s actions.

As a personal opinion, I believe that Hamas, despite claims to the contrary, is directly responsible for its strikes into Israel.  I believe that Hamas deliberately hides behind civilian shields in order to protect themselves from retaliation and to milk the public for sympathy when Israeli attacks kill those civilian shields.  I believe that Hamas is single-mindedly dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and that Israel is justified in trying to defend herself against Hamas’ attacks.

Like many others, I am disquited by the civilian death toll.  However, whether each civilian death stems from cold calculation willing to sacrifice the innocent in a “kill-em-all-and-let-God-sort-em-out” mentality, or from complete accident as a missile goes off target or an institution is mistakenly labelled a military base, I feel is besides the point.  Even if every civilian death is justified, the war itself is unjustified for the following reasons.  First, Shapiro is right.  Soon we’ll see a cease-fire declared and Israel going to the conference table in an effort to establish peace with Hamas and Gaza.  In a few months, we’ll see Hamas renew its agression, and the cycle will continue.  Thus, because of factors like popular opinion and worldwide condemnation, there isn’t a reasonable chance of success.  Second, and more importantly, the lasting harm caused by Israeli efforts outweighs the benefit gained, and that is because Israel insists on playing into Hamas’ hands.

Shapiro states that Israel can’t fight a military war and a PR war at the same time, which is true.  So perhaps Israel should fight the PR war, instead.  Keep in mind that this shouldn’t be geared towards the world, but towards the Gazans.  I personally believe that while Hamas wants to destroy Israel, the majority of Gazans–even if they approve of Hamas’ efforts–really want nothing more than to live normal, peaceful lives.  So what I believe Israel should do, for the time being, is cease its military efforts and go on a devil-may-care spending spree in the Gaza strip.

The political possibility of my suggestion nonewithstanding, Israel should flood Gaza not just with relief supplies, but with all the tools, materials, and money that Gazans need to rebuild their ailing infrastructure.  Whether or not Israeli teams could physically enter Gaza and aid in the construction could be a crucial question here.  But Israel should fund Gazan construction crews to build schools, to repair roads, to build new power plants and water sanitation systems.  The new rally cry should be “Subsidize Gaza!”

Hamas is winning because they can continually depict Israel as the greatest force of evil in the ordinary Gazan’s life.  Israel needs to overturn that sentiment.  If she can accomplish for Gaza what Hamas promised to do, but as of yet has failed to do, she spark an inclination in the minds of the 1.5 million Gazans as to who the real enemy is.  Furthermore, there are two military potentials involved here.  First, if Hamas keeps up its offensive, in light of the mass humanitarian aid their attacks will eventually be seen for what they are.  Second, if Hamas targets the Israeli-funded projects in Gaza, they’ll end up self-destructing.  Terrorists in Iraq found out that they could only target Iraqi civilians for so long before the civilians themselves learned that the problem, even if it was exacerbated by American presence, really lay with the terrorists themselves.

For those who would object, saying that my plan ignores history and similar attempts in the past, I will counter by saying that supporting Israel’s military efforts currently ignores history and similar attempts, as well.  In the 60 years of its current incarnation, Israel has been almost constantly at war.  Her populace is growing tired of the fight, especially since in recent years Israel has been continually portrayed as the aggressor, the ruthless supressor, even the instigator of genocide.  The fight must continue, true, but Israel needs new strategies, new tactics.

Essentially, half-measures no longer suffice.  Since a full-scale military conquest and lockdown of the Gaza would probably trigger a widespread war in the Middle East, the only other full-scale operation would have to be humanitarian.  Of course, intelligence would need to be involved.  For example, making sure that money is channelled directly into projects and not through Hamas, or ensuring that materials aren’t hawked or traded for arms.

If Hamas wants to portray Israel as the greatest evil to Gazans, then maybe Israel should stop willingly stepping into that mold.  Israel needs to stop playing Hamas’ game.  And on the off chance Israel can actually paint herself as the greatest good (besides Allah and His prophet Mohammed) in Gaza, she might just manage to buy herself some peace.

Hamas is a group of barbarian thugs, but even so, even barbarian thugs are human.  Unless they are all complete psychopaths, it is always possible that they, too, can be touched by grace, especially in the willingness of an enemy to lay down his life for the very barbarian thugs fighting against him.

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kerenloves2read
kerenloves2read
Wednesday, January 7, AD 2009 1:29pm

Interesting take

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, January 7, AD 2009 5:18pm

It isn’t about money or economic development Ryan. It is all about the fact that the vast majority of arabs in Gaza and the West Bank are ashamed that they were beaten militarily by Jews and that Jews rule in arab lands. The Israelis and the rest of the world could provide a terrestrial paradise for the Arabs, and it would not diminish one iota the desire of almost all Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank to drive the Israelis into the sea. The US and the West have sent tens of billions of dollars to the arabs in Gaza and the West Bank in the form of humanitarian aid, monetary grants, development funds, etc. It has made no difference at all.

Blue Shoe
Wednesday, January 7, AD 2009 7:52pm

A very well-written and thought out point, and it makes a lot of sense.
However, I just don’t know that it would appeal to a country that has to “sit still and take it,” so to speak, while at the same time providing aid to the perceived enemy. No doubt while Israel would attempt to pour money and resources and good will into Gaza, Hamas would still be attacking.

I know this is an imperfect analogy, but if Mexico were firing into Texas, do you think the American public would accept a similar course of action?

Matt
Matt
Wednesday, January 7, AD 2009 8:11pm

Ryan,

One must understand hatred and recognize the fallen nature of man. Many Palestinians hate Jews, not because of any wrong the Jews have committed against them, but because they are taught that by their religion, by their parents and by LIBERALS.

Bribing them with goodies will do nothing but allow them to use all of their other means to build up and attack Israel again. Besides, Iran already pours massive amounts of money into the Gaza and we know what they spend it on.

The only reasonable course of action in the interest of Israel, the innocent Palestinians and peace in the Middle East is for Israel to complete the destruction of Hamas and deny Iran it’s satellite regime.

God Bless,

Matt

Christopher
Admin
Wednesday, January 7, AD 2009 10:50pm

This past Friday, the Hamas television show Pioneers of Tomorrow (a child-indoctrination version of “Sesame Street”) depicted the bunny Assoud dying in a Gaza hospital after an Israeli attack. Assaud the Jew-eating Bunny was introduced to Gazan children in February 2008:

The Pioneers of Tomorrow children’s series produced by Palestinian group Hamas and made famous by a Mickey Mouse-looking character declaring jihad on Israel and the US, introduced Assud the Bunny.Assud – who said in his first episode that he would “get rid of the Jews, Allah willing, and… will eat them up” – replaced his brother, Nahoul the Bee, according to the translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute.

[…]

In an interview with the program’s host, a young girl purportedly named Saraa Barhoum, Assud talked about becoming martyrdom.

“We are all martyrdom-seekers, are we not, Saraa?” Assud said on the show.

Saraa said: “Of course we are. We are all ready to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of our homeland. We will sacrifice our souls and everything we own for the homeland.”

Assoud will join Farfour, Hamas’ copycat version of Mickey Mouse, in Paradise. (
Farfour was “martyred” by an Israeli on May 11, 2007).

Yes, I wish I was joking.

I’d bet you can plumb the channels of Israeli television and wouldn’t be able to find an equivalent of Hamas’ television show — not even in the town of Sderot, subject to over 3,000 rocket attacks this year alone.

Ravishing Gazans with economic luxuries won’t change their minds — not while infants are raised from birth in this kind of hatred.

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, January 8, AD 2009 8:49am

Even if one did this, how would one get the truth to the Palestinian people. Many, (most), Palestinians are illiterate. Who’s to say the aide comes in and Hamas tells the people that it was their work?

As you point out, in this conflict propaganda is important and perhaps decisive. It could also be so in the scenario you propose.

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, January 8, AD 2009 11:07am

Clinton?

Matt
Matt
Thursday, January 8, AD 2009 11:57pm

Ryan,

I think a deeper analysis would find that the Israeli counter-offensive into Gaza is clearly just, perhaps material for a new thread.

What you’re suggesting is akin to the US activity in Iraq and Afghanistan… the problem is that such nation-building requires security to be effective. Kind of a chicken-egg situation. Military defeat of Gaza is a necessary precursor to rebuilding it, regardless of who sponsors the rebuilding.

God Bless,

Matt

rami
Monday, January 19, AD 2009 4:33pm

Are you still defending the state terrorism of Israel?!!
Israel kills Palestinians in their homes, in the fields and in mosques. It kills whole families as well as children with their mothers. Arab countries can – if they want – withdraw the Arab Peace Initiative. But they lost the will; therefore, the Israeli war machine keeps on killing Palestinians.
The Israeli government, gathering the remaining Nazis around the world, is trying to squeeze the last useful drop from the Bush Administration before it departs. Once again, if Arab countries want, they can pressure the US Administration in many available ways. However, they do not. The reason is that they have lost that same will.
The Palestinians are responsible, before Arabs, for this tragic situation in Gaza Strip. The division weakened them further; the policy of Hamas killed more than 500 Palestinians in nine ominous days.
Yet I started with our responsibility, so people would not say I am denying it. In the ongoing crime, Israel appears as a Nazi, military, expansionist nation that has no right to exist in the Middle East.
Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak are terrorists. She is a terrorist born to two terrorist members of the Argon gang, which imported terrorism to Palestine and the Middle East. She worked in the Mossad to complete her family’s terrorism heritage. Now she is saying that all Israel wants is for Hamas to stop firing rockets. This is also the excuse of Barak, who practiced terrorism as a soldier and is still practicing it as a minister. Both of them say that war on Gaza has nothing to do with next month’s elections. This means that it definitely has something to do with it.
Then you have the biggest liar in Israel or any other place: “President” Shimon Peres; I heard him say that Israel had the most powerful weapon in the world…Justice.
Israel is a Nazi state that has no right to exist. The Christian West sought to establish it as a means to repent of its crime at our expense. There was never a Smaller or Greater Israel. The history of the Torah is fiction and not history. The same goes for Peres justice.
George Bush, who promised a Palestinian State by the end of 2008 and lied or failed, is a full accessory in Israel’s murder. His administration killed a million Muslims in eight years; therefore, it is not hard for him to support the killing of 500 – or even 1000 – Palestinians. He accuses Hamas of terrorism. Yet, with his help, Israel is the terrorist nation. He also said that Hamas did not want the interest of Palestinians. Who wants it then? He or his VP Dick Cheney?
On a rare occasion, I heard Cheney say the truth. He proclaimed that Israel did not ask for permission from the US Administration to attack Gaza. Why would it ask for permission when the whole administration is under its control and shares its war on Arabs and Muslims? But Cheney, leader of the war gang, cannot stay honest for long: he went on to say that Israel, a UN member state, was attacked by a terrorist organization. The opposite is true. Israel is a terrorist nation that has no right to join any international organization, while Hamas is a national liberation movement. What is also true is that Cheney is a wanted war criminal.
I would like to add Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy. They both support a cease-fire, but the British PM eventually supports the US administration. As to the French President, he says one thing and does another. On the eve of the attack on Gaza, Israel was offered EU membership, one which is better than that of the original six countries that started the EEC in Rome. Israel was given all privileges without any financial or any other responsibility towards the EU. Even though the Czech Republic was deliberately held responsible, France was the country that spearheaded the campaign. Sarkozy hands it the EU Presidency then comes to us for mediation.
After this tour of Israeli terrorism, with US-EU connivance, I go back to the Palestinian and Arab responsibility. We are so weak that we cannot win a military confrontation, not even a media confrontation. Israel has been killing, occupying and destroying for four decades, yet it managed to focus on Hamas rockets, blacking out the Nazi occupation, Hamas’ raison d’être. What does Israel expect after a long occupation? To be welcomed by Palestinians with roses and wedding rice?
Many Israelis, including Livni, evoke the Transfer (Palestinian displacement). In return, we demand a transfer that would send the Israelis back to the countries they came from. Only original Arab Jews, who were in the lands before the establishment of Israel, would remain.
What I am trying to say is that extremism breeds extremism. If we see a Palestinian extremism and refusal, it is because the other party’s extremism has undermined the moderates among Palestinians, Arabs and others. It made a peace seeker like me call for the withdrawal of the Arab initiative.

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