http://www.theatlantic.com/
I guess we have the ceasefire to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. But when the stronger, richer neighbor nation imposes a clearly illegal, definitely immoral, and seemingly endless economic embargo (not even a military embargo), I think Hamas and the 1.7M Palestinian Gazans (some of the poorest people on the planet per capita) have actually shown great RESTRAINT in not responding with violence more often. I am not justifying their actions (though violent resistance against an oppressor is sanctioned under the rules of law), but the choice almost seems rational: fire rockets now and then to try to get revenge and some international attention, or starve to death silently and slowly, while the developed world is preoccupied with other matters. The IDF has even been known to shoot at aid workers and emergency responders during their clashes in Gaza.
Like most cases in history, the oppressing party imposes sanctions in the hope that the people suffer and get so fed up with the gov't that they overthrow it (but we've tried that for decades with Cuba and Iran with no results). Instead, could Israel change the policy to something like: they lift the embargo and allow the Gazans to have some semblance of human life, if Hamas agrees to honor the ceasefire and not stockpile rockets. Then they appoint neutral Arab League or UN monitors to inspect and patrol the streets, and alert the IDF of any suspicious military activity. If they or other surveillance pick up anything fishy from Hamas, the IDF can bomb those suspected sites to the Stone Age. But leave the innocent people alone for F sakes.
Some rough estimates on the 8-day conflict:
Palestinian rockets fired into Israel: 900 (their air defenses intercepted 300)
IDF air strikes in Gaza: 1,500 (and mind you Gaza is just 20 miles long)
Palestinian casualties: 100 (with probably 10X wounded)
Israeli casualties: I had troubling finding info on this, but I think on NPR it was under 20 dead, not sure how many injured
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
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As of Wednesday, the number of Palestinian deaths was over 140. There are some grim photos of children from this latest attack.
As far
as Israel hoping the Palestinian people overthrow their govt.: didn't
they just elect Hamas? And, what government from Gaza would be
favorable to Israel? You think they'd elect Netanyahu? I think that
would be the only satisfactory govt. for Israel.
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Thanks, L. Yeah that sure seems like what is going on. Make life so
miserable that they just give up and disappear. But where do they go? Jordan
and Lebanon have been housing Palestinian refugees since the 1947
partition. They can't take any more, especially now that there are more
Syrian and Iraqi refugees to absorb.
So what choice do the Gazans have but fight to the
death, if they're going to starve to death anyway? That's why I find
the Israel's blockade so infantile and un-strategic. There are better
ways to protect their Gaza border and encourage the Palestinians
to reject Hamas. They could have supported Abbas more, improved
conditions in the West Bank, free prisoners, etc. to show Gaza "the
carrots" that await them if they vote Hamas out. But they treat the
Fatah Palestinians like shit too (though clearly much better than Gaza):
increased settlement building, roadblocks, demolitions, etc. that even
Israeli courts have declared illegal. So Hamas actually look like heroes
as the only ones with the guts to stand up to Israeli oppression. And I
guess you can see that manifest in the Arab world, with the Turkish and
Egyptian leaders expressing support, criticizing Israel, and visiting
Gaza during the siege, when before they probably wouldn't have been so
bold.
Israel is legitimizing their arch enemy. But the
cynical side of me thinks that is the plan all along. Israel doesn't
want peace. There is no scenario where they can lose to Palestinians,
and no Arab state will go to war vs. Israel in the foreseeable future
(much less win). Iran is the only existential threat, and even that is
way over-hyped and premature. They can't defeat Iran unless they use
their own nukes, which is probably why they want to trick the US into
fighting the war for them (they fire the first shot, and then we have to
intervene to "assist our ally" and make sure the region doesn't
implode).
But getting back to Gaza, it seems like a Gulf of
Tonkin situation. They are not even that diligent about preventing
rocket smuggling. Probably because they know that the rockets are not a
real threat to them (very few strikes result in fatalities, and their
Iron Dome defenses seem to be able to shoot down 1/3 of them). But fear
over rockets is a great political lightning rod to get the Israelis
behind military aggression. They prod and provoke Hamas into launching
rockets now and then, so of course the IDF is then justified to bomb
them to the Stone Age or even engage in a ground invasion (a way
disproportional "defensive" response). They get to flex their
muscles and weaken Hamas by destroying infrastructure and assassinating
leaders (not to mention send signals to Iran and others), so that is
worth a dozen or so Israelis dead from rockets. The US is fine with this
too ("Israel has the right to defend itself"), because we dislike Hamas
and then our Sec of State gets to go over there and broker a ceasefire,
making us look relevant. I don't think the US is serious about the
peace process either. We had our chance in the '90s and now it's gone.
Obama is not kowtowing to Israel at least, but he's definitely not
showing them the necessary tough love either (well, domestic pressures
make that virtually impossible).
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