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This debate soon becomes messy if people confuse and mix severeal seperate issues:
1. Is Israel's military intervention justified? If no, please proceed to provide an alternative solution to the problem of ongoing Hamas rocket launching.
2. Is the WAY the military operation is carried out acceptable? If no, please explain and provide a different approach.
3. How should the military/political/humanitarian status of Gaza-Egypt-Israel look like once this war is ended?
Israel-bashers and so called "critiques" often conclude from an alleged "excessive use of force" (issue 2) that the operation is not just altogether (issue 1). Never do they even think of the day after (issue 3).
I also noticed that many of those who oppose Israel's use of force are lacking a great amount of recent historical knowledge that would allow them to better understand the current operation. It seems as though people are stuck in a loophole around the early 1990s - Israel being the occupier, the Palestinians resisiting with sporadic violent crimes out of despair.
It's time you catch up: The Palestinian people have been governed by Palestinians for close to 15 years. Israel was on the edge of closing a final deal about a sovereign Palestinian state, even including parts of Jerusalem. After realizing that the land-for-peace formula could not work without a reliable partner on the other side (Arafat who jumped on the Intifada bandwagon), Israel changed the strategy and decided to unilaterally change the realities in the region, thereby enhancing Israel's security (the wall, the disengagement). In the course of this process, Gaza was completely cleansed (by force) from all Israeli settlements. In the first few months the borders were open and there were serious attempts to use this opprtunity to create a normal coexistence with an independent Gaza strip. What then happened has been discussed already.
It's fundamental to realize the nature of Islamist terrorism as opposed to secular "resistance movements". Hamas' fight for "Palestine" has got absolutely nothing to do with the early PLO movement. By definition, it does not acknoledge israel as a state nor any non-violent attempts to reach a compromise. Each and every cease fire agreement has been declared temporary and abused in order to regain strength and hit back harder once time ran out. The underlying ideology allows for no concessions. It's an absolute, fascist doctrine that cannot be appeased. Hundreds of dead israeli civilians are testimony to this world view.
Contrary to what is generally propagated, their terrorism is neither an act of despair, nor spontaneous, nor impulsive. The hundreds of smuggling tunnels, arm and rocket factories, huge arsenals of weapons, the equipment and professional organization of Hamas fighters - they all indicate a sopohisticated infrastructure. Terrorists are accordingly recruited, educated, brainwashed, trained, equipped. Video messages are prepared, potential targets are observed, transport is taken care of. TV stations are run, schildren's textbooks are manipulated.
I could list a chonology of events that clearly demonstrate that aggressive use of force DID halt their terrorist acitivites, while every cease fire and every unilateral concession on Israel's behalf was followed by an even increasing violence against its cicitzens. This may seem paradoxical if you think that Hamas is a political resistance movement. It make sense once you've understood their real nature as described above.
To those who would argue that, although logistics and infrastructure can be destroyed, the underlying ideology cannot, and Israeli force will only produce more angry, youn men: Ideology HAS been wiped off thousands of times in history. Latest examples: Fascism (by force) and Comunism (eventually due to implision from within). Admittedly, and unfortunately, this operation has already produced many men and women who are burning for revenge. That's a natural byproduct of every war - be it Georgie, Yugoslavia or Afghanistan. The question is, how these masses of hating young Palestinians are absorbed, and whether they are offered a catalyst in the form of Hamas' terrorism. Frustration, hate, despair, unemployment and bad education on its own never smuggles and shoots rockets.
I believe that Hamas needed to be hit hard this time. I'm extremely upset about dying innocent Palestinians, but I have no doubt whatsoever regarding the blame for their deaths. Nevertheless, Israel cannot and hopefully will not simply hit hard and retreat. This operation will have only made sense if, after destroying the "hardware" of terrorism, the "software" of the humantarian crisis in the Gaza strip is effectively tackled. This means first and foremost: money, money, money. But also, at least this time, an independent regulatory body which strictly controls the streams of these subsidies.
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"Those are my principles, if you don't like them... well, I have others.”
Last edited by TranceGiant on Jan-07-2009 at 09:51
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