It hardly matters who or what triggered this latest round. The root cause of this perennial conflict dates back to Biblical times, with each side claiming divine provenance for its actions.
But the cycle of violence is such that not even the Almighty could reconcile Hamas’s jihad to drive Israelis from the region with Israel’s existential imperative to defend itself.
— Bush’s promise of peace in Middle East goes up in smoke, The iPINIONS Journal, December 31, 2008
The Israelis seem poised to follow their week-long aerial assault on Gaza with a blitzkrieg-style ground invasion that would make the Nazis green with envy. But as the cartoon above suggests, aside from killing a bunch of people (on both sides), this assault will do nothing to change the fundamental dynamics of this conflict, which seems destined to rage until kingdom come.
That said, I feel obliged to reiterate my solidarity with the long-suffering Palestinians. But it bears repeating: their suffering is as much the fault of their own leaders as it is of the Israelis — and in some cases, arguably more so.
After all, nothing has doomed the Palestinians to ongoing misery quite like their own internecine battles between Hamas and Fatah. Their rivalry remains as great an obstacle to peace as anything they could possibly blame on the Israelis.
Likewise, I feel obliged to reiterate my belief that the Israelis have an unconditional right to defend themselves. And the clearest way to illustrate that point is with this simple question:
- It’s arguable that the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians what the Americans have done to the Cubans for over 50 years. But does anyone doubt the US would obliterate Cuba if the Castros dared to launch even a single rocket onto American soil? (And trust me, just like in Iraq, they wouldn’t bother keeping a body count of how many Cubans they killed in the name of “defending” the homeland.)
This underscores the restraint the Israelis have shown. After all, the Palestinians have launched thousands of rockets into Israel, killing civilians indiscriminately.
As iPINIONS has argued consistently, this conflict persists not because one side is always right, but because both are too often wrong in ways that perpetuate the violence.
God help them all: Palestinians and Israelis alike.
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Bush’s promise of peace in Middle East goes up in smoke
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Nelyn says
I think we have the same perceptions………..