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garoteThis is an attempt to nail down, at least temporarily, what has been an ongoing evolution of my views about the conflict in and around Gaza.
Obviously I live in a world and political climate where simply having an opinion is risky, but I figure this is worth posting because it could invite more discussion about a conflict that's far too complicated for anyone to fully understand. Here goes:
Here in the 'states there are a lot of mixed views.
There are Jews here who don't believe in a Holy Land. They accept the diaspora of their people, more or less, and believe that a Holy Land is something that no religion should have, let alone one incorporated into a state that can then be targeted or defended. They look at the charter of Hamas - erase all Jews from the face of the planet - and know that the only response to a group like that is to take up arms against them. But they have deep misgivings about what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and feel that their military has gone too far. They're engaged with the history to varying degrees, and some take offense at the stranglehold Israel has historically placed on Gaza... And some don't, because it hasn't been their fight for multiple generations. Either way they want de-escalation and peace, and they despair at how remote that feels.
Then there are Jews here who believe in a Holy Land, even if they live apart from it. They generally have no sympathy for the Palestinians. They would say: They cowered under Hamas, fed them with taxes and men, turned a blind eye to the tunnels and rockets, and let their wrath be directed over the wall, and now they're reaping what they sowed. The Gazans may be people who care for their families and pray devoutly, and they may be cynically used as cannon fodder and a human shield by the state they live in, but while they are being victimized they also believe in the mission of Hamas, which is the eradication of Israel and the Jews. There's no respecting cognitive dissonance on that scale, and if their hypocrisy leads to their death, that's on them.
And of course there's the broad range of non-Jewish people in America; far too diverse to summarize cleanly.
Some of them are devout Christians who see the conflict in terms of Muslim versus Christian, or - on a culturally subconscious level - in terms of brown versus white, with the Jews being the lesser of two evils; useful instruments in their own holy war.
Some of them are lapsed Christians, or the generally non-Christian or non-religious, and are aghast at the pointless slaughter on both sides and the long ugly history of conflict it perpetuates, but feel that it's really not their business, regardless of the events of World War II and the agreements made since then. They generally want the fighting to end, and then they want Israel to start taking care of itself ... somehow. They're tired of seeing the United States put a military finger on the scale of events happening half a planet away without some clear, altruistic goal in mind, and perpetuating a holy war does not make that cut.
If there was no Holy Land, Hamas would have no place to fire rockets indiscriminately into. They would be conducting a worldwide terrorist campaign as we "traditionally" think of it now, with sleeper cells and bombings and so on. They would be targeting Jews in America, and for that they would be ruthlessly pursued by a military that's way too big to consider a ground invasion a practical idea, because it has better options, and besides, far too many people would die.
But Israel is not America. Israel was given a lot of arms and technology and general permission to defend itself, but it has almost no influence over the other states that act in the region - Iran, Egypt, and Lebanon mostly - so its attempts to contain threats are ham-fisted. We could tell them: Walls don't work; walls just allow problems to get bigger on the other side. But it's all too late for that now. Hamas has to be stomped down and the Palestinians have to figure out how to live a life that isn't organized around being displaced from a Holy Land and needing to eradicate an ethnic and religious group in order to get it back. Israel doesn't want to be responsible for that kind of re-education -- it doesn't have the money, and definitely not the patience or the stomach for it.
It's also getting squeezed by [expletive] Hezbollah in the north, thanks almost entirely to Iran. The Israelis see enemies on all sides and massive overreaction has been part of their survival strategy for a while. Multiple times they have been the subject of war declarations with the intent of destroying them utterly, and multiple times they have beaten invaders back, then tried to offer captured territory in exchange for peace -- and been refused. So they hold the territory, and are vilified for it. Damned if you do.
Religious wars are absolutely the worst kind. Even the freaking Mongol Empire was generally egalitarian about religion: They wanted plunder and trade. But one saving grace of this being about religion is, Iran won't just drop a nuke on Jerusalem, even if it manages to scrape one together with indifferent Chinese assistance. Iran would like all Jews vaporized, but that's too high a price.
Where was I? Oh yes. The mixed views over here.
The college protests are generally about trying to spare Palestinian civilians - more correctly Gazan civilians - the horror of a ground invasion, but they are very few in relative number, and very few people take them seriously. The general perception is that these students are pro-Palestine because they're ignorant of the history of the region, and ignorant of the political situation in Gaza, and ignorant of the sheer level of hatred that has been heaped on Israel since the 1940's. They directly equate the current invasion with the post-9-11 US invasion of Iraq, with a scoop of new-fangled social justice thrown in that is also concerned more with American culture than actual events in the Middle East. By that I mean, "Free Palestine" is more about a perceived racism against Arabs and Muslims within America than it is about eight decades of back-and-forth warfare attempting to stop Israel from existing. The protestors (what few of them there are) are also not a unified group, no matter how convenient it is for alarmist right-wing talk radio hosts to claim they are, and with the end of the school year most of the ones who are college students have already melted away.
In the political sphere, Republicans are trying to stay as quiet as possible about the conflict, and those that can't be are trying to find some way to bash the Biden cabinet, either as too soft on Hamas, or too soft on Israel. They're all over the map, but since their party isn't in power, they don't have to play defense. Meanwhile, Democrats are wringing their hands about the humanitarian mess Israel is making, but are not about to abandon or stop financing them. The smart ones are also trying to stay quiet, and assuming that as November draws closer, all the Americans whining about Biden's conduct will take a good look at Trump again and remember that he doesn't give a flying [expletive] about Gaza and if the whole region was flattened and depopulated he would just shrug and play golf, then take credit for showing solidarity with Israel and "being bigly strong against our [bad brown non-Christian] enemies."
What's my take?
Well, off the top of my head, I think the whole region is a briar patch and I'd rather not be involved. I'm a secular humanist, e.g., I firmly believe that God has no business in human affairs and attempting to claim God does is an instant recipe for useless pain. There is no Chosen People, there is no Holy Land. Religious borders are beaten into the minds of children generation by generation and the wisest position is always to oppose them. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
But since we're dealing with what is, rather than what should be, and since I've been asked to explain myself, my take is this:
After crushing Hamas, Israel needs to open and maintain aid routes, dedicate some effort to rebuilding infrastructure, and then cut some kind of deal with the State of Palestine to hand Gaza off to them. Then it has to fully recognize an [expletive] Palestinian state, for [expletive]'s sake, and quit restricting sea traffic to the strip or commerce between Gaza and Egypt because that's none of their [expletive] business.
With that done or in progress - and only then - America and various other allies need to re-arm Israel and start chipping away at the financial and physical supply lines that Iran has with Hezbollah, somehow eliciting help from Lebanon to do so. That's going to be very hard obviously. I'll never approve of America going to war on behalf of Israel and I'm skeptical of giving Israel carte blanche with free military gear, but I do feel that leaving them unable to defend their own borders would just be a green light for Iran to go all-in exploiting the worst impulses of the Palestinians and Lebanese to turn the tables and invade and murder every Jew in the region.
So Israel needs to take a different approach from the wall-building they've done before. The border with Gaza needs to be patrolled but permeable by workers and pilgrims and other civilians, to create a path towards a future cultural reconciliation, and for that to be a workable situation, Israel and whatever (non-Hamas) government that Gaza forms need to be very firmly on the same page: Democratic elections, if you can swing them, but no state religion, and no standing military, only a police force. Regular inspections and oversight. The Palestinian Authority should be drawn into this. With those conditions agreed to, for at least ten years, Israel has a passing chance at a sane neighbor, and should lend manpower and money to help rebuild Gaza in the meantime.
Will Israel agree to this? Will Gazans agree to this, after Hamas has used them as meat shields down to the last standing house and all they have is rubble? Their own parliamentary process was hijacked by a government body that eagerly dismantled it, leaving a totalitarian theocracy in its place. Will they vote for the same thing again, if that body promises death to the Jews and a glorious, vengeful return to the Holy Land? If it looks like their government is going that way by force, will the PA and Israel have the foresight to join forces and intervene?
Who knows. Frankly, I don't think they'll even get the chance. Israel will probably build another big, bristling, barbed-wire wall, lined with mines and gun turrets, and then resume their heavy-handed economic strangulation of the people living on the other side ... again ... and some other government will arise that's basically Hamas with a different name. And no one will learn anything, because anyone who could have taught them otherwise is dead.
As for the West Bank; [expletive], I don't know. It's not as bleak as Gaza, but without some lessons learned, it could go just as sideways.
Obviously I live in a world and political climate where simply having an opinion is risky, but I figure this is worth posting because it could invite more discussion about a conflict that's far too complicated for anyone to fully understand. Here goes:
Here in the 'states there are a lot of mixed views.
There are Jews here who don't believe in a Holy Land. They accept the diaspora of their people, more or less, and believe that a Holy Land is something that no religion should have, let alone one incorporated into a state that can then be targeted or defended. They look at the charter of Hamas - erase all Jews from the face of the planet - and know that the only response to a group like that is to take up arms against them. But they have deep misgivings about what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and feel that their military has gone too far. They're engaged with the history to varying degrees, and some take offense at the stranglehold Israel has historically placed on Gaza... And some don't, because it hasn't been their fight for multiple generations. Either way they want de-escalation and peace, and they despair at how remote that feels.
Then there are Jews here who believe in a Holy Land, even if they live apart from it. They generally have no sympathy for the Palestinians. They would say: They cowered under Hamas, fed them with taxes and men, turned a blind eye to the tunnels and rockets, and let their wrath be directed over the wall, and now they're reaping what they sowed. The Gazans may be people who care for their families and pray devoutly, and they may be cynically used as cannon fodder and a human shield by the state they live in, but while they are being victimized they also believe in the mission of Hamas, which is the eradication of Israel and the Jews. There's no respecting cognitive dissonance on that scale, and if their hypocrisy leads to their death, that's on them.
And of course there's the broad range of non-Jewish people in America; far too diverse to summarize cleanly.
Some of them are devout Christians who see the conflict in terms of Muslim versus Christian, or - on a culturally subconscious level - in terms of brown versus white, with the Jews being the lesser of two evils; useful instruments in their own holy war.Some of them are lapsed Christians, or the generally non-Christian or non-religious, and are aghast at the pointless slaughter on both sides and the long ugly history of conflict it perpetuates, but feel that it's really not their business, regardless of the events of World War II and the agreements made since then. They generally want the fighting to end, and then they want Israel to start taking care of itself ... somehow. They're tired of seeing the United States put a military finger on the scale of events happening half a planet away without some clear, altruistic goal in mind, and perpetuating a holy war does not make that cut.
If there was no Holy Land, Hamas would have no place to fire rockets indiscriminately into. They would be conducting a worldwide terrorist campaign as we "traditionally" think of it now, with sleeper cells and bombings and so on. They would be targeting Jews in America, and for that they would be ruthlessly pursued by a military that's way too big to consider a ground invasion a practical idea, because it has better options, and besides, far too many people would die.
But Israel is not America. Israel was given a lot of arms and technology and general permission to defend itself, but it has almost no influence over the other states that act in the region - Iran, Egypt, and Lebanon mostly - so its attempts to contain threats are ham-fisted. We could tell them: Walls don't work; walls just allow problems to get bigger on the other side. But it's all too late for that now. Hamas has to be stomped down and the Palestinians have to figure out how to live a life that isn't organized around being displaced from a Holy Land and needing to eradicate an ethnic and religious group in order to get it back. Israel doesn't want to be responsible for that kind of re-education -- it doesn't have the money, and definitely not the patience or the stomach for it.
It's also getting squeezed by [expletive] Hezbollah in the north, thanks almost entirely to Iran. The Israelis see enemies on all sides and massive overreaction has been part of their survival strategy for a while. Multiple times they have been the subject of war declarations with the intent of destroying them utterly, and multiple times they have beaten invaders back, then tried to offer captured territory in exchange for peace -- and been refused. So they hold the territory, and are vilified for it. Damned if you do.
Religious wars are absolutely the worst kind. Even the freaking Mongol Empire was generally egalitarian about religion: They wanted plunder and trade. But one saving grace of this being about religion is, Iran won't just drop a nuke on Jerusalem, even if it manages to scrape one together with indifferent Chinese assistance. Iran would like all Jews vaporized, but that's too high a price.
Where was I? Oh yes. The mixed views over here.
The college protests are generally about trying to spare Palestinian civilians - more correctly Gazan civilians - the horror of a ground invasion, but they are very few in relative number, and very few people take them seriously. The general perception is that these students are pro-Palestine because they're ignorant of the history of the region, and ignorant of the political situation in Gaza, and ignorant of the sheer level of hatred that has been heaped on Israel since the 1940's. They directly equate the current invasion with the post-9-11 US invasion of Iraq, with a scoop of new-fangled social justice thrown in that is also concerned more with American culture than actual events in the Middle East. By that I mean, "Free Palestine" is more about a perceived racism against Arabs and Muslims within America than it is about eight decades of back-and-forth warfare attempting to stop Israel from existing. The protestors (what few of them there are) are also not a unified group, no matter how convenient it is for alarmist right-wing talk radio hosts to claim they are, and with the end of the school year most of the ones who are college students have already melted away.
In the political sphere, Republicans are trying to stay as quiet as possible about the conflict, and those that can't be are trying to find some way to bash the Biden cabinet, either as too soft on Hamas, or too soft on Israel. They're all over the map, but since their party isn't in power, they don't have to play defense. Meanwhile, Democrats are wringing their hands about the humanitarian mess Israel is making, but are not about to abandon or stop financing them. The smart ones are also trying to stay quiet, and assuming that as November draws closer, all the Americans whining about Biden's conduct will take a good look at Trump again and remember that he doesn't give a flying [expletive] about Gaza and if the whole region was flattened and depopulated he would just shrug and play golf, then take credit for showing solidarity with Israel and "being bigly strong against our [bad brown non-Christian] enemies."
What's my take?
Well, off the top of my head, I think the whole region is a briar patch and I'd rather not be involved. I'm a secular humanist, e.g., I firmly believe that God has no business in human affairs and attempting to claim God does is an instant recipe for useless pain. There is no Chosen People, there is no Holy Land. Religious borders are beaten into the minds of children generation by generation and the wisest position is always to oppose them. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
But since we're dealing with what is, rather than what should be, and since I've been asked to explain myself, my take is this:
After crushing Hamas, Israel needs to open and maintain aid routes, dedicate some effort to rebuilding infrastructure, and then cut some kind of deal with the State of Palestine to hand Gaza off to them. Then it has to fully recognize an [expletive] Palestinian state, for [expletive]'s sake, and quit restricting sea traffic to the strip or commerce between Gaza and Egypt because that's none of their [expletive] business.
With that done or in progress - and only then - America and various other allies need to re-arm Israel and start chipping away at the financial and physical supply lines that Iran has with Hezbollah, somehow eliciting help from Lebanon to do so. That's going to be very hard obviously. I'll never approve of America going to war on behalf of Israel and I'm skeptical of giving Israel carte blanche with free military gear, but I do feel that leaving them unable to defend their own borders would just be a green light for Iran to go all-in exploiting the worst impulses of the Palestinians and Lebanese to turn the tables and invade and murder every Jew in the region.
So Israel needs to take a different approach from the wall-building they've done before. The border with Gaza needs to be patrolled but permeable by workers and pilgrims and other civilians, to create a path towards a future cultural reconciliation, and for that to be a workable situation, Israel and whatever (non-Hamas) government that Gaza forms need to be very firmly on the same page: Democratic elections, if you can swing them, but no state religion, and no standing military, only a police force. Regular inspections and oversight. The Palestinian Authority should be drawn into this. With those conditions agreed to, for at least ten years, Israel has a passing chance at a sane neighbor, and should lend manpower and money to help rebuild Gaza in the meantime.
Will Israel agree to this? Will Gazans agree to this, after Hamas has used them as meat shields down to the last standing house and all they have is rubble? Their own parliamentary process was hijacked by a government body that eagerly dismantled it, leaving a totalitarian theocracy in its place. Will they vote for the same thing again, if that body promises death to the Jews and a glorious, vengeful return to the Holy Land? If it looks like their government is going that way by force, will the PA and Israel have the foresight to join forces and intervene?
Who knows. Frankly, I don't think they'll even get the chance. Israel will probably build another big, bristling, barbed-wire wall, lined with mines and gun turrets, and then resume their heavy-handed economic strangulation of the people living on the other side ... again ... and some other government will arise that's basically Hamas with a different name. And no one will learn anything, because anyone who could have taught them otherwise is dead.
As for the West Bank; [expletive], I don't know. It's not as bleak as Gaza, but without some lessons learned, it could go just as sideways.
