Gaza

[sleigh]

I have to say that I'm not a supporter of either Israel or Palestine. I am disappointed with the belligerent attitudes of both of them, and I despair of ever finding a solution there. Yes, Israel needs to defend itself, but the county's traditional response of bombing the crap out of neighboring countries in retaliation for terrorist activities such as suicide bombing or missile strikes seems perfectly designed to escalate tension and make reconciliation nearly impossible. 'Defense" doesn't necessarily need to be in the form of a military strike.

And the Palestinian factions are just as intractable and aggressive in return. As long as both sides remain stubbornly and intractably polar in their stances, this horrible situation is doomed to continue.

Israel/Palestine will be yet another turd sitting on Obama's plate when he takes office, joining the economic meltdown, the twin wars in iraq and Afghanistan, nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, the looming presence of China, and the India/Pakistan conflict, which also has been bubbling uncomfortably. I don't envy the man his task.

And for the tattered King George who is abdicating his throne on January 20 and who had hoped to have a Middle East peace past as a consolation legacy for his disastrous eight years in office, well, it appears that now there not only won't be a peace agreement, but an open, festering wound. Yet Laura Bush and Condoleezza Rice are insisting that history will judge that the Bush presidency was a resounding success. "I think generations pretty soon are going to start to thank this president for what he's done," Rice said in an interview the other day.

Uh, yeah. Sure. That's gonna happen.

Meanwhile, bombs continue to fall in Gaza, and tanks gather at the border. I hope this latest conflagration ends soon, but I have little hope that it will be the last one, or the worst one.

Comments

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree that living there could well make one view things differently. I certainly would never claim to understand the situation as a native (of either side) would. I also understand what you're saying about the 'closeness' -- it was the same for my Irish relatives who lived through the Rising (I've spoken to several of them who lived through those years about it). One side of Denise's family is Syrian, and family is very important to them, also.

But... it's the same on the other side. It's their cousins and their sisters and their uncles and aunts who are dying in the retaliatory raids. TO them, as to you, every death feels like it's their relatives, also. Until there's empathy on both sides for each other, until both sides see each other as human beings who are undergoing the same suffering, it's just going to continue. Until the Palestinians are as important as the Israelis, and the Israelis are as important as the Palestinians, nothing will change.

"We have to respond, and we can't back down and we can't be soft, because that only leads to more deaths on our side." Respond, yes, but (in my opinion) "an eye for an eye" is only going to lead to escalation of the violence, not an end to it, with more deaths on both sides.

I do understand. I know it's easy for me to say that from a distance. I wish I could say "here's a solution that will work." I don't have one. I believe, however, that it's been amply demonstrated that retaliation in kind has not worked and most likely will never work.