I have Israeli friends as well as lots of Jewish ones. I
also have some Muslim friends, although I do not know anyone from Palestine. I
do not have any religious affiliation and consider all religions to be equal. Thus,
I believe I have the credentials to be considered objective in my reaction to
what is going on in Gaza at the moment.
I completely agree with Israel's claim that they have a
right to defend themselves, and abhor Hamas' objective of wiping them from the
face of the earth. If Hamas is trying to wipe out Israel by throwing
missile that do not seem to hit anything in particular, they have a thing or
two to learn. Obviously, they are not that stupid. They are trying to get the
attention of the world to the grievances of people they govern---specifically,
to get Israel remove blockade of Gaza. They have tried this before and it did
not work. Repeating the same tactic is a sign of desperation. Didn’t they know
what Israeli response would be? Perhaps they think there is no other
alternative.
I am angry at Hamas for using an ineffective tactic that
disrupts the lives of Israelis, occasionally kills a few, and makes them
retaliate in a predictable way.
However, if I am angry at Hamas, I am outraged at Israel. I
find their tactics revolting and strategy
hard to understand.
Their current tactic is to kill all the Hamas fighters, and
destroy their infrastructure through bombs and shells. We all know what a
carnage that has produced. I am speechless and feel sick when I see pictures of
innocent children dead or dying.
The reasoning put forward by Israelis is that they are dying
because they are being used as human shield by Hamas. That may be true in some
cases based on what I have heard. In those cases, I think of the situation as
similar to the one that evolves when a school is taken over by a mad gunman, a
scenario all too familiar with us living in US. The SWAT team can find a way to
negotiate with the gunman or take him out with a precision shot. Alternately,
they can flatten the entire school with a bomb and blame
the resulting carnage on the mad gunman. How will public react to that?
Suppose, later on, it is found out that the mad gunman took
the student hostages because he was angry at the police force and wanted to make
them look bad when the images of dead children appear on the TV screens around
the country. True. He may be doing that. However, would that finding exonerate the SWAT team?
Further, in many (if not most) cases, the civilians that die
are not being used as a shield by
Hamas. Given that there are two million people in that crammed place, with
nowhere to go, innocent people always surround a Hamas fighter, no matter
where he hides. Are all those people still considered to be deliberate
shields?
Israel claims that they are always taking pains to spare
civilians. To demonstrate, that we are shown pictures of their air force being
very surgical in their strike…blowing up a building of a Hamas fighter with a
precision guided bomb. But how can you be surgical when you fire a shell in a neighborhood? Add to that, we
all know that errors happen and weapons malfunction. In that case, won’t a
“surgical” strike become a catastrophe?
Finally, at least some of the shelling is reported to be in
retribution to avenge the killing of Israeli soldiers. In one instance the
Israeli army reportedly wiped out a whole neighborhood, including a family of
27 who had gathered for Ramadan dinner, as punishment for killing some of their
own.
So what is the end game? Extrapolating from the current
trajectory, is the plan to achieve destruction of Hamas by flattening all of
Gaza?
So much for the tactics; now, about the strategy.
Has this type of response worked in the past? No. This is
the third or fourth time (I have lost count) that exactly the same scenario is
being played out. Why would the end result be different this time? In fact wouldn’t the situation be worse?
At the end of this round of carnage, when cease-fire is
achieved, one can think of two scenarios to describe the thinking of a
Palestinian who is currently not a member of Hamas. One is that he will think, "Yes
Israel is right in punishing us for what Hamas has done. Hamas is the real
culprit and has brought this misery on us. The next time I will not make a
mistake and elect them. " Another scenario is that he will think, "I
had little before, and now I have nothing. My son is killed and this family
that I used to know has been blown away. All around me is utter destruction. I have
no job and no prospects. I have nothing to lose. I am not going to take this
lying down. I am going to sign up with Hamas and fight."
Which scenario do you
think is more realistic?
Is this a sound
strategy to achieve peace?
