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The Cycle of Violence Continues, Part 73,428,614
By Jeff Fecke | December 27, 2008
Someday, one of the sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will wake up and realize that the eternal cycle of retaliatory violence isn’t working for either side.
Waves of Israeli airstrikes hit Hamas security facilities in Gaza on Saturday in a crushing response to the group’s rocket fire, killing more than 200 — the highest one-day toll in an Israeli military operation against Palestinians in decades.
Israeli military officials said the airstrikes, which went on into the night, were the start of what could be days or even months of an effort to force Hamas to end its rocket barrages into southern Israel. The operation could ultimately include ground forces, a senior Israeli security official said.
After the initial airstrikes, which Palestinian officials said also wounded at least 600, dozens of rockets struck southern Israel, where an emergency was declared. Thousands of Israelis hurried into bomb shelters amid the hail of rockets, including some longer-range models that reached farther north than ever before. One man was killed in the town of Netivot and four were wounded, one seriously.
The sad thing is that both sides can use this to make their argument. Israel’s “friends” can say that they were provoked into the attack, never mind that the attack was so disproportionate as to be ludicrous. The Palestinians’ “friends” can say that this proves that Palestinians need to continue their rocket attacks, never mind that common sense tells you that if you keep poking an angry bear with a pointy stick, it’s going to attack in a disproportionate way. And meanwhile, Israel is no closer to peaceful coexistence, and Palestine is no closer to having its own functional state, and innocent Israelis and Palestinians are caught in the crossfire.
I’ve long believed that America needs to be a friend to Israel, and being a friend to Israel means, you know, being a friend — and telling them that sometimes, their actions are counterproductive. This attack has already spawned retaliation from Hamas, which will spawn further retaliation from Israel, which will cause further retaliation from Hamas, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. Until one of the sides (or heck, both) wakes up and realizes this is madness, the madness will continue unabated.
Topics: Middle East/Persian Gulf | 11 Comments »
January 1st, 2009 at 10:59 am
[...] Cities Daily Planet 31Dec08 Jeff Fecke concurrently writes at the TC Daily Planet and at Moderate Left: Someday, one of the sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will wake up and realize that the [...]
January 1st, 2009 at 11:00 am
The Jews – unilaterally – withdrew from Gaza in compliance with the cries of Land for Peace. The Arabs then commenced an unending barrage of rocket fire into Israel. There have been over 12,000 rockets launched against Israel on an almost daily basis over the past seven years. Between January and November 2008, Hamas fired 1,212 rockets and 1,290 mortar bombs from the Gaza Strip and hit southern Israel. The Jews have a right of self-defense.
Hamas and the Islamists do not want peace. They have a covenant to annihilate Israel and the Jews.
Who do you sympathize with, Mr. Fecke? Who do believe is right, and who is wrong?
January 1st, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Neither side is right. And given that Israel has killed 400 Palestinians in this incursion against the 1 Israeli the rocket attacks have killed, I’d say this is disproportionate.
Israel (which, incidentally, =/= Jews) does have the right of self-defense. But under international law, that right needs to be exercised in a reasonable and proportionate manner, and simply, it isn’t being done so here. Don’t get me wrong — Hamas’ continued rocket strikes are no more intelligent, and no more legal, and no better for long-term peace. As I said before, both sides are wrong. My sympathy is with the dead civilians on both sides, the innocents who have been killed in the neverending cycle of violence. And until one or both sides figures that out, both sides will be wrong.
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Are you inferring, Mr. Fecke, that if Israel waited until 400 Jews were killed, their response against Hamas would not offend you?
Israel is the Jewish national homeland. You stand corrected.
Who do believe is right, and who do you believe is wrong?
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Here’s the Hamas Covenant.
Remember: proportionate response.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Are you inferring, Mr. Fecke, that if Israel waited until 400 Jews were killed, their response against Hamas would not offend you?
Actually, if the response was proportional, it would not.
Here’s the Hamas Covenant.
Where have I said Hamas is sane? As any sane person can see, I’m arguing here that both sides are blinkered if they think this is helping them. Hamas is cutting its own throat while targeting civilians in clear contravention of international law; I’ve never said that Hamas is some sort of glorious entity. What I’ve said is that Israel’s response is counterproductive and morally wrong. And it is.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Oh, and no, Israel != all Jews. For one, not all Jews live in Israel. For another, many Jews — including a majority of American Jews — have serious problems with the current actions of Israel. I’d encourage you to go look at J-Street for an example, but I rather suspect you think they’re a bunch of anti-Semites, too.
January 4th, 2009 at 11:40 am
J-Street? The Gush Shalom crowd?
You’ve got to do better than that, Mr. Fecke.
That’s from the Hamas Covenant. I already provided a link to the Avalon Project at Yale University, it’s up to you to read it.
After you’ve read it, Mr. Fecke, ask yourself: what would you do to defend your people against genocidal fanatics?
January 4th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Well, given the actual ability of Hamas to do anything (i.e., none), I’d behave in a proportional manner, trying not to feed into the resentment and bitterness that has given Hamas its raison d’etre over the years. Al Qaeda wants to obliterate America — and they’re my people, last I check — but I don’t advocate nuking the Middle East just to get rid of them.
Of course, if you don’t believe that your opponents are fully human, you have no problem killing them.
Nachman, you and Hamas deserve each other. After all, you seem unconcerned about killing innocent civilians. Hopefully, for everyone’s sake, neither of you will get your way.
January 5th, 2009 at 10:38 am
First, no form of war is ever “humane”.
And “proportionality” is one of those conceits tossed around by people who’ve never bothered reading history.
Sinking Japanese battleships, occupying Norway and Sweden, imprisoning and exterminating Germans, and bombarding Confederate forts would have been the “proportionate” responses to Pearl Harbor, the Blitzkrieg, the Holocaust and Fort Sumter. Taken to the extreme (but by no means an irrational one), it locks belligerents into an endless tit-for-tat that grinds up the innocent and leaves the guilty in power – like that creepy episode of Star Trek where the two warring planets agreed to mutually off their own people according to a proportional mathematical formula, rather than actually fight.
“Proportionality” is infinitely less “Humane” than ending the war. And anding the war has meant destroying Japan’s war machine, reconquering Europe, and bringing the South to heel. And since Hamas has no interest in peaceful resolution, the only human result for the people of Gaza is to get rid of Hamas.
I’ll pre-empt your seemingly-inevitable response, Jeff: I am so much more concerned about the plight of innocent civilians, I care enough to actually seek a solution that will lead to the end of the slaughter; destruction of Hamas.
Remember – innocent Israeli citizens are innocent people too.
January 5th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Once again, Mr. Fecke.
The Preamble to the Hamas Covenant states that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”.
Make a choice. This shouldn’t be very difficult.