Without a doubt, discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
is entering into a subject area that is decades old and includes a great deal
of hatred and ugliness on both sides. Nonetheless, it’s a topic I figured I’d
address sooner or later, and the ongoing incursion into Gaza certainly provides
ample opportunity. To some, I suppose my opinion may come off as a bit
one-sided, but I would do no one any favors by inserting more uncertainty into
a situation as confused and horrific as the current one.
The justification for Israel’s airstrikes on, and now ground
invasion of, Gaza, is the continuing barrage of rockets from Gaza, shot off by
Hamas. Because of Israel’s defense system, these rockets have largely failed to
find their targets, and have an extremely low casualty count—certainly no
excuse for Hamas’s actions, but something to keep in mind when realizing that
Israel’s justification for its actions hinges on the idea that they are
necessary for self-defense.
In contrast to the rocket strikes, Israel’s response has
killed hundreds of Palestinians—and, ironically, far more Israelis (in the form
of soldiers—who are often not serving voluntarily, given Israel’s mandatory
military service) than the rockets—and has had ghastly effects on Gaza, leaving
1.2 million with little or no water, and the entire (badly overcrowded)
population utterly terrorized. That would be the first problem with the
self-defense justification; unless we value Palestinian lives vastly less than
Israeli ones, we must see that the Israeli response has done far more harm than
good.
That purely utilitarian calculation is far from the only
problem with Israel’s self-defense claim. While supporters of Israel may make
excuses for the large number of civilian casualties due to the fact that Hamas
has located its members and supplies in close quarters with innocents, it’s
hard to see how this would justify targets such as the recently shelled al-Aqsa
hospital. This incident isn’t exactly an outlier either, since it’s at least
the third such strike on a hospital since the ground invasion began. It’s hard
to imagine that, even if these hospitals weren’t deliberately targeted, the
Israeli forces are exactly taking great care to minimize civilian deaths. Given
the areas that have been hit as well as the overall gross inequality between
the Israelis killed by Hamas versus the Palestinians killed by the Israeli
forces, it seems entirely believable that collective punishment is perhaps the
real motivation.
Even a generous assessment must conclude that Israel is
essentially enforcing its longstanding siege on Gaza—an area many have
described as an open-air prison, as a result of Israel’s oppressive polices.
Hamas’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire largely hinges on the blockade Israel
has imposed against Gaza for years now—a blockade that has been widely criticized
for its damage to everyday Gaza residents, and may very well be (in my view,
indeed, with little doubt is) yet another example of Israeli collective
punishment against the Palestinians. Israel’s justification for the blockade is
partly in order to keep Hamas from acquiring rockets—I don’t feel the need to
explain how profoundly nonsensical it is to allow rocket attacks to continue in
order to keep such a blockade in place.
While Hamas and the Israeli government both seem to have
adopted the appalling policy that any number of civilian deaths is permissible
to achieve their goals, one can say in Hamas’s favor that at least some of
their goals are reasonable. Hamas has previously offered a ten-year truce if
Israel withdraws to pre-1967 borders—something that even President Obama (now
busy assuring Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that he supports Israel’s right
to “self-defense”) has spoken out in favor of. According to recent reports,
Hamas has presented a new offer for such a truce, on ten conditions, which
largely ask for an easing of the blockade and greater freedom for Gaza.
(Whether Hamas would really abide by such a truce is a different matter, but
one would hope the Israeli government would see greater reason to respect the
Palestinians’ basic rights rather than just to end the rocket attacks.)
Israel’s goals, one can only assume, are to continue its blockade and general
mistreatment of the Palestinians. There may be no good guy between the two, but
it’s not hard to see which one is worse, when the facts have been laid out.
Naturally, one’s sympathies should fall with neither, but rather with the
general well-being of both the Israelis and the Palestinians—but it’s pretty
clear which of those two is worse off, and why that is.
It’s time for the United States to completely end its
support of the Israeli government. No more money, nor military equipment, nor
diplomatic encouragement, should be given to Netanyahu and friends—the ones who
most deserve to have the label “terrorist” applied to them, if not far worse
labels. Israel has consistently demonstrated utter disregard for both the
well-being of the Palestinians and for international law. It’s disgusting, if
unsurprising, that they’ve so long enjoyed our support. It’s time for that to
end. What should be demanded of them is obedience to the Geneva conventions
(which they’ve consistently ignored) as well as all other elements of
international law, such as the ban on chemical weapons—which they never
ratified, and also haven’t obeyed. It’s time for Israel to withdraw to the
borders it occupied before the Six Days’ War, as many have called on them to
do—a pretty generous offer, considering from the early days they displaced
Palestinians with little concern for the result. Israel’s government is a
terrorist organization far more effective and sinister than Hamas; the people
of Israel shouldn’t be made to suffer for that fact, but it’s time that
terrorist organization at least lost our backing.
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