Is Israel Becoming A Liabitlity?
The deadly raid on a humanitarian flotilla in international waters by Israeli commandos, has garnered international outrage and succeeded to shine a bright light on the living conditions for Palestinians trapped in the Gaza strip.
Every time a conversation pops up about the Middle East it generally gets taken over by the loudest and most passionate people on either side who list off a litany of terrible events perpetrated by people and organizations on both sides. From there it degenerates into nothing more than a pointless exercise and comparison as to which side is more to blame. I think those conversations are for those who aren't actually interested in peace and stability, whereby Palestinians and Israeli's can co-exist, perhaps under a two state solution with Jerusalem as the capital for both nation.
It's impossible for me to think that anyone deeply attached to the plight of the Jewish people or the Palestinians would be interested in an outside impartial voice, but I'm going to do it anyway. There is no question in my mind that Israelis need to be protected from those who want to kill them, but at what point do you lose the soul of what you wanted to protect to begin with?
As a small example as to the conditions of the Gaza strip, besides the fact that there is no economy forcing the people there to rely on Israel for practically everything, there is a bizarre list of items prohibited from entering into Gaza. Wood for windows and doors is fine to enter, but wood and concrete for construction is not allowed. Paper for schools is not allowed for whatever reason, and at one point pasta was considered a banned substance and not food. Restrictions on these items don't seem reasonable to me considering that people there are on the brink and have been for quite some time.
This is the point in a conversation where someone usually says something to the effect, "Well, it's Hamas' fault for not recognizing Israel and killing Israeli citizens. The people there should pick new leaders." Again, this goes back to the regressive back and forth argument between people looking to stay as offended and angry as possible. However, as a matter of history it was the Bush administration in 2006 who pushed for Palestinian elections, having drank their own kool-aid thinking that the invasion of Iraq had sufficiently scared those groups and governments who were anti-Israeli into submission. The only problem after helping set up these elections is that Hamas won, ruining Bush 43's hastily concocted plan to spread the kind of Democracy they wanted in the Middle East. Hamas in a bitter fight between them and the more Western leaning Fatah party, pulled out a victory in Gaza and subsequently took over, leaving Fatah in control of the rest of the Palestinian territories.
From that ill fated election was spawned what is now an untenable sea and land blockade of the entire Gaza strip. And here is where the problem lies. There are people behind that blockade suffering. Regular people who have no ties to terrorists and have no means to lift themselves up are suffering in an attempt at what appears to be to get them out of Gaza altogether. This is the soul part of what I mentioned earlier. If you can't even treat human beings like human beings, then what has this struggle turned into?
The Agenda with Steve Paikin had a great panel on air to discuss this topic last week and some of the statistics surrounding Israel are interesting. According to the Agenda, fully two thirds of Jews in the United States have not been to Israel and are far more critical of Israeli government actions in relation to Palestinians than their counterparts in the Middle East. At the same time Israel is becoming far more orthodox in its demographics which seems to indicate a large growing gulf between the two groups. The more religious the country becomes the closer to the Bush doctrine it gets using its military superiority as a cudgel without balancing negotiations or compromise.
How far is too far?
Take a look at the episode of the Agenda below:
Every time a conversation pops up about the Middle East it generally gets taken over by the loudest and most passionate people on either side who list off a litany of terrible events perpetrated by people and organizations on both sides. From there it degenerates into nothing more than a pointless exercise and comparison as to which side is more to blame. I think those conversations are for those who aren't actually interested in peace and stability, whereby Palestinians and Israeli's can co-exist, perhaps under a two state solution with Jerusalem as the capital for both nation.
It's impossible for me to think that anyone deeply attached to the plight of the Jewish people or the Palestinians would be interested in an outside impartial voice, but I'm going to do it anyway. There is no question in my mind that Israelis need to be protected from those who want to kill them, but at what point do you lose the soul of what you wanted to protect to begin with?
As a small example as to the conditions of the Gaza strip, besides the fact that there is no economy forcing the people there to rely on Israel for practically everything, there is a bizarre list of items prohibited from entering into Gaza. Wood for windows and doors is fine to enter, but wood and concrete for construction is not allowed. Paper for schools is not allowed for whatever reason, and at one point pasta was considered a banned substance and not food. Restrictions on these items don't seem reasonable to me considering that people there are on the brink and have been for quite some time.
This is the point in a conversation where someone usually says something to the effect, "Well, it's Hamas' fault for not recognizing Israel and killing Israeli citizens. The people there should pick new leaders." Again, this goes back to the regressive back and forth argument between people looking to stay as offended and angry as possible. However, as a matter of history it was the Bush administration in 2006 who pushed for Palestinian elections, having drank their own kool-aid thinking that the invasion of Iraq had sufficiently scared those groups and governments who were anti-Israeli into submission. The only problem after helping set up these elections is that Hamas won, ruining Bush 43's hastily concocted plan to spread the kind of Democracy they wanted in the Middle East. Hamas in a bitter fight between them and the more Western leaning Fatah party, pulled out a victory in Gaza and subsequently took over, leaving Fatah in control of the rest of the Palestinian territories.
From that ill fated election was spawned what is now an untenable sea and land blockade of the entire Gaza strip. And here is where the problem lies. There are people behind that blockade suffering. Regular people who have no ties to terrorists and have no means to lift themselves up are suffering in an attempt at what appears to be to get them out of Gaza altogether. This is the soul part of what I mentioned earlier. If you can't even treat human beings like human beings, then what has this struggle turned into?
The Agenda with Steve Paikin had a great panel on air to discuss this topic last week and some of the statistics surrounding Israel are interesting. According to the Agenda, fully two thirds of Jews in the United States have not been to Israel and are far more critical of Israeli government actions in relation to Palestinians than their counterparts in the Middle East. At the same time Israel is becoming far more orthodox in its demographics which seems to indicate a large growing gulf between the two groups. The more religious the country becomes the closer to the Bush doctrine it gets using its military superiority as a cudgel without balancing negotiations or compromise.
How far is too far?
Take a look at the episode of the Agenda below:
Leave a comment