Yes, Well, I Left

I'm, of course, concerned about the safety of all the Israeli soldiers I met on my trip. At the same time, I'm pretty upset by the small, ultra-militaristic branch of the Israeli government for not just targeting Hamas radio and television stations, bunkers, and weapon storage facilities but also a police academy, mosque and an international school where innocent people were killed. When I tried to talk to Israelis about this, they said "if Hamas put down their arms, there would be no war. If the Israelis put down their arms, there'd be no Israel." But Hamas wasn't the only faction targeted...and this move is only intensifying anti-Israeli feelings across the world, thus furthering the likelihood of more attacks against Israel...

Andrew Sullivan summed up my feelings quite nicely when he wrote today..

The inability on both sides to see Jews and Arabs as equally and indistinguishably human before they are Jews and Arabs is at the heart of the problem.

Neither side, right now, is able to recognize the other's right to exist. It's a moral dance many of the Israelis I met were willing to take: to say that, because one faction of an oppressed minority group hates Israelis and wants to see Israelis dead, it is okay to demagogue them and say that they, in return, have no right to exist.

And, it's like, you can't even argue with the Israelis once they bring up the Holocaust...the Holocaust effectively ends all arguments...it's hard to even type about it (I had to get drunk first..)

As Megan McCardle writes...

I don't ever blog about it because one is not allowed to have an opinion on the matter--no matter what I say, I'll be excusing terrorism or, irrelevantly, the holocaust, or shilling for western imperialism.

And, to paraphrase Tim F., the idea that violence should be the answer to violence "puts any small group of radicals in charge of Israel’s foreign policy," which isn't a good thing at all.

Ultimately, this is political posturing that's good for politicians in elections, and bad for both the Israeli and Palestinian people. As Ezra Klein writes..

Hamas is healthiest when it is a symbol of guerrilla resistance against a brutal and murderous Jewish state. Kadima is likeliest to win the February elections if it is demonstrating sufficient toughness to neuter Likud's appeal. And so here we are. The Israeli and Palestinian politicians are both well-served by the strikes in Gaza. The Israeli and Palestinian people less so.

And one thing is unbelievably clear: more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis. Almost 10 times more.

To think that this kind of violence will get the Palestinians to blame Hamas for shooting rockets into Israeli territory is naive. Palestinians will blame Israel, not their failed "leadership," for the rocket fire. Who would blame the same organization that provides social services to those in need?

These attacks only strengthen the sentiment that Israel has no desire to protect the Palestinian people, or recognize their right to a sound state.

Here's Ezra Again..

It is true that Hamas does not believe in Israel's right to exist. But it is also true that Palestinians don't believe that Israel means to ever offer them a dignified and autonomous existence, and thus far, the evidence has supported their position.

What kind of position does this war put the average Palestinian in? How much hope can they invest in a two state solution now?