Ok so where to begin....
We could go back thousands of years. The people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been butting heads for quite a while now. The current crisis, in my super advanced opinion, has the potential to start WWIII. Yes, that does sound severe. But basically both sides are in a glorified pissing contest. Both groups of people feel that they have the right to control certain lands, and both groups feel that they are justified using violence to obtain that control.
Violence begets violence. The way I look at it, Palestine is less advanced nation that can't be expected to have complete control of its people. Israel is a modern nation, with a world class military and even a system of laws. The extremists among the Palestinians are terrorists. They lack the mental development to understand that bombing the advanced world will not improve their conditions in life, nor that of their children. These terrorists have, in general, lived lives that are far harder than anything we can imagine. I shouldn't judge them on most of their views, but their complete disregard for human life is unfathomable. The people in charge in Palestine can't stop these extremists. To hold them responsible for the extremists would be like holding the state of South Carolina responsible for the actions of the KKK. But for some reason, Israel doesn't get this. Every so often, they get tired of getting attacked and strike back in Gaza or the West Bank.
I don't blame Israel for being pissed at the terrorists. If I had my family and friends killed by bombs lobbed by moronic assholes, I would want blood. BUT countries are supposed to act better and bigger than human beings. They are not supposed to lash out just because they are angry. Governments (at least democracies) are put in place to take care of major issues (like terrorist attacks) in a way that is more advanced than 2 kids fighting in the playground. Israel needs to be the bigger person and try harder to work with the Palestinian leaders to reign in the terrorists. Israel needs to WORK WITH the Palestinians to bring peace to their region. Bringing more bloodshed to the region does nothing but alienate the Islamic world, while recruiting more angry extremist soldiers among the Palestinians.
Just as Israelis deserve a country of their own, the Palestinians do too. I think it is time for Israel to realize this and act like a more civilized nation. If they keep using the GW Bush playbook for foreign policy, the US and the rest of the world will soon be dragged into a very nasty quagmire. So Israel and Palestine, get your shit together and start valuing human lives!
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Great post! I've read many many many many pieces about this, and you take the right road in recognizing the complexity rather than going for the gut reaction. In general, I get really squirmy when I read how Israel is the bully of the ME, because I can't imagine any other scenario in geopolitics where a country getting bombed repeatedly by an insurgency is blamed for reacting harshly. I wonder what the US would say if Canada decided to start mortaring Maine and sending rocket attacks against Seattle. Other ME countries were given the option to take Palestinians, but over 60 years have failed to initiate the process, or taken them and sent them back because they caused too many problems with their government. Hamas continues to deny Israel's basic right to exist, which makes a lasting peace extremely difficult when they were legitimately elected. Israel refuses to acknowledge the election of Hamas, even though it was done fairly. There's obviously a problem when a terrorist organization achieves legitimate status, because someone didn't care enough to address the root issue. Even worse, we assume that using the same methods to solve the problem will somehow work, like a dumb child trying to fit the square peg in the round hole. I get all riled up too when I hear how Obama is magically going to fix this all on the first day. He'll be a great president, but no one fixes this problem with quick patch solutions. I'm really excited to see what Hillary can do as Sec of State, but the timing of this invasion was terrible.
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