I'm not going to go into the history and persecution of the Jews. Nor am I going to talk about the vileness of Hamas' attack on Israel. Nor am I going to talk about how Hamas is holding Israelis hostage. All of that is wrong. But the Israeli reaction of "kill them all" is an act of great cowardness. They have the means ( tragically with our help) of decimating the 17 square miles that is Gaza.
The reason the casualties in Gaza are so high is because Israel is attacking people in a cage with no means of getting out of the way. Israel controls the two exits to Gaza. They control the waters that provide the fourth wall of the cage. It is ridiculously easy to just obliterate everything. The stated goal is to destroy Hamas. But Hamas is not an organization with headquarters and people in uniforms. Hamas is woven into the population the way a religious group is woven into the population of a country. But Israel's apparent strategy is to kill them all because if they all are dead then Hamas is dead.
I'm not going to go into the history and persecution of the Jews. Nor am I going to talk about the vileness of Hamas' attack on Israel. Nor am I going to talk about how heinous it is that Hamas is holding Israelis hostage. All of that is wrong. But the Israeli reaction of "kill them all" is an act of great cowardness. They have the means ( tragically with our help) of decimating the 17 square miles that is Gaza and are doing so systematically and with careful planning. It is a simple minded solution. It is the act of a child who thinks an eye for an eye is the solution to an age old problem.
The solution is not in violence. You can't "kill" an ideology. Both sides have deep ideological stances. Murder will not change someone's beliefs. It deepens it. It is one of the reasons the United States strategy of trying to get rid of "terrorist" organization is so ineffectual. An ideology -- especially a religious ideology -- is not changed with violence or the threat of violence. But I digress.
The solution is in dialogue -- adult to adult. Dialogue means listening, debating and compromising. Dialogue is slow and difficult. It is based if not on mutual respect at least on an understanding that the dual, intertwined histories have equal weight.
But that takes courage that Israelis and Palestinians seem to lack. It takes courage for both sides to back down from their absolutist positions. So Hamas hides in the rubble of Gaza while Israelis slowly and methodically kill them all.
I'm not going to go into the history and persecution of the Jews. Nor am I going to talk about the vileness of Hamas' attack on Israel. Nor am I going to talk about how Hamas is holding Israelis hostage. All of that is wrong. But the Israeli reaction of "kill them all" is an act of great cowardness. They have the means ( tragically with our help) of decimating the 17 square miles that is Gaza.
The reason the casualties in Gaza are so high is because Israel is attacking people in a cage with no means of getting out of the way. Israel controls the two exits to Gaza. They control the waters that provide the fourth wall of the cage. It is ridiculously easy to just obliterate everything. The stated goal is to destroy Hamas. But Hamas is not an organization with headquarters and people in uniforms. Hamas is woven into the population the way a religious group is woven into the population of a country. But Israel's apparent strategy is to kill them all because if they all are dead then Hamas is dead.
I'm not going to go into the history and persecution of the Jews. Nor am I going to talk about the vileness of Hamas' attack on Israel. Nor am I going to talk about how heinous it is that Hamas is holding Israelis hostage. All of that is wrong. But the Israeli reaction of "kill them all" is an act of great cowardness. They have the means ( tragically with our help) of decimating the 17 square miles that is Gaza and are doing so systematically and with careful planning. It is a simple minded solution. It is the act of a child who thinks an eye for an eye is the solution to an age old problem.
The solution is not in violence. You can't "kill" an ideology. Both sides have deep ideological stances. Murder will not change someone's beliefs. It deepens it. It is one of the reasons the United States strategy of trying to get rid of "terrorist" organization is so ineffectual. An ideology -- especially a religious ideology -- is not changed with violence or the threat of violence. But I digress.
The solution is in dialogue -- adult to adult. Dialogue means listening, debating and compromising. Dialogue is slow and difficult. It is based if not on mutual respect at least on an understanding that the dual, intertwined histories have equal weight.
But that takes courage that Israelis and Palestinians seem to lack. It takes courage for both sides to back down from their absolutist positions. So Hamas hides in the rubble of Gaza while Israelis slowly and methodically kill them all.
This whole War is ghastly!!!!