Israel-Hamas Conflict: A Situation With No Good Solution
We All Hope For a Swift Resolution Without More Bloodshed; Yet Sooner or Later We'll be Right Back Here Again
On Sunday morning, as Israel was celebrating the Jewish holy day of Sukkot, HAMAS militants from Gaza City viciously attacked Israel in a coordinated and planned effort. Among the placed targeted was a music festival where hundreds were killed, injured or taken hostage. Israel’s cabinet declared a State of War the same day and HAMAS seems to be taking the posture of “Bring it on.”
As always, this loss of life and casual disregard for Israeli and Palestinian civilians by their leaderships are painful to witness. It is always the civilians on both sides who pay the harshest costs for political policy. Sadly, it also quite often feels inevitable given the hard line positions both groups’ leaderships regularly take. It would be so easy to be critical of both if not for the fact that given the circumstances and positions of each, their postures are both completely reasonable and mind-numbingly provacative, eventually leading to the next big conflict.
I’m not going to rehash 80 years of history going back to WWII when Zionism as a political philosophy took hold within the Jewish Community and led to the creation of the Israeli state. All you really need to know is that ever since Israel’s creation the displaced Palestinians have been royally pissed off about it and continually voice their displeasure in the most caustic, militarized and counterproductive manner. It seems like every ten years or so bring some heightened level of violence and when it eventually dies down nothing is ever resolved.
It genuinely seems like the entire world outside the Middle East wants to see this settled in some way. Yet neither party has any incentive to do so. We’ve had serious discussions before about easing the tensions in the Middle East and creating Accords that seek a way out (Camp David Accords, Oslo Acccords). You know what happened to leaders who signed those Accords? They were assassinated BY THEIR OWN PEOPLE (Anwar Sadat, Yitzahk Rabin). Politically, any compromise is perceived as surrender. For that reason, the political center of gravity has always been on a more defensive and hard line stance (for Israel) and a more offensive, provocative stance for the Palestinians. Following the Oslo Accords, which promoted a “Two state solution” and Palestinians were allowed to vote for their Representation, who did they elect? Hezbollah leaders, the terrorist organization who had been wreaking havoc on Israel since it’s inception.
So they both do what they have always done. Israel exerts a stranglehold of control over the Palestinian areas of Gaza and the West Bank. Gaza alone has over a million people in it and is one of the densest populated areas on the planet. Half are under the age of 18, half do not have clean drinking water and most all live in poverty. Most all have no opportunity or prospects. They begin to aggressively oppose and fight their perceived oppressors. Israel clamps down. News media shows the impact on Palestinian civilians. Humanitarian aid pours in. The worst of the militants use it as an opportunity for attack and here we go again. Round and round it goes. Everyone loses.
And I genuinely don’t know how you resolve it. Israel could invest in improving the standard of living within Palestinian areas, but Israeli politics make that impractical if not impossible. Palestinians could elect less militant and more rational leaders, but they would be perceived as weak and giving into Israeli settlements and gentrification. Any leader coming from the West Bank will always be seen as being in league with terrorists and Iran, unworthy of negotiating as an equal partner. Israel would be right not to negotiate.
But the end result is that we end up right back here again sometime in future.
If anyone has any genuine ideas as to how to solve this, I’m (and I’m sure everyone in the world are) all ears.
PurpleAmerica’s Cultural Corner
Generally speaking, movies and culture don’t do nuance very well. They like the white hat-black hat, hero-villain dichotomy. It’s easy to convey and doesn’t require any thought by the audience. They get it. One side is good. One side is bad. More often than not, when it comes to the Middle East in movies, bad guys are often depicted as Islamic Terrorists on some sort of jihad.
Today I want to offer to you three different features that really do a good job of demonstrating the nuance when it comes to the Middle East conflict.
The first is the Steven Spielberg movie, Munich. Eric Bana and Daniel Craig play Mossad agents tasked with hunting and killing the funders of the terrorists, and the perpetrators, who killed the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic games. It starts out as you would expect, along the lines of that hero-villain aesthetic. But as the movie progresses those lines get further and further blurred. Spielberg was criticized for making a film like this, but in my opinion, he did a better job of it than anyone else has or could have.
The next is a film called “Waltz with Bashir.” It’s a hypnotic, animated film that follows a former Israeli soldier as he tries to piece together events that happened during a war with Lebanon years earlier. Thoughtful, honest, and in the end shocking and heartbreaking. The animation allows the viewer to stay a little detatched from what is occuring even though its in the middle of a war. When it shifts to live action footage it hits you like a ton of bricks.
The last is an episode from Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, where he travels to Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. Bourdain was always a master at showing the humanity of a populace. Politics always is in the background, no matter where you go, but he was excellent at putting a face on the locals and their thoughts on it all. Below is a small scene when he visited Gaza.
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
Upon the creation of the State of Israel, the Presidency was offered to Albert Einstein.
He refused it.
PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject
I don’t think there will be a “final word” on this situation for a very long time.
Thank you for taking the time to attempt an explanation of this difficult topic. All I can say at the moment is that Albert Einstein was a smart man.
Thank you for your thoughtful post.