Has Israel Gone Too Far?

Israel will have gone too far when we see them attack without provocation. Hamas is like the two-year old or teenager for whom the first "No" was not loud enough. Prior responses have obviously been inadequate, because Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel; the attackers are not deterred. Israel's response should escalate until the pain of her response is greater than the pain of Hamas' perceived injustice.

The occupation of Palestine by Israel is unjust. It is obvious that controlling forces in Israel do not want real peace, for whatever reason, because they are blind to the fact that they create their own enemy, and they alone can solve their problems. How many times has "peace" been brokered? By how many different international actors? Sadat was murdered by his own people, as was Begin. No Arab state has, or will, accept that Israel is a legitimate sovereign, due the respect and rights of any global actor.

According to Benny Morris, writing on the Op-Ed Page for the New York Times, the Palestinians have only to wait it out. Public opinion in the West is shifting against Israel, as memories of the Holocaust fade and more criticize Israel's occupation of Palestine; Iran continues progress towards nuclear weapons; Hezbollah has a large arsenal of rockets, as does Hamas; Gaza continues to be a fertile bed of radical, anti-Israeli recruits; and Arab Israelis, by virtue of mere birth rate, will outnumber Jewish Israelis within thirty years. So either attacks from without or demographics from within will stage the end game for the State of Israel.

But you do not pick a fight with the biggest kid in the schoolyard. Alone. Hamas will never win this fight. Maybe they're expecting some of the other kids to join in, but right now, they don't have the resources; they might have thousands of rockets, but it's going to take more than rockets to achieve their goals. They don't have the manpower, and their opponent is backed into a corner. How many divisions do they have? How many tanks? How many aircraft? More importantly, which Arab nation is gathering a "coalition of the willing" to come fight for Hamas?

This is the real question. One important fact that Mr. Morris overlooks is that Hezbollah is mostly Shi'a, as is Iran, and that Hamas is mostly Sunni. Gaza is Sunni, and so is Egypt. The current civil war in Iraq is between these two branches of Islam, and they are not known for conciliation and cooperation. Hezbollah and Iran might be content to let Israel do their job for them, to mortally wound the predominantly Sunni Hamas, wait for the U.S. to exit Iraq, join with the Shi'a majority in that country, and sweep in to take the prize.

Surrender. Unilaterally disarm. Renounce the extremists whose only employment, whose only justification is conflict for conflict's sake(ask them about their post-victory plans). Recognize Israel. Palestine will never see real peace otherwise, and she will sacrifice generations of her children to violence and despair. Imagine the opportunities for commerce, for education, for health care that are waiting for a durable peace. Worse, imagine Israel facing the choice between defeat, and all that that would entail, and pushing the button.

Jeffrey Goldberg has a few words on this very issue in the New York Times

There you have it.