- Isn't it interesting that folks in Ramallah aren't bombing Israelis.
- Isn't it interesting that folks in Southern Lebanon aren't bombing Israelis.
- Isn't it interesting that Iran, Syria and various others that refuse to recognize the right of Israel to exist aren't bombing Israel.
But punk Hamas militants in Gaza have been firing rockets at Israel for weeks and months, causing bodily injury and property damage throughout Southern Israel.
And, under Sharon, a hawk, Israel withdrew from Gaza.
... and what happened. Decay, unemployment, religious fanaticism...filled Gaza.
What happened....? Why does this tiny sliver of a society feel so abandoned that they resort to violence, smuggling, underground tunnels and stashes of very dangerous weapons... ??
What happened? It's the same thing that happens in inner cities and ghettos across the world. With 20% unemployment, low literacy, few investments and nothing but your local gang or religious institution to recruit you, you have few options. It's the South Side of Chicago, West Oakland, the Bronx, South Central LA....... only it's got this hangover from decades of politics mucking up the issue.
The answer is not political. The answer is not military.
The answer is economics and social psychology. Period.
Give a man or a woman a job, a steady paycheck and they have the ability to provide for a family, buy a house, a car, save for retirement, see a movie, take a trip.
Give a man or a woman an opportunity to open a business, specialize in a trade, go to college, graduate school, and you have folks with dreams and aspirations to make their lives and their communities better.
Investment in infrastructure in Gaza - new hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, ports, farms, beaches, and you have jobs and communities.
No investment, crumbling infrastructure, no incentives to care, and you have a punk, angry mob searching for a way to express themselves. Gangs and religious fanaticism take hold and you have urban decay on a grand scale.
Why are those other enemies of Israel not bombing Israel? They may not love Israel or even recognize Israel, but they love their children more than they hate Israel.
And, they have something to lose. They have economies with jobs, businesses, natural resources, communities, viable governments. Tenuous? Yes. Hizbollah in Southern Lebanon, the most volatile of all of them, has been strangely quiet, but could it be because Lebanon actually has a functioning economy and 2 years ago when they engaged Israel and basically lost the skirmish, they realized that it was better to try to fix their communities than try to destroy Israel's. I mean the bombs available to Hamas are surely today also available to Hizbollah... Why aren't they showing solidarity with their Arab brothers and sisters to the South... Arguably, there in Beirut and the Beca Valley, they have something to lose, something they'd rather preserve than jeopardize - a functioning economy...
So here's what I propose - after a cease fire - and there will be a cease fire. Israel will have lost 10s and the Gazans will have lost 100s. - Let's talk about NGOs that can channel investments into the Gazan economy. Let's talk about building bridges and roads, and schools and hospitals.
Invest even $1 Billion (and the US seems to throw billions around these days like that's pocket change) into their system of banks and lending institutions and we'd probably see nice dividends.
And, when we re-deploy our soldiers out of Iraq, let's put maybe 10,000 of our best trained in Gaza to keep the peace. Far more innocents have the potential to get caught in cross fire than anywhere else in the world. Arguably there's more at stake in Israel and the Palestinian territories in the so called War on Terror than there ever was in Iraq. And, Gaza is a small place. It's about the size of Rhode Island. We can manage those logistics. $1 Billion of US humanitarian aid and 10,000 peach keeping troops. Partner with Israel. Show compasion for the humanity there and be on our way to peace, relative peace.
It's about economics.