We’ve seen this all before. Palestinian "terrorists" or "freedom fighters" launch rockets, detonate suicide bombs, shoot up a settlement, and Israel retaliates by dropping loads of bombs, targeted assassinations, tightening check points and supply blockades, basically putting on a big balls show of force. The world condemns the disproportionate force, the U.S. affirms Israel’s right to self-defense but begs Israel to "show restraint." The root disagreements between Israelis and Palestinians continue to fester. The "cycle of violence" continues.
It’s such a fucking familiar storyline, and so incredibly sad. What’s even more incredibly sad is the simple-minded and biased discourse that goes on this site and liberal blogs like it, uniformly blaming one side or the other, usually Israel, for pretty much everything. What’s worse is the inevitable moral equivalency established between terrorism and civilian side effects. It goes something like this, "How can we really blame the poor, helpless Palestinians who have been blockaded, occupied, harassed, had their land divided up by messianic Jewish settlers, for fighting back?"
The reality is, regardless of the raw numbers of how many get killed on each side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they don’t render one side more right or more brutal than the other. The key is intent. One side is trying to kill civilians (they’re not targeting soldiers and killing some Israeli civilians by accident), and one side is trying to root out terror (regardless of the wisdom of the current policy of bombing the shit out of Gaza) and killing civilians, albeit a huge, tragic number.
I don’t think what Israel is doing is a particularly smart strategy, but seriously, what would you have Israel do, AT THIS POINT IN TIME, to stop the rocket attacks? Making life easier for Palestinians may or may not stop terror in the long-run, but it’s not going to stop terror now, it just gives the extremists an opening for more terror. That’s just reality, as much as we hope people in charge had made the right decisions for peace at earlier points in history. But that’s water under the bridge.
My point in this diary is simply to have sympathy for both sides. I don’t mean to be all concern-trolly but liberals here that mostly do favor the Palestinian view on things tend to reflexively favor the underdog in conflicts. It’s in our nature, I do it to. It’s easy to see AIPAC’s disproportionate power over U.S. foreign policy and decide that renders U.S. support of Israel immoral. But we’re not supposed to think like conservatives, in black and white. Palestinians good but oppressed, Israel powerful and malicious, or vice-versa. We’re supposed to see the broader context in which world events occur.
Let me tell you, reflexively condemning Israel does not help the Palestinians. It gives Israel, and Jews in general, a bunker mentality. Jews have always been persecuted throughout history and they take the inevitable world condemnation of any Israeli self-defense as an extension of that timeless persecution. Jews realize they’re a tiny minority in a world with 1.4 billion Muslims. They want their own (truly tiny) piece of land, many of them think they should have claim to some holy sites in the West Bank and Jerusalem as well. Israelis hate that the U.S. government is their only real friend in the world, that they don’t have public support, and that the U.S. UN Security council veto is the only thing keeping them from being slapped with massive sanctions. The more the Israelis have this bunker mentality, the more likely they will be to elect hard-line leaders unwilling to make compromises for peace.
At the same time, Palestinians are a reality, they’re there, they’re not leaving, and they aren’t going to be expelled. And most Jews and Israelis believe in the two-state solution. But there have been so many broken promises for so long and no real partners for peace. They see a construction of a security wall having cut terrorism 95% from the West Bank in the last couple years, and they’re willing to take some Palestinians off their land to accomplish this. That doesn’t make it right, but it makes it understandable in the context.
I’m just saying, try to understand both sides. See it from both peoples’ points of view. Both Palestinians and Israelis are in impossible, no-win situations. Don’t prolong the cycle of condemnation and righteous indignation.