The civilian body count in Gaza continues apace, despite the unsurprising revelation that the incident that triggered the current round of conflicts was not perpetrated by Hamas after all. It will end after some number has been reached to generate sufficient outcry by the rest of the world at Israel.
Not that that absolves Hamas in particular -- they really do dig tunnels and stockpile missiles in civilian areas, specifically to goad the Israelis and gin up world outrage, while the Hamas leaders sit in Jordan or Qatar or wherever, and watch it all take place on TV.
But Israel also needs to get it through their heads that, between Gaza and the settlements, the outrageous treatment of Palestinians in their daily lives leaves them quite literally with nothing to lose. Anyone would figure that if there's no reward for good behavior, only more punitive actions, then you might as well try another tack.
At the end of the day, though, Israel really is the only thing resembling a democracy in the region, and certainly more democratic than its neighbors (excepting perhaps Lebanon, which tends to be too weak to avoid meddling and infiltration by Syrian and Iranian entities). The world may be repulsed at the civilian body count Israel is producing, but most are also repulsed at the radicalized Islamist "culture" perpetuating right in Israel's backyard.
It's okay to be objective and call horrible things and people for what they are. What ISIS and other radical groups do in the context of Islamic religion or Arab culture should be separated from those things specifically. What those groups do and impose on their hapless people is nothing more than raw power. Sure, there are things about decadent western society that repulse even most decadent western sensibilities.
But the difference is that we don't force, with violence or the threat of violence, our women to wear beekeeper suits, or beat them if they leave the house unaccompanied, or whip or stone them for having sex. That would be at least one way in which you could differentiate one culture as being objectively superior to another, especially one that hasn't produced anything useful or innovative for hundreds of years.
Back to Gaza. Israel is going to have to make a good-faith effort not just to stop the fighting, or to make concessions entirely contingent on the cessation of any and all hostile incidents, but to curtail the activities -- again, at a local or even neighborhood level -- of settlers and ultra-Zionists, who make the lives of Palestinian residents as miserable as possible. If they do something about that, they might not find themselves back in this fix every year or so.
Not that that absolves Hamas in particular -- they really do dig tunnels and stockpile missiles in civilian areas, specifically to goad the Israelis and gin up world outrage, while the Hamas leaders sit in Jordan or Qatar or wherever, and watch it all take place on TV.
But Israel also needs to get it through their heads that, between Gaza and the settlements, the outrageous treatment of Palestinians in their daily lives leaves them quite literally with nothing to lose. Anyone would figure that if there's no reward for good behavior, only more punitive actions, then you might as well try another tack.
At the end of the day, though, Israel really is the only thing resembling a democracy in the region, and certainly more democratic than its neighbors (excepting perhaps Lebanon, which tends to be too weak to avoid meddling and infiltration by Syrian and Iranian entities). The world may be repulsed at the civilian body count Israel is producing, but most are also repulsed at the radicalized Islamist "culture" perpetuating right in Israel's backyard.
It's okay to be objective and call horrible things and people for what they are. What ISIS and other radical groups do in the context of Islamic religion or Arab culture should be separated from those things specifically. What those groups do and impose on their hapless people is nothing more than raw power. Sure, there are things about decadent western society that repulse even most decadent western sensibilities.
But the difference is that we don't force, with violence or the threat of violence, our women to wear beekeeper suits, or beat them if they leave the house unaccompanied, or whip or stone them for having sex. That would be at least one way in which you could differentiate one culture as being objectively superior to another, especially one that hasn't produced anything useful or innovative for hundreds of years.
Back to Gaza. Israel is going to have to make a good-faith effort not just to stop the fighting, or to make concessions entirely contingent on the cessation of any and all hostile incidents, but to curtail the activities -- again, at a local or even neighborhood level -- of settlers and ultra-Zionists, who make the lives of Palestinian residents as miserable as possible. If they do something about that, they might not find themselves back in this fix every year or so.
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