About Gaza: I have tried not to overly state my own opinion about it in public, especially in English, but seeing the latest post bombardment by people I know, both in favor of the Israeli and the Hamas side, and considering the many questions I have received about the situation, I have decided to do say something. The reason for me doing so is that most of what Ive seen online last couple of days has been basically propaganda. And I do not believe in propaganda. I believe in explaining... of which I have seen very little. The story has two sides. It is a complicated story with no real good guy and bad guy and it is not all black and white. I also dont think simple propaganda is a very efficient method for the Israeli side, being unpropotionally stronger than the Hamas side. Notice I say Hamas and not Palestinian. I believe in the mantra that you cannot justify a boy standing in front of a tank, and it doesnt matter how just you are. Much and more of the pictures in Gaza have been fabricated, with a particular example in the use of the picture from the Final destination movie tagged as a picture from Gaza, but obviously the damage on Gaza WILL look a lot worse than the damage on Israel. That is because the rocket technology of Hamas is inferior, and because Israel spends hundreds of millions of dollars defending their citizens while Hamas strives for civilian casualties on both sides in order to trigger international intervention. Also, for that reason, luckily, there have been no Israeli civilian deaths but there have been dozens of Palestinian civilian deaths at the point of writing this post. Disclaimer- Clearly, I am innately bias toward the Israeli side. I do not think we are perfect, but I do think there is a reasonable base to our current actions, even if I think they could have been done a lot better. If any friends of mine, Israeli or not, disagree with what I wrote, please feel free to debate about it in comments. 1) The current round of violence has started about a month ago with the kidnapping of three Jewish teens in the West Bank by Hamas militants. After three weeks of search for the teens, which included collateral damage on the West Bank and hundreds of Hamas activists in the West Bank being arrested by Israel, the teens have been found dead. Brutally murdered. I have my own criticism about this action and its following events for both sides, but you cannot justify the killing of innocent kids no matter what the situation is. When the fate of the teens was discovered several things have started happening. On the one hand Hamas have started firing rockets on Israel as a response for the operation in the West Bank. One the other hand, after weeks of stress regarding the abducted teens a surge of nationalism has started being expressed in the Israeli public (The main thing I was talking about so far regarding this situation, although mainly in Hebrew). 2) At the moment, both the Hamas and Israel are in a dilemma. The Hamas cannot stop firing rockets for the fear of showing its great weakness. It is (fortunately) unable to gain any significant achievements since the Israeli large investment in shelters and the Iron Dome system have reduced casualties on the Israeli side to practically 0. It is also not being backed by any of its previous supporters (such as Egypt, Qatar, Iran, Syria etc), and is suffering from a severe military disadvantage and a financial crisis. In other words, it has nothing to lose. Although this is the Hamass problem, being an Israeli I obviously care a lot more for the Israeli situation. In the Israeli side, the government simply cannot not-react to rockets being fired on its civilians. It did not react at all until about 100 rockets stroke, and even now, with nearly 5 million people in range and running for shelters on a daily basis, it is still reluctant from entering Gaza in force, as there is no desire in the Israeli side to further escalate the situation. It is true that pictures of over 4 million people running in fear when they hear the alarm, and know that they have 15 seconds to run for their lives does not sound as well as all the actual casualties in Gaza. It is true that kids with post-traumatic stress from rockets fired by an organization that no longer gets any international support, and is defined as a terrorist organization by most of the world, does not make as impressive a picture as the ruins of Gaza after Israeli air strikes. But in Israel we care about the faith of our own families more than the fate of the people who side with the terrorists who try to kill them. That is natural. That being said. I do distinguish between the people of Gaza, Hamas, the PLO in the west bank and Israeli Arabs. These are not the same factions or people (In the case of Israeli Arabs). I honestly care about the poor victims of both Hamas policy and Israeli bombing in Gaza. But I care about my sister, having to run to shelter with her baby, a lot more. My sister and her baby have about 15 seconds to run for their lives to a shelter every time she hears the alarm, in the hope that Iron Dome will shoot down the rocket if it doesnt miss. As a conclusion, The situation is complicated. I think both sides have managed the situation very badly and now both the people of Gaza and Israel are paying the price. If you ask for my personal opinion: I dont think Israeli blood is any more red than Palestinian blood, but I obviously care more about my own family and friends in Israel. In my opinion the current situation will be resolved once Israel hits a Palestinian civilian concentration, causing too much collateral damage for the international community to bear, At that point both sides will be forced to stop the violence.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 17:32:34 +0000
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