When I was younger I would always pick on my little brother, Spencer. I am a few years older than him and once upon a time I was much bigger than him too. Usually my harassment would be verbal. These weren’t my proudest days, to be sure–but kids will be kids, right? Often, after getting fed up with my bullying, Spencer would lash out physically. Every time this happened, I would easily push him over and pin him down in a matter of seconds. His only respite was yelling for our mother, who would come to his rescue and reprimand me for my actions.
After coddling Spencer’s broken spirit, my mother would teach me an important lesson which eventually stuck with me for life. You’re older than your brother, she would say to me. You’re bigger and smarter than he is. “But he hit me first!” I would respond. “Then just walk away,” my mother would tell me. “What do you prove by beating up someone who is smaller than you?”
Obviously, this vignette is analogous to the recent conflagration in the Middle East–oversimplified though it may be.
On Wednesday a series of bombings across Gaza consisted what the Israelis termed “Operation Pillar of Cloud,” which began with the targeted assassination of Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari. As of Thursday night more than 300 Gazan rockets have killed three Israelis, while the Israelis have killed 16 Palestinians. Most of these deaths are civilians, including a pregnant woman, the elderly, and at least two children under 12 months old.
The Israeli justification for these attacks emphasizes defense: Our country is under threat and we have the right to defend ourselves.
However, the last time I checked, if my neighbor is throwing rocks at my house, I have no right to walk into his own house and shoot him.
Undoubtedly, many will disagree with my analysis of the issue on principle. My aim, however, is not to praise the Palestinians for resisting colonialism, nor is it to insist that the Israelis stand idly by as their people live in terror of daily rocket strikes.
I simply wish to encourage peace and expose injustice.
Both sides are fighting dirty wars; civilians are overwhelmingly the victims in this conflict. That being said, the Israelis–with their U.S.-backed army, navy, and air force–obviously pose a greater threat to the Palestinians than vice-versa. Their active fighting force is more than twice as large as the Palestinians’, and the death toll on either side is even more unequal: almost seven Palestinian deaths for every one Israeli death since the turn of the century.
The Israel Defense Forces are larger, better funded, and more advanced than the Palestine Liberation Army. As one Tweeter put it, the conflict is “guns versus stones.” This inequity makes it clear who the aggressor is. National defense is one thing, but invading or bombing another nation (yes, nation) and disproportionately killing civilians and militants alike is clearly unjust.
The Israelis stand to learn a thing or two from my mother. Rather than just turning the other cheek, they are using these occasional rocket strikes–themselves just a desperate attempt to create some semblance of a two-sided conflict–as a justification for assuming a lopsided militarist stance in the region at the overwhelming expense of Palestinian civilians.
As with my conflict with my brother, Israel holds the majority of power in their conflict with Palestine. As such, no excuses should be made for the indiscriminate and unnecessary killing of civilians. Even if the Palestinians struck first, this does not justify any and all acts of aggression by the Israelis.
The global community, at both an individual and national level, must recognize the inequity and injustice of this conflict and work not only for a solution but also for the promotion of peace–regardless of who hit whom first.
William is a College sophomore from Little Rock, Ark.
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You left out the part where Israel removed all settlements from Gaza in exchange for peace, but let’s not worry ourselves with minor details, for we all know this is not about seeking truth and justice so much as it is about besmirching Israel.
But the noble Hamas-led Palestinians – as is typical of their good neighbor policy- tore up that treaty with Israel, and no sooner had the Israeli settlers left than the Palestinians started lobbing rocket, after rocket, after rocket into Israel. But this is a mere detail, and as noble college students and editorialists we should not be bothered with such trivia.
Instead welcome to our fantasy-world where we pretend that is the po-po Hamas who are the victims – the good guys in our fictional depiction of this conflict. For we all know Hamas is an ethical and loving organization for whom respect for core values – women’s rights, gay rights. Jew’s rights, freedom of conscience, the sanctity of life – are all paramount.
Orwell could not make this crap up it is that far detached from reality.
Does that justify the murder of hundreds of Palestinian children, Mr. Arafat? Because if we look at the conflict purely in terms of the numbers, it is quite clear that the Palestinians are overwhelmingly the victims. This is the one “minor detail” you continue to leave out of the Israeli propaganda you proliferate across a number of college newspapers–raising the unrelated question: Which are you, Mr. Arafat, a “noble college student” or an “editorialist?”
Furthermore, you seem to have completely missed the point of my article. The focus should not be who started it, but rather that injustices are taking place on both sides of the border. Both sides should be held accountable, and peace should be a priority on a global scale.
As soon as you focus on the numbers, then yes, Israel is the aggressor. But what if you looked at where the Palestinian terrorists put their weapons: in schools, near playgrounds and hospitals. The Palestinian people are victims of their own militant government – A government that destroyed the infrastructure after the 2005 disengagement and instead spent its money on rockets from Iran and weapons smuggling tunnels. Just because most of the 12,000 rockets since 2005 haven’t resulted in Israeli casualties doesn’t mean that the Israeli people aren’t victims too. What about the pre-schools that are targeted in Israel? Israel sends out leaflets and text messages to the people in Gaza minutes before airstrikes warning them about the attacks. Israel – throughout this crisis has continued to send in aid shipments to Gaza because their own government abdicated responsibility. Israel also continues to let injured Gazan civilians into Israel for medical treatment. (These Gazans get treatment annonimously so that they aren’t attacked when they get back to Gaza.)
I’m not saying Israel is perfect but please learn all of the facts before you victimize Hamas and blame Israel as the aggressor.
Just take a look at this Hamas press conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0wJXf2nt4Y&feature=player_embedded
Israel maintains one of the most specialized and modernized military machines in the world. To say that they can avoid all civilian casualties would be overstepping it, but a margin of about 50% civilian deaths in the past five days is unacceptable. As for sending out leaflets and text messages, telling someone they’d better start running before you kill them doesn’t excuse killing them when they stay where they are.
While Hamas may be targeting pre-schools, etc, with their unguided dumb missiles, their tactics are borne out of desperation. Israel is targeting everything from media stations to soccer fields to homes with families inside of them–all while possessing the technological capabilities to avoid these senseless killings.
Killing somebody cannot be excused by simply mopping up their blood afterwards.
And finally, I still don’t understand why this conflict looked at more broadly than in terms of the numbers disqualifies of Israel as the aggressor.
Their tactics are born from an almost six decades hatred of the Jewish people. There isn’t desperation in their rocket attacks. Read Hamas’s mission statement. They don’t recognize any part of Israel. The Hamas leadership won’t rest until Hamas is in control of all of Israel. Just like you have a skepticism of the Israeli methods and statistics, maybe you should be more skeptical of the Hamas propaganda as well. From Mickey Mouse telling young children to kill the Jews to Palestinians faking deaths in front of photographers, from Hamas’s own rockets killing Gazan children to the human shields that the so called activists use. Again, I’m not saying that Israel is always in the right and the deaths of the innocent in Gaza is terrible. However, portraying Hamas as the victim is completely wrong and short-sighted. ALL the civilians, both Palestinian and Israeli are victims. Hamas is not. Hamas is a terrorist organization. And do you call recent (this past weekend) threats to send suicide bombers back into Israel desperate? I call it another sign of Hamas’s wanton disregard for human life and dangerous radicalism.
Take a look at the “stones” the Palestinians have:
[T]he Fajr-5 rocket [was built] by Iran – possibly with Russian and Chinese help – the rockets were first shipped through Syria to the Hezbollah militant group in 2002. Today, an unknown number are now in the hands of Hamas. (Presumably, that’s thanks in part to a porous border between southern Gaza and the Sinai, now controlled by the new Islamist regime in Egypt.) The rocket is liquid-fueled, has an estimated 45 mile range, and is fired from a mobile launcher. And while it’s more powerful than anything Hamas had before, it’s still unguided and not particularly accurate – the rocket could land anywhere within a one-kilometer radius of its target. But where the Fajr-5 is short on accuracy, it’s a significant boost in destructive power: the rocket can lob up to 200 pounds of high explosives.
That’s right, those are Palestine’s stones. Now take a look at Israel’s guns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_equipment_of_Israel
Oh yeah, not to mention:
http://news.discovery.com/tech/israel-iran-nuclear-weapons-121004.html
A report from Gaza today:
Rocket launch now from downtown #Gaza city, neighborhood erupts in cheers and whistles, “takbeer” and “allahu akbar,” they shout. #Israel
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/18/hamas-bears-lion-s-share-of-blame-for-israel-gaza-tensions.html – really interesting article
For some reason I can’t reply to your previous comment, so I’ll just do it here:
You say there “isn’t desperation in [Hamas’s] rocket attacks,” yet you fail to look at it from their perspective. Their land was stolen from them again and again, and now they are being oppressed by a military which is much, much more well organized, funded, supplied, and modernized. In a conventional war against Israel, the Palestinians would be slaughtered wholesale. This is a textbook example of asymmetric warfare. As such, it is fair to say that Hamas must resort to unconventional tactics–including holding out in densely-populated areas, targeting densely-populated areas in Israel, and even suicide bombing–in order to maintain any semblance of a fair fight. Ethically speaking, the rules for Hamas are more vague because they don’t possess all the technological capabilities to specifically “target” (read assassinate) high-level personnel. Israel, on the other hand, must adhere to the discriminatory principles (do not kill civilians or noncombatants) much more strictly because they have the ability to do so with their guided missiles, drones, etc. They clearly have not done so.
As for your comment that “Hamas leadership will not rest until Hamas is in control of all of Israel,” consider this: Ahmed al-Jabari was actively in talks to cement a long-term ceasefire with the Israelis. His assassination kicked off Operation Pillar of Cloud. Is Hamas’s “hatred of the Jewish people” to blame for his death? Or is it the unwillingness of the Israelis to agree to a territory agreement similar to that of 1967–an agreement which the Palestinian leaders unilaterally agreed to last year?
As for the label of Hamas as a “terrorist organization,” once again, it’s all a matter of perspective.
I find it unfortunate that you rationalize suicide bombings and human shields as a result of the lack of funding and organization of Hamas. They had an oppertunity to work as a positive, political organization in Gaza, but instead decided to kill and kidnap. They are also terrible for the people living in the Gaza strip. Instead of putting up over 20 returned terrorists in $50,000 hotel rooms for months,maybe they could invest in hospitals.
Not having the technology doesn’t mean you indiscriminately fire rockets over 12,000 times into Israel. After Israel pulled out of Gaza, Jewish donors throughout the world funded infrastructure so that Gaza could become a thriving, peaceful city. Hamas murdered any members of the Palestinian Authority (Fatach) so they could have complete control. They then began working with Iran and Syria – two really upstanding human rights supporting governments to acquire weapons to attack Israel.
Additionally, in 1948, Jews living under British rule in Israel wanted to have their own state. The U.N. devised the partition plan which gave Jerusalem and most of the fertile parts of the land to the Arabs living there. The Jews got the desert and Tel Aviv. Except that every Arab country around it, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq decided to attack Israel instead of accepting the deal. Many of the Arabs fled during the fighting, others were kicked out. After Israel managed to fight back against these 4 countries, Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip and Jordan took control of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The problem is that in the hierarchy of Arab people, Palestinians are the lowest rung. They are still in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. By the 1950s, while living under Muslim Arab rule, groups began to attack Israel. During the 1960s and 70s, Palestinian terrorist groups attacked Jewish and Israeli targets around the world including the attacks at the Munich Olympics and the hijacking of a France Air flight to Israel that landed in Uganda. After the Oslo Accords in the 90s, Arafat rejected a peace plan in 2000, and a few years later, the Second Intifada occurred. This included suicide bombings, lynchings and the stoning of Israeli children.
By the way, In 2008, Ehud Olmert and Abbas had verbally agreed to a two state solution peace deal which included giving back 98% of the West Bank to the Arabs. The Palestinian leadership rejected the deal.
In closing, I encourage you to read Hamas’s mission statement (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp) , which blames the Jews for the Holocaust, and claims they orchestrated the creation of the UN so that they could rule the world. Try to understand that Hamas is more than just a resistance against an occupation. Israel is not the villain you make it out to be. Israel makes mistakes, many of them that result in the terrible loss of life. Israel is a complex country like our own, with a left wing, a right wing and everything in between. However, one thing almost every does agree on is that Netanyahu’s government not withstanding, it has been the radical actions and world view of Hamas that have been the biggest impediment to peace. (Israel has time and time tried to “turn the other cheek”. It has only resulted in bloodshed. It is as if you ignored your brother after he hit you and then he came to your room at night and stabbed you in the leg with a kitchen knife.)
For every story of an Israeli strike killing a Palestinian family, there is another story, unreported about two Palestinian men who broke into an Israeli family’s house and went room to room stabbing 3 children and the parent’s to death.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is extremely complex and neither side is innocent. However, the simplistic justification of Hamas’s and other militant group’s actions is a detriment to anyone trying to truly understand the conflict. My goal is not for you to suddenly be writing hawkish pro-Israel op-eds in the Wheel, I just hope you will begin to look at the conflict in more balanced light.
I find this entire thread amusing display of propaganda. Who cares? Let them settle the score among themselves. To think a sophomore writer has enough worldly wisdom to serve as the arbiter of justice for Palestine is classic. Revisionist history, arguably fueled by sympathizing with a known terrorist group, is unfortunately where we are in today’s liberal arts education.