Israel’s incursion into Gaza has been presented as “self-defence” but the lopsided body counts indicate otherwise. More importantly, the rationale is self-defeating for the current violence will only serve to further radicalize opposition to Israel and exacerbate problems that have undermined previous efforts to sustain a modicum of normal life into the territory. In an Op-Ed for the New York Times, a reporter for The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs notes that “the long siege has bled the Gaza Strip dry. There is no money for public services [and] the majority of the population lives in abject poverty… at least 120,000 Gazans have been displaced [and many] will return to homes damaged or destroyed, with little or no means to rebuild.” This is the grim reality that will endure long after the international community patches together another makeshift peace deal. There is no need to simplify Israel’s complex history, nor the many failed negotiations, interventions and roadmaps that have led to the current situation in order to condemn the carnage in Gaza. The longer the violence lasts, the more entrenched hard-liners on both sides become, and their rise makes a viable peace deal – even the increasingly inevitable two-state solution – even less likely. In 1957 Golda Meir told the National Press Club in Washington that “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” In view of what is currently taking place, it would be more accurate to say that the appalling and utterly unnecessary deaths of so many Arab children are guaranteed to make the situation far worse.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 17:10:00 +0000
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