After a little over a week of hostilities, a
ceasefire has been reached between Israel & Hamas, and things seem to be settling down a bit. This is good news for sure, because it means that innocent lives will be spared both in Gaza and in Israel. It also means that the chances of an Israeli invasion of Gaza are minimum, and everyone I know is relieved about that. Peace, however tenuous, is a good thing. However, I am somewhat ambivalent about the announcement, because in the big picture it seems that this was an exercise in futility on both sides.
No one really stood to gain anything substantial by this violence, and in the end no one really did gain anything. Hamas gloated that they can now strike Tel Aviv, but in reality their militants launched unguided rockets en mass, hoping for a golden bee-bee to hit anything of value. I see little to brag about in this. These guys are embarrassingly ineffective and wildly outgunned. Meanwhile, the Israelis pounded Gaza at will with precision attacks for eight days, striking valuable military targets and Hamas leadership. This works temporarily, but tunnels will be re-dug and weapons smuggled in again, and Israel loses the battle of public opinion because their responses are always painted out to be dis-proportional and excessive by the world media. This is debatable, but generally every time there is fighting--Israel is automatically perceived as the aggressor. The Israelis did accomplish an impressive feat by gradually changing the nature of their advisory's attack methods. Ten years ago, they were cleaning up bombed-out restaurants from gruesome suicide bomb attacks. Today, they are intercepting enemy rockets in mid-air, thus moving the violence to more acceptable ranges and greatly reducing their civilian casualties.
Iron Dome is impressive defensive system, but ultimately it is band-aid that will never cure the actual disease. [
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20385306]
Most Israelis I've talked to saw this operation as a necessary action that was forced upon them by the severity of the situation. I think they have a point. If unguided rockets were reaching Chicago from Toronto, I doubt that the American response would be any less severe. We've seen how the tense situation has brought out ugly characterizations of the other side that I was surprised to hear from some. This recent round of violence, like all the ones before it, reinforced the perception that Arabs only understand the language of force. I don't totally buy into this idea, but it is rampant in the discourse about Israeli/Palestinian situation. I think that these perceptions, among other problems, are precisely what will continue to prevent any kind of lasting peace from ever taking hold. If the Israelis are all just heartless Zionists who want to murder innocents in Gaza [they're not], and the Palestinians are all militant Islamic terrorists who dream of driving all Jews into the sea [I seriously doubt this as well], it's no wonder that they shoot off their aggression at each other every couple of years. It's exhausting.
As for team Welch, we're enjoying some well-needed time off, visiting our Olmsted friends in Europe. Ironically, this trip was planned before any of this mess started, but after a
bus blew up a mile from our apartment just an hour before we left for the airport, we knew that it was time to go (& that this excursion was clearly one of divine timing). We were surprised at how quickly things escalated last week, with air-raid sirens and bomb-shelter runs, and everything we thought would never actually experience here. We are hoping to return to a quieter, more vigilant
Tel Aviv that is no longer just the 'bubble' of Israel. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad there's peace. I have high expectations that this will be a genuine peace, but I have no delusions that it will be a lasting one. And that's exactly what frustrates me by the whole situation.
Shalom Ya'll,
Stew
