Won't End Well

Diving into the Israel/Hamas fight is more than over my head, but I will at least stick my toe in the pool.

Israel is being stupid. Before anybody gets in a big huff, I in no way think Hamas is justified in their actions. Still, Israel is being stupid. Hasn't this dance happened before? Has anything changed? Once Israel is done with their military action there will probably be a short period of peace, but as a betting man, I wouldn't put money on it being a lasting one. I would, however, put money on the fact that they are creating more terrorists down the road and building more roadblocks to a lasting piece.

Israel foreign minister Tzipi Livni had this to say regarding the current situation.

“Countries send in forces in order to battle terrorism, but we are not asking the world to take part in the battle and send their forces in — we are only asking them to allow us to carry it out until we reach a point in which we decide our goals have been reached for this point.”

We (the US) tried this. The lesson that we learned, hopefully, is that a military victory does not defeat terrorism. Especially if on the way to your military victory you end up with scenes like this...

Inside Gaza City, where windows are blown out, electricity is cut and drinking water scarce, residents’ telephones rang repeatedly with recorded Israeli military messages saying, “We are getting rid of Hamas and we will use still other means to do so.” Leaflets dropped from airplanes say: “Hamas is getting a taste of the power of the Israeli military after more than a week and we have other methods that are still harsher to deal with Hamas. They will prove very painful. For your safety, please evacuate your neighborhood.” But many in Gaza said they had no place to go since no many neighborhoods received the same message.

It sure beats the hell out of me what the solution is, but I think it is pretty clear that military action isn't going to create the end sceniro that Israel wants. I would say a good place to start would be here.

In addition to Zeitoun, the neighborhoods where the Israeli military has been most active are Toufah and Shajaiah. All are poor areas where Hamas has strong political support.

Working to lift such areas out of poverty, rather than creating more like them with military strikes, will do more long-term good than Israel's current solution.