What happens if…
You throw a war, and a “popular resistance” shows up instead?
Recently I’ve seen a spate of news editorials, letters and blogs calling on Israel to show restraint when engaging in operations in Gaza. Good, fine. I agree that Israel’s policies in Gaza (and the West Bank) are terrible. They are largely designed to delay and weaken the Palestinian movement so that it is unable to secure an advantageous deal for peace in the future.
That being said, they are also designed to minimize Israeli casualties, and I think the great “letter writers” of the world are ignoring a few realities of the situation in their objections. Haroon Siddiqui always makes hay of the fact that the number of Gazans vs. Israeli’s killed always favours the Israelis… Well, yes. As I said, Israel treats the Palestinians poorly. Then again, so do the militants who use civilians as shields… It’s a fact that almost never gets reported, but Rocket Squads are frequently observed closely by adoring young well-wishers. Odds are, if you read about children being killed in an Israeli airstrike, and it didn’t happen in the middle of a dense residential area; they were cheering on the military targets from less than a stone’s throw away.
As Canadians (or Americans, or even some Europeans) we are accustomed to fighting war from a distance. The Palestinians are completely content to specifically target civilians, and use their own as body armour and cannon fodder; and we have the gall to suggest that only one side has lost its moral justification? That’s absurd. In the Israeli/Palestinian conflict there are no clean hands; no winners… only losers. And by claiming that one side’s attrocities are justified by desperation, religion or politics we just further enable the cycle of violence.