Gaza Ablaze — the 21st Century World “Peacemakers” Fail Again
In my 12/19/08 post, “Gaza: the Sad Joke of the Truce (Hudna),” I briefly summarized my views towards the long-term futility of “truces” as they pertain to Israel and Gaza, and how the Gaza example demonstrates the current bankruptcy of the ”land for peace” paradigm. As everybody knows, this past Saturday Israel responding to over 30 unprovoked rocket attacks from Gaza, is finally defending itself seriously.
There is so much I could say and write about this situation. Among the many things that anger me, is the stupidity of the world community everytime something goes wrong in the middle east. All I hear are calls for immediate cease fires, resumption of “truces,” that using “disproportionate” force in a hot conflict is somehow “unfair,” and pretending that every problem is morally equivalent.The world through the Quartet (the U.S., European Union, Russia, and United Nations) pushed Israel to withdraw from Gaza but never said what responsibility they would bear if the withdrawal failed. In pushing the withdrawal, all they think about is themselves: (a) the U.S. wants to rid itself of the Palestinian problem (though this is a fair goal considering how much support the U.S. provides Israel); (b) the EU focuses on guaranteeing its middle-east oil supply at Israel’s expense and appeasing and pacifying its own Muslim population (this is all mixed in with the continued historical anti-semitic attitudes harbored by many Europeans); and (c) the Russians want to resurrect their old spheres of influence in the Arab world and deflect attention from their home turf Muslim-related carnage in Chechnya. For everybody then, applying irresistible pressure on Israel to withdraw plays to their individual needs.
There is no real thought about the ramifications of all this. Thankfully, the U.S. remains Israel’s staunchest ally and President George W. Bush is a true friend of Israel who rejects moral equivalency (see, e.g., “The White House was silent Sunday, after speaking out expansively on Saturday, holding Hamas responsible for Israel’s retaliatory strikes” (Fox News)). The rest of world just doesn’t care about truly helping. Instead, due to selfishness, they just advocate throwing it under the rug from time to time. When it flares up, they immediately call for a cease in hostilities and blame Israel more since it is the stronger power. Forget which side deserves blame or fault, it’s all about ending it for now so that they can go on with business as usual. So here we go again and again: ” The U.N. Security Council called on both sides to halt the fighting” and ”French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned ‘the provocations that led to this situation as well as the disproportionate use of force’” (Fox News).
Where were the guarantees to Israel that it would remain secure after taking such a major risk in withdrawing from Gaza? Withdrawing was Israel’s choice, but the pressure they applied onto Israel to do so was nearly unbearable. I could only imagine them evoking the following: We will support all Israeli responses to any breach of the peace or terror by the Palestinians in Gaza, and we will ourselves impose the harshest economic sanctions on the Gazans if they act aggressive against Israel in any way. That would have worked, but will only ever happen in my dreams!
Lastly, the U.N. and E.U. employed the same vapid approach to end the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel (the U.S. demurred and gave Israel time to adequately fight Hezbollah, an opportunity Israel sadly squandered). Hezbollah has now rearmed (contrary to U.N. resolutions which never work of course). Alas, it’s only a matter of time when it starts up with Israel again . . .
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