The Gaza strip

What a mess and what a tragedy. The events transpiring in the Gaza Strip at this moment are the result of injustices going back to 1947 when the victorious Allies (mainly Britain) ‘gave’ a large portion of Palestine to the unfortunate survivors of the Nazi Death Camps, to form the state of Israel. The current problems stem from that time. I do not believe the Palestinians were asked if they had any objections. Everyone hoped that any problems would just go away.

Well, four wars later and incessant skirmishes and the various ‘Intifadas’ have made this the most dangerous zone on earth. With over one million displaced Palestinians crammed into Gaza, seething about the injustice (it is immaterial whether it is perceived or actual – the end result is the same), and wanting to return to ‘their’ land, something is going to happen. What astonishes me, and I know that I do not live there, is the attitude of the Israelis. They have suffered injustice in varying degrees for centuries; they suffered appalling atrocities in the 1930s and 1940s. Those with some knowledge of history will recall the Warsaw Ghetto, when a number of Jews were forced into a small area of Warsaw – they had some arms and they expected help from the British and others (which did not really eventuate, even though the Royal Air Force did air drop a few crates of weapons) – and they fought the Germans but were annihilated. The difference between Warsaw and Gaza is only a matter of degree, but it appears that the Israelis cannot see it (or will not see it).
And the wall they have built between the East and the West bank, isn’t this a ‘Berlin’ wall, isn’t this a version of apartheid? Which is discrimination, which in turn results in injustice, which in turn causes more anger, which results in more acts of revenge (against the injustices) and the sorry cycle is repeated, again and again, to no one’s advantage.

Killing people; destroying their means of livelihood; trying to starve them into submission will never work. Have such practices, perpetrated against them, ever stopped the Jews? Of course not – they are a proud and intelligent people with a long history. Did such activity stop the British after London and Coventry were bombed? Of course not they are a proud and intelligent people with a long history. Did such activities stop the Germans or the Japanese after their cities were destroyed by fire and atomic bombs? Their military capabilities may have been curtailed but they are now the power houses of the world economy – they are a proud and intelligent people with a long history.

The Palestinians will not give in to Israel – until the injustices of the past are at least acknowledges and some restitution made they will continue to seethe and plot revenge. Why should they not – they are of the same ‘stock’ as the Israelis? They are a proud and intelligent people with a long history. What one thinks the other will think and all each wants is their own patch of land.
For God’s sake just negotiate! As Sir Winston Churchill once said, “there should be more jaw, jaw and less war, war”. Please that the Palestinians and Israelis will do just that – talk and not fight!

What bothers me most, and I am sure it is exercising the minds of strategic thinkers every where, is what happens if the Israelis do engage in a ground campaign in Gaza? The Israelis normally go in boots and all this will cause a great deal of soul searching within the Arab world. If they unite against Israel – and remember that they have oil and other financial ‘weapons’ they could use against anyone they feel has wronged them, then Israel will be in real trouble. The West cannot afford another war – it has neither the will nor the man power to prosecute another war. If a war it is then the Israelis will be alone.

It is all so unnecessary – one would hope that after five million years of Human evolution we would have learned to settle our differences without resorting to killing each other!!