Self-defense VS self-restraint

Israel has been under guerilla rocket attacks from the Gaza strip for years, but the number and frequency increased when Hamas took power, through elections, in 2006. 

This 'security threat' is the fundamental rationale used by Israel and its defenders to justify the current military incursion into the Gaza strip. It is, they say, 'self-defense'.

But applying even the laziest amount of scrutiny to these claims makes them implausible at best, and probably more like complete nonsense.

1) Israel repeatedly states that its issue is with Hamas, and not regular Gazans. That this is a military operation, aimed at military targets, with the goal of destroying Hamas' ability to fire rockets at Israel. 

But Hamas has no army, no fighter jets, no tanks, no bases. Hamas is a political organization that has a guerilla militant wing. So, when Israel says that it is targeting 'Hamas infrastructure', what they really mean is they are targeting pretty much anything at all - including hospitals, universities, a UN school, police stations, residences - nothing has been spared. The result, not surprisingly, is soaring civilian casualties. As of today, there are 700 dead, 3,085 injured with the majority being completely unaffiliated to Hamas. High numbers of women and children to boot. The cities are in tatters, hospitals are completely overrun, medical and food supplies scarce. 

Israel is essentially waging a full-on military WAR - with the largest, most advanced, US-backed military in the middle east - against an almost totally defenseless, poor, over-crowded, malnourished, civilian population. 

2) Israel says that Hamas is using civilians as a 'shield' and that's why so many are being killed. 

The reality is that Gazans are not killing themselves with Israeli bombs and missiles - it's the Israeli Defense Forces that are doing the killing. Israel plans its attacks knowing FULL WELL that there will be heavy, heavy civilian casualties. Unless they've invented a 'terrorist-seeking' missile that can somehow distinguish a mother from an armed combatant, when a bomb drops on a house, chances are everyone inside it is going to die. This kind of blatant disregard for human life is not only cold and callous, it is a war crime. 

3) Israel insists that it wants peace with the Palestinians and looks forward to a day when they can live, side-by-side, in peace. 

But how could this possibly be? If the goal was to stop Hamas 'terrorists' by wiping out 700 mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, cousins, friends, lovers, wives, husbands, grandparents and leaders, sorry to break it to you Israel, but you're only adding fuel to the fire of hatred. What kind of lasting peace can be brokered with so much innocent blood taken so brutally?

4) Israel insists that it is defending itself legitimately and is quick to cast-off international criticism as 'anti-semitism'. 

The fact is that Israel is a state - a country. And although they are the world's only Jewish state, the Jewish religion has absolutely nothing at all to do with the running of the state of Israel or its military - thank God for that. Instead, the state of Israel uses the very real existence of anti-semitism as a shield to protect itself from scrutiny. 

It should come as no surprise to Israelis that when their government and military do terrible things in the name of security, and at the expense of hundreds of lives, that people are going to get angry and are going to criticize them for it. Taking that criticism seriously, and changing actions accordingly, is a fundamental aspect of participating in a global diplomatic community. And if Israel can't take criticism from anybody, then really, why should anybody support them?

5) Israel claims that it does not have genocidal ambitions. I believe this is true. I don't believe the state of Israel wants to systemically exterminate millions of muslims or arabs the way the Nazis systematically destroyed jews. The comparisons to Nazis and the holocaust are highly disproportionate as well as offensive. 

But there is validity to the outrage that people feel about how Israel has come to cheapen Palestinian lives. That a democratic country, formed out of the terror of World War Two, and claiming to have ambitions for peace can, in the name of 'security', act with such impunity. The Gaza situation amplifies this total disregard for life because the scale of the destruction and loss of life is so completely disproportionate to so-called instigating incidents of rocket attacks on Israeli towns, which as far as I can tell, have killed fewer than 20 people. 

Israel is not genocidal. It is paranoid, fearful, overzealous and wildly, widly out of control. And if it really does want peace and security, then perhaps its time that it learned a hard and fast lesson in self-restraint.

1) Reign in the army. The more Israel tries to fight guerilla groups like Hamas, the more those groups will grow in power. To continue pretending that the state of Israel is under any real danger from a bunch of angry, in-fighting, disorganized, undisciplined mobsters makes Israel look like a ruthless joke. 

As Israel is the real power broker in the region, has the only nuclear weapons and an army powerful and large enough to take on all of its neighbours, it is in a sense, a regional super-power and needs to reign in its wild escapade. Its army and weaponry should be used only when a real army shows up, seeking to mass-murder its citizens and lay waste to its civil infrastructure.

2) Let in the UN. If the real intention of the state of Israel is to live in peace with its neighbours, then it better start figuring out how to stop the petty fighting with militant groups and start working with the international community to help broker a mutually acceptable deal for a free and sovereign Palestinian state. They must allow the UN to take over the security of Palestinians and they must be willing to make concessions in order to move the process forward.

3) Take down the apartheid wall. Call it whatever you want, but Israel must stop the total strangulation of economic and people movement in and out of the West Bank. As long as the wall remains standing it will continue to be a poignant symbol of repression. 

4) Let the response meet the deed. If the problem is guerilla rocket attacks from inside Gaza, then Israel needs to rethink how it can bring those responsible to justice in a court system, and if it can't do that, then it needs to accept that until a lasting peace can be brokered, its border towns are going to be dangerous places. Reigning death and destruction on innocents will bring no terrorists to justice, it will only give them more fodder.

As long as Israel continues to bomb, murder, and repress Palestinians, extremist groups will have all the anger and hate they need to continue their vengeful campaigns. Israel must recognize that it can not win a war against a guerilla group and it must do everything within its immense power to show restraint and to prove that it respects the Palestinian people enough to help foster the atmosphere that will lead to a truly independent, Palestinian state. 

And when that statehood is achieved, those responsible for attacking Israeli civilians will have to pay a price for sabotaging peace and spilling innocent blood. They will do so in Palestinian courts, under Palestinian laws, set by Palestinian people. As it should be.