Eventually the question must be asked: Why are so many advocates
of the bloody struggle in Iraq to empower a people and change an
entrenched culture of brutality and violence so quick to dismiss a
similar “long, hard slog” in Gaza? Why do those who defend so
voraciously the idea that democracy and civil society can be
fostered in Iraq despite the chaos and mass killings of civilians
by suicide bombers, in the next breath tell us that despite
protests by ordinary Palestinians to this weekend’s post-Gaza
withdrawal attack that it somehow proves there is no possible hope
for Palestinian self-governance?
If the naysayer hordes are still capable of opening their ears,
now is as good a time as any to be reminded that not even the most
ardent supporters of the unilateral withdrawal ever claimed it
would be a silver bullet in the heart of terrorism. The end of
occupation will not be easy or painless. It is, however,
inevitable, necessary, and, most importantly, a morally inescapable
eventuality — as the United States, Russia, the European Union,
the United Nations, and, indeed, the Israeli government, have all
accepted.
The beginning of this latest unfortunate episode was such a
caricature of the long-running conflict that it approached farce: A
truck full of Hamas members with (apparently not very
well-produced) homemade weapons blew themselves up, killing sixteen
of the Palestinians they purportedly exist to defend. The terror
group immediately blamed their own deadly incompetence on the
omniscient Jewish conspiracy. Some militant group or other —
Israel believes it was Syria, the Palestinians claim it was
Hezbollah, and Syria, mimicking Hogan’s Heroes’s Sgt.
Schultz, basically said, “I see nothing, I know nothing!” — then
launches 39 Qassam rockets, instigating a retaliation that Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon promises will be “a continued action, whose
aim is to hurt the terrorists and not to let up.”
This is the problem the Palestinian people perpetually face: The
epic failures of their quasi-leadership are never cured because
they are never addressed. Like a child who does not want to own up
to a mess it’s made, Hamas simply ignored the evidence and started
crying that the boogeyman did it.
There was a silver lining to all of this, aside from the fact
that no Israelis were killed in the attack. In the wake of the
rocket attacks, the predictable official denunciations were
delivered with a wink, but that was not the end of it. In fact, the
Associated Press had no trouble finding Gazans willing to loudly
criticize “their” side’s breaking of the February ceasefire
deal.
“If Hezbollah was behind this attack, I as a Palestinian tell
them, ‘Deal with your own problems and stay out of ours,’” Akram
Abu Sbaa of Jenin told the reporter, who wrote of widespread
Palestinian anger over the attack.
Ironically enough, this story which should inspire optimism is
generating more scoffing negativism than anything else. The War
Blog over at FrontPage Magazine, for example, suggested taking
Palestinian protests with “a huge, Lot’s-Wife-sized grain of salt.”
Certainly there is cause for skepticism, but it is difficult to
imagine a scenario where a pro-war publication would dismiss Iraqi
civilians protesting militant groups so out of hand. Anyone who did
would likely be shellacked as a Fifth Columnist communist
sympathizer.
The attitude fits a pattern wherein the supposed friends of
Israel dismiss all positive developments out of overt opposition to
the sort of independent state they clamor for in Lebanon. A year
ago Yasser Arafat was the obstacle to peace. Then he dies and overnight they decide he wasn’t the
problem after all. Next it was the lack of democracy in Gaza
holding up the works, but when some semblance of albeit imperfect democratic elections
begin to emerge — threatening to finally make Hamas a political
party at the mercy of voters, no less — it is on to something
else.
This insatiable desire for stalling may be borne of loyalty to
Israel and well intentioned, but is no longer realistic. If Israel
wanted to permanently own real estate in the West Bank or Gaza, it
should have annexed it after the 1967 war. But that is not what it
chose to do. Whether it was to maintain the Jewish identity of the
“official” Israeli population or doubt over whether the United
Nations would accept annexation, there are political realities that
emerged from the decision that must be dealt with.
It is not enough to simply say the Palestinians will assume the
withdrawal was a sign of weakness, and, therefore, Israel should
not have withdrawn. Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Zalman
Shoval’s recent contention that Jewish settlers had
turned Gaza “from a barren wasteland into a blooming oasis” is
totally immaterial at this late date. Civilized, rational
governments do not make policy based on the delusions of others.
They make it based on the best interests of their country, first,
and, hopefully, the best interests of humanity in a not-too-distant
second.
The pullout from Gaza fits the bill on both counts. It is right
for Israel, it addresses many of the legitimate grievances of the
Palestinian people, and it sets an example of a bold, unilateral
action in the service of peace that the world sorely needs right
now. Israel’s true friends will stand by her in this endeavor, not
merely carp and whine at the first sign of trouble.
