Israel Gaza the leb etc

So here I go into the murky waters that is commenting on Israel and Palestine. The points of view on the Irish blogosphere vary from disturbing

What's infuriating about this manufactured crisis is the question of accountability, and the manner in which it is presented by the international Zionist media.

To the simplistic pro-Palestine

Israeli bastards…2 soldiers kidnapped = all-out war?

To the Israeli greatness line

This is a tough time for Israelis and they deserve support. It's to be hoped our government will have the decency not to pretend that some false moral equivalence exists between the parties, will recognise the offensive, terrorist nature of the enemy and the defensive nature of Israel's actions, and will support an embattled democracy at a testing moment.

To the this a picture of a guys office been hit by Israeli jets

See MacDara's place of work after an israeli jet struck the airport

So where do I stand on the whole issue?

In 2000 Israel pulled out of Lebanon to the agreed border leaving the country altogether unlike the Syrians who pulled out later due to mass protests. A few months ago the Israelis pulled out of Gaza, used it’s own troops to remove settlers and renounced any claim to the strip. So what happened. While the state of the Gaza strip was far from perfect. It was a starting point and that is all that is needed. Was the IRA ceasefire perfect in 97. No but it was good enough for people to work towards a better future.

Yet in this case missiles still rained in from Gaza into Israel and terrorists attacked Israeli troops in Israel kidnapping 1 and killing two. Like wise while Israel had stated that it recognised Lebanon’s border and complied with UN resolution about it. Hezbollah launched unprovoked attacks against Israel, kidnapping two soldiers.

So what does this suggest. The Hezbollah incident is more easier to define. The plain and simple truth it that Hezbollah don’t want the Jews in Israel and this is basically a continuation of this. (Although this guy who probably knows more then me see it as more complicated in a very good piece)

The Gaza incident is not as easy to define. There certainly is an prevalence of anti-Judaism (Anti-Semitism is anti anyone from the region.) in Gaza that would fuel much of this but also the recent attacks on a beach in Gaza, whether against terrorist or not would have fuelled a lot of anti Israeli sentiment in Gaza and lead to support for the recent incidents.

So what is Israel to do? They have a right to defend themselves, they can’t sit ideally by and watch its citizens being attacked daily and not do anything they have to secure their future. However I think they are failing.

The thing that killed of democratic nationalism in the North of Ireland as a force in the 1970s. Was Bloody Sunday. Until then the IRA’s support was fairly limited. Then the British opened fire on peaceful protestors killing 13. People lost all hope in the ability for a peaceful realisation of their aspirations. They want back to what has been the only thing to succeed since Daniel O’Connell in giving Irish people freedom, armed struggle. Even before that when the British first came to the North they were welcomed as liberators from the Unionist tyranny. So what happened. A small number of IRA people started fighting, the British responded too harshly brought in internment and suddenly they were no longer the liberators but the enemy.

This is the going to be the result of Israelis latest campaign. While being fought to secure it’s people it wouldn’t. It is simply going to bolster the power of the terrorists. It is stories like this that

More than 30,000 children suffer from malnutrition, and this number will increase as diarrhea spreads because of the limited supply of clean water and food contamination.

That cause people to abandon peace, to abandon belief in fairness to go to the extremes.

For instance the person who wrote the above also said.

So while Gazans endure Israel's rainstorm, most want the soldier held -- not harmed -- until the women and children are released.

Now as Alan Dershowitz on Huffingting Post said

Every single prisoner held by Israel has judicial review available to him or her and some have won release, every one of them has access to Red Cross visitation, can communicate with family, and has a known whereabout.

The above writer is Mona El-Farra a physician and human rights advocate in the Gaza Strip who blogs here. I presume that she is sincere about Human rights but when someone like that advocates that rights of a person can be curtailed. (Remember a belief in rights in absolute, there is no gray area in rights, rights are not changeable in times of war. Indeed in times of war they are at their most important.) Then you know that opinion is going in a direction that is going to only empower the extremists more. The same goes for Lebanon before it was a country finally on the up. Now it has been sent back a few years. This is only going to aid Hezbollah.

So what was Israel to do? It can’t give into terror, yet it shouldn’t radicalise the moderates. I can’t tell you what the Israelis should have done to both protect itself and win the hearts and minds. But I fear now they have only strengthen the terrorists.