A behavior is strategic if it influences others by affecting their expectations. This principle of conflict resolution is one that is particularly relevant to the threats in today's world. Neatly defined and bounded states like the ones on political maps don't matter so much anymore. It's people that count. The safety of people across borders is as important as the safety of people within borders. This means that if you want ultimate victory, persuasion deserves as much firepower as coercion. American counterinsurgency doctrine enshrines civilian protection for Iraq and Afghanistan -- but this responsibility to protect people has huge implications for our general situation in today's world: Killing lots of people on the other side is not only ineffective, it is counterproductive. It hurts your cause. It gets more of your own people killed in the long run. Like Israel -- whose overwhelmingly violent response to Hamas rocket attacks seems to lack the most basic strategic or political meaning -- and where language such as "self-defense" -- words from the disconnected and bygone era of nation states -- seems quaint and almost entirely inaccurate.
"Defense" doesn't mean the same thing when one antagonist is a state and the other a networked organization. It's like the US Army fighting the Salvation Army. It's like Bin Laden versus the USA. The same sets of policies and tools don't work anymore. They make things worse. So political leaders (including our own) need to stop framing this deadly mayhem as some sort of justified or normal behavior. If we don't start with our best friend, when will we ever understand how the nature of danger has changed for good?
Yes the Hamas leaders are crappy and pathetic. Yes they risk their own civilians. That is not at issue. But these Israeli leaders are pathetic, too, so desperate to look tough. So concerted in their effort to spin the news-cycles of the world to their script. "Airpower" is another one of those words that needs to go on the vocabulary scrap heap. Why any of us ever believed that bombing terrified civilians would somehow inspire them to overthrow their horrid leaders is beyond me. And why any government thinks that killing lots of civilians on the side where the leaders use civilians as human shields will somehow be a dealbreaker has got to be the new definition of insanity. If the leaders are insufferable, work with others, like these folks.
It rings pretty hollow when those of us viewing can not only see who is doing the killing, but who is doing the dying. Policemen? Shoppers? University personnel? United Nations employees? Little kids? 3 Israelis vs. 300 Palestinians?
Israel, you are so better than this.
There are so many of us out here who want you to be successful, who admire the Jewish faith for its love of humanity and knowledge. We want you to prosper and to survive -- many of us have no personal dog in this fight. I've been in the Middle East once -- on a completely tourist trap trip down the Nile. I've never been to Israel -- but I identify with you like most Americans do.
You are draining your reservoir of goodwill -- Stop it.
Like many Americans who grew up in the '70s, I became fascinated by Israel after seeing "Holocaust" on television. In fact, I lived in Germany and traveled Europe for years trying to understand how the Holocaust could have happened. I am no scholar of history. But from Vilnius to East Berlin, I've found the old synagogues. I've sat outside in the rain on dark cobbled streets listening to ceremonies through open windows, I've seen where they used your ancestors' headstones as pavement to walk upon. I've beheld the stolen art. I'm sitting here now looking at a black and white photo of the Jewish cemetery in Prague that I snapped before the end of the Cold War. The sadness there seemed to me to reflect the entire continent. For years, I felt compelled to seek out these places -- I suppose partly out of curiosity, but also out of horror and shame that -- for whatever goddamned excuse -- we did not save the victims of the Nazis. That the rest of us did not protect your families. I apologized for this at every stop. I still do. I wept.
Israeli newspapers offer fine alternatives. Here's an example:
The line of self-control and the awareness of the obligation to protect the lives of the innocent in Gaza must be toed even now, precisely because Israel's strength is almost limitless. Israel must constantly check to see when its force has crossed the line of legitimate and effective response, whose goal is deterrence and a restoration of the cease-fire, and from what point it is once again trapped in the usual spiral of violence.
In less than two decades, the measures of national security have gone from being rational, linear and technological, to random, chaotic and very human. Those who want to survive need to modernize their toolkit accordingly: More persuasion, less coercion. More prevention, less reaction. More participation, less exclusion. More people, less machines, More life strategies, less death strategies.
Israel, you are better than this. You are not just typical. You have the wisdom of the universe in your borders. You have profound knowledge of why death doesn't fix a problem. You have the USA to help you.
Please, put the gun down. Move away from the gun.
Just. Stop.
Follow Lorelei Kelly on Twitter: www.twitter.com/loreleikelly
As a sophisticated modern nation, I would expect a more mature and thoughtful reaction to these provocations. I understand that the Hamas rockets cause collateral damage and , yes, sometimes cause death and injury. I understand the fustration of attempting to deal with an organization with two faces - political and terrorist. But what of the terrible fate of those innocent Gaza residents, who have no real impact upon Hamas?
But, the residents of Gaza, as powerless as they may be (or seem to be), must take a stand. They voted for Hamas. Unfortunately, I fear that they have adopted the role of being the ever-constant victims. Until they stand up and say "enough", nothing will change.
Is it tragic that hundreds of Arab civilians have been killed in Gaza? Yes, but what is Israel supposed to do? Hamas is absolutely clear it intends to kill as many Israeli civilians as it can until Israel is destroyed. Israel at least tries to avoid or minimize civilian casualties, a task made very hard by the fact that Hamas has its military infrastructure in the midst of dense civilian populations - a war crime.
That the death toll in the current situation appears one-sided is only due to Hamas not having full capability, not intent. If Hamas had an arsenal like Israel's it would use it to exterminate every Jew there.
As one friend put it, it is hypocrisy for Americans, who live in a country whose foundation was made possible by massive killing and confiscation of land from Native Americans and enslavement of African Americans and which found justification, while fighting fascism, to incinerate whole cities in Germany and Japan, to criticize how a tiny country like Israel defends its civilian population from armed attack.
Like most of us when we were children, I would occasionally invoke "what the other kids were allowed to do" in defense of whatever I wanted to do at the time. Her response was invariably, "I don't care what the other kids are doing. You know What's Right, and that's what I expect you to do."
She died in 1993, but her voice still whispers in my ear whenever I even think about doing something I know is wrong. At any rate - THANK YOU for a really lovely read.
History is not a schoolyard. The order of things matters. The Arabs' goal is to destroy Israel and to exterminate the Jews. Ask them. Israel's goal is not to be destroyed or exterminated. Ask them. When the Arabs attack Israel; Israel strikes back, to defend, to deter, and to reduce the Arabs' capacity to attack.
The record: When Arabs attack, Israel counterattacks. When the Arabs stop attacking, Israel stops responding. When Arabs attack and Israel does not respond, Arabs increase their attacks. It is not a "cycle of violence" it is cause and effect. History is not a schoolyard. The order of things matters.
Clearly Hamas is a threat. Clearly the threat is slightly more that Sadam Hussain was (Hamas not only has weapons, albeit home made primitive ones, but are actually using them). However the actual threat to Israel is miniscule compared to the potential one if Iran steps up its military support to Hamas.
George Bush you have much to answer for even beyond that which we already know about!
Please be factual.
Everyone is forgetting that Hamas for all it's faults, is the legally democratically elected party speaking for the Palestinians. The US and the Israelis wanted democracy there. And now they have it. But they didn't like who THE PEOPLE elected, so they snubbed them and treated them with disdain since that election. Blockades killing off the basics, food, water, electricity, fuel, medical supplies, etc. And they wonder why Hamas won't deal now?
They can't do that. They can't pick and choose who represents a certain government. You have to deal with what's there. People don't like Bush. But they dealt with him all the same while swearing under their breath as they shook his hand.
Get over it and talk to Hamas. People are dying and there is no need for violence on either side. It is time for the grownups to get to the table and deal with it.
I need medical treatment and a job at this point in my life. If I knew I could get it by talking to one of my worst enemies, I'd be at the table so fast it wouldn't be funny. You have to do what you don't want to do sometimes to get a lasting resolution.
Have you read their Covenant/Constitution?
You may not know that upon election Hamas said they would NOT recognise treaties agreed by the PA (Arafat, then Abbas).
Maybe they wish they were talking now...
What is needed is more talk, not less. On the other hand, Hamas is not facing reality if it thinks it can defeat Israel militarily. There are bound to be many sad and painful days ahead.
we need to look back at least for a year to see how Israel have dealt with the palestinians both in Gaza and west bank, abducting elected members of palestinian parliament , keeping more than ten thousand political prisoners , running daily air strikes and assassinations even during the Truce between them and Hamas , and enforcing a siege on Gaza depriving t1.5 million civilians from the basic necessities of life,including food,water,medicines,fuel and electricity against human values and International laws.
if you are not aware of these facts please read"The Washington Report on the Middle East Affairs" published by previous US ambassadors and foreign affairs employees, or go to their web site , read in particular the articles of the jewish peace activist Rachel Marshall that deals fairly with the Israeli/Palestinian issues and you can find the facts for yourself
Let me see... smoking the PEACE PIPE...
yes if we occupy Cuba: Geneva convention and International law guarantee the right of occupied to fight the occupier .
Your example completely blots out that the powerful are in a much better position to creat the conditions of peace, than the powerful. Israel (and the US) have much more to do with the conditions in GAZA, than the residents of GAZA do. In the case of Cuba and Palestine if their giant neighbors had peaceful intentions... there would be no war.
Both sides have a,ample reason to hate and kill each other.
Asking "who's to blame" can only lead to more war and death.
The question is:
How can we find peace?
Trusted Third party.
The only answer is that the Islam-o- fascists get totally defeated and forced to come to the table... unless I'm missing something?