Conflict in the Middle East: Breathing again
In the summer of 2006 between Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, my family and I traveled to Kfar Tavor, a small city in the northeastern tip of Israel. We trekked up Mount Tavor at which the city of Kfar Tavor is based. Olive groves, wineries, and small plots of farmland dotted the mountain- side, and, at the end of the day, on our drive down we encountered a group of Palestinians from a nearby Arab village. They had been relaxing in the shade sipping their freshly made coffee and had the decency to offer us some. We sat with them for a while and talked to them about geopolitics but also about less pressing matters. As a thank you, we drove one of the elderly women in the group down to her village to spare her the walk. Both Israelis and Palestinians want a home that they can call their own, and, after speaking with these Palestinians on Mount Tavor, it seemed possible. Both Palestinians and Israelis still want a peaceful home but some circumstances have changed since then. Eight years later, in 2014, brings us to the most recent squabble in the violent saga of Israel-Palestine relations.
The Israeli government is currently under scrutiny for killing so many Palestinians, yet Israel cannot sit back and be unresponsive to attacks against their own people or ignore tunnels being built underneath them. Israel is struggling to obliterate Hamas while trying not to kill the innocent civilians who stand in the way. Hamas was put in power in 2006 in the legislative election and is recognized bytheUS,EU,andUKasaterroristorganization.
Beforet his conflict began, a Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh declared, “We are a people that yearn for death, just as our enemies yearn for life.” Islamist terrorist organizations are the enemy of both Palestinians and Israelis. Since the beginning of July 2014, Hamas has fired more than 1,000 rockets a week, which is nearly a rocket every five minutes. As I write this article, rockets are being fired into Israel but luckily being intercepted by their iron dome defense system. From the point of view of Israel it is self-defense, yet, on the outside looking in, it is a humanitarian crisis. International aid has been given to Hamas in hopes of it going to the repair of bombed schools, houses, and hospitals, yet the aid is going to more weapons and terror. Military action is killing Israel’s reputation as the underdog and morphing them into the bad guy. While military action seems like the only way to reason with Hamas, fighting is exactly what Hamas wants. Only reason and serious negotiations will benefit both parties and put an end to Hamas.
Every couple of years this conflict erupts like a dormant volcano. The 1.8 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are not going to be bombed off of the map, and the West Bank is not going any- where either. There is no military solution to the genuine struggle of the Palestinian people, and, as long as the suffocation felt in Gaza is not mitigated, we in Israel will never fully breathe again either. So if we sit down and debase ourselves from our original opinions and not resist simple human compassion toward the multitude of Palestinians, whose lives have been shattered in this war, per- haps we will be able to see them, just like us roaming in circles over the years, dealing with different political puppets, and backlash on the international stage. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior adviser for Mahmud Abbas, explained,“We should have a serious Palestinian reconciliation and then go to the world and say, ‘O.K., Gaza will behave as a peaceful place, under the leadership of a united Palestin- ian front, and, Israel, you open your gates.’”
For the sake of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, both governments need to communicate with advisers rather than with airstrikes and dysfunctional ceasefires. So I ask of both governments to discount their differences, understand their biases, and formulate new opinions. Peacemaking is harder than war making as exemplified by this past century of this conflict. Hopefully it isn’t too hard to sit in the shade where our blood doesn’t boil, have some coffee, and see both sides. Otherwise, this violent cycle will continue, and we will all be reading an article very similar to this one in a few years.