There is much that is wearily familiar in the latest "war" in the "Holy" Land, and much which is eerily without precedent even in this vulgar theater.
The quotation marks are necessary around the word "war", because when one side has a monopoly on the killing and the other "side" is physically and economically cut off from the planet, waiting for deaths from above with only their hatred to sustain them in the meantime, we should hardly call it a "war".
No, this is not a "war". This is prison guards shooting prisoners at will from watchtowers while the prisoners flee futilely about the prison yard, occassionally pausing long enough to throw a rock against a wall in pointless acts of "resistance."
Why the prisoners are in the prison in the first place, of course, goes to the root of this problem. And there the opinions split into a zero-sum recrimination-fest which mirrors only the abortion debate in its ability to turn good people of all persuasions into intolerant and intolerable little tyrants.
Israel is using a policy remarkably similar to that of the United States in Iraq. It will kill hundreds or thousands of people (or hundreds OF thousands of people), willingly and knowingly destroy government buildings and infrastructure, strangle whole nations with sanctions and embargoes, and then react in shock when they invade to encounter brutalized and radicalized people with surprisingly short attention spans and pitiably little concern for sloganeering, whether neo-liberal or neo-conservative.
Israel, like the United States, will win every "tactical engagement" with their enemies. But, since neither Israel nor the United States are engaged in a "war" as classically understood, their weapons of war are useless. Neither country can use its nuclear weapons, and both countries simply create more enemies when they kill their current enemies with their "smart" bombs.
No, Israel and the United States are not engaged in military war. The United States is engaged in an ideological war which it could survive if it lost. Israel is engaged in a demographic war which it will NOT survive regardless of how many tactical engagements it "wins".
This tiny piece of land, the "Holy" Land, which must surely embarass and dismay any Holy patron, is exceedingly small. My brother and I took a cab from Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean to Jerusalem in the West Bank in 40 minutes.
And in this tiny strip of land is a beautiful country full of beautiful people. Israel is a cosmopolitation society with a clear Jewish majority. But, given current demographic trends among Israeli Arabs, Israel proper (as opposed to the occupied territories, which have always been overwhelmingly Arab Muslim) will be a majority Arab Muslim country.
A similar demographic trend, in degree if not in kind, is taking place in the United States. In 40 years, white folks will be a minority in the United States. The question facing both Israel and the United States is, in the face of clear demographic destinies, "how will the adults lay the groundwork for their cosmopolitan children?"
In Israel, they insist on killing the enemy until the enemy is the majority, with no clear idea on what to do at that point, with the implicit assumption being that the Arab Muslims will either disappear or become pro-Israel. In the United States, politicians peddle hateful invective upon Hispanics, as if all our grandchildren won't speak Spanglish.
Israel, in my opinion, is treated unfairly by most comentators. I think any honest arbiter would find that Israel only wants to keep what it has (not including the occupied terriroties) in exchange for an unshakeable vow of peace from its nieghbors. Its neighbors simply never have, and never will, settle for the same. Until this changes, I defend Israel.
But Israel is a democracy and a nuclear and economic and intellectual and cultural power, and (insert line from "Spiderman" here). So Israeli adults owe it to their children, just as American adults do to ours, to be honest with friend and enemy alike in acknowledging what the future will look like.
And one of the most important lessons any adult can teach a child is that it is the strongest person who seeks peace.
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