Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Not Much Hope

I have become more discouraged by the day about any hope of a solution to the situation in Palestine. Every day brings more tragedy. From my perspective, both sides seem to have a death wish. Hamas does not seem to care about how many of its people are killed or maimed. They are going to fight the Israelis till all are dead. In turn the Israelis seem not to consider the long run implications of their actions. Every civilian they kill means that one more Palestinian family will have reason to hate their Jewish neighbors for a hundred years into the future.

I have read the history of the region and understand why both sides believe in the righteousness of their cause. That is why I do not have much hope in any solution this side of the second coming. Till then death and destruction will continue in that sad land.

2 comments:

Bramblyspam said...

I firmly believe that these problems are solvable. Everyone knows what's necessary in order to achieve a lasting peace: the palestinians must give up the right of return, and Israel must withdraw back to the 1967 borders.

The problem won't be solved until the U.S. stops supporting Israeli hard right policy. Until that happens, there's no reason for Israel to seek peace. Unfortunately, the hard right Israel lobby (AIPAC, JINSA, CUFI et al.) has an iron grip on congress, and there's no comparable organization pushing the palestinian view.

Still, a few changes can create a sudden major breakthrough. Prior to the events, who would have predicted the rapid and peaceful end of the Berlin wall, Apartheid in South Africa, or the troubles in Northern Ireland? In each case, a peaceful and lasting solution came about when the dominant power in the conflict had a change of heart and agreed to the solution that everyone knew was going to happen sooner or later anyway. I think there's every reason to believe that the same sort of thing can happen in the middle east too, it's just a matter of the Israelis finding the political will.

BTW, if you want a look at something scary, check out this video of CUFI.

I Opine for Fun said...

Not only do I tend to agree with Bramblyspam, but I am curious as to WHY we continue to support Israel's occupation and terrorism against Palestine. Seriously, there has to be some reason behind the surface for why we are being complicit in this nightmare.