There's a historical context to the bloodshed that has become ingrained in the culture of the region generally referred to as the Middle East. No matter who does what at this point, that context can't be changed. There is a lot of history that has brought about everything that is happening there now. So much seems to be ingrained in the region's history that keeps resurfacing, it seems impossible to find a solution to it, and massacres like the one we've just observed only serve to stir up more hatred and make things worse than they already are. Actions create new resentments that call for more reactions. It's a never ending cycle.
Something goes haywire when one group of people, centered around their common culture, sees themselves as superior to other people, and entitled to rule the world. Where does that thinking even come from? How are people so conditioned to it that the human intellect, which we are taught to believe is the highest level of intelligence in the universe, cannot find a solution to the results of hatred? It appears that one of the things we have that animals lack is the capacity to destroy ourselves and the world in which we live over ideology.
Setting aside the history that has all contributed to the situation which now exists in Palestine between Israel and Gaza is impossible, since that's what has led to the current situation. But getting past history is the only way to solve what has been and continues to be an egregious example of the inhumanity that is unfolding, once again, upon the people of the region.
There is no excusing the brutal attack on Israel, perpetrated by Hamas out of Gaza. No matter the reason for that, whether religious in the service of some imaginary god with human flaws, or as an act against economic and political oppression, it was horrific and should be condemned by everyone with any sense of human intellect, values, and emotions. It was an act of evil, without any intention on the part of those who conducted it, of being anything else. It should be condemned in the strongest terms, and those who planned and participated in it brought to justice.
I'm still a little baffled by the fact that Hamas' leadership isn't actually in Gaza, even though they control it, but is in the rich emirate of Qatar. The diplomacy there is puzzling. Someone with more experience in the hypocrisy of diplomatic relations and alliances and who America's wealth is helping to enrich will need to explain that to me. I don't get it.
What I do get is that two million mostly impoverished people, who live in a densely populated, mostly run down, resource poor, seven mile wide strip of Mediterranean beach, most of whom had nothing to do with the attack on Israel or who even really cared about it, are going to pay for the attack by having to bear the brunt of the military might of the most well equipped and supplied military force in the Middle East. And what will be achieved, on Israel's behalf, by the decimation of Gaza?
Gaza is what it is because of unresolved problems related to the partition of Palestine back in 1948 when British imperialism designed the map of the middle east to benefit themselves and their economic interests, knowing that they were no longer the empire they once had been. Much of the support from the west, particularly the United States, comes from the belief that the modern Jewish state is entitled to the land from the dimensions of Old Testament Israel and the theocratic covenant they had with God, because it fits with Bible prophecy.
Even after the diaspora, and the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. there was still a Jewish presence in Palestine. The history of Judaism, which includes the divided Kingdom after Solomon, the dissolution of the Davidic monarchy when the Babylonian Empire conquered Judah, the diaspora, and the separate origins of Ashkenazim and Sephardim, precludes interpreting Bible prophecy to restore independent Israel to its covenant boundaries. But an independent Jewish state in Palestine was justifiable under the circumstances. Too much history worked against it, but it happened because the international superpowers made it happen. Instead of stopping short with a solution for those who were displaced by what they eventually decided to do, they should have come up with a better solution than jamming two million people into a previously sparsely inhabited strip of Mediterranean beach wedged between Egypt and Israel.
Israel may be able to lay its hands on a few Hamas fighters who haven't been able to get out of Gaza when they invade. They may be able to temporarily disable their ability to attack from inside the enclave by rendering it virtually uninhabitable. But long term problems require long term solutions. And the real question is whether or not the people of Gaza deserve the suffering that they are experiencing and what's coming. And the answer to that is that they don't.
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