After I watched a clip from Joe Scarborough on MSNBC where a man with a name I am sure to misspell (Zbigniew Brzezinski) called Joe’s views on the current conflict between Israel and Hamas ”stunningly superficial,” and after I had stopped laughing at Scarborough, it did not take long to realize that my own view of the situation was superficial as well. We all watch clips, read stories, and try as best we can to understand what is happening over there, but lets face it, a while back when Hamas and a rival faction Fatah actually starting fighting each other, most of us shook our head and said, “Wait, who is fighting who again?”
While the struggle for power between those factions seems to be forgotten at least for now, there could be no better demonstration of how little most of us know than the fact that rival factions were battling for power over the scattered Palestinians, and almost no one outside of that geographical area knew there was even a rivalry that severe.
But as for the current conflict, Hamas seems bent on firing rockets into Israel, but these rockets have no true guidance system, and compared to the arms that Israel has at their disposal, they are idiotic to even try to attack Israel with such weapons. But this can hardly be considered news to Hamas, and their attacks seem to goad Israel into responding, and then Hamas plays the victim, seeking donations from the surrounding Muslim countries of money, men, and weapons.
This is not to say that Israel’s response is not heavy handed, it surely is, but just because Hamas is able to only kill a small number of people even though it launches a crapload of missiles hardly excuses the fact that the missiles were fired by them. The civilian casualty rate amongst the Palestinians is high, but there is little chance of that sort of collateral damage failing to occur when those who are firing the missiles are hiding amongst the everyday Palestinians that are not actively involved with attacking Israel, as they are just trying to live their lives.
While the loss of so many civilians is always sickening, there can be little doubt that if Hamas could kill Israelis with every single missile that they fired, they would be more than pleased, and it would not matter of that Israeli was a soldier or a civilian. Of course, Hamas may feel the same about the attacks from Israel, and with a number of civilians killed, such an opinion may seem reasonable, as long as they overlook the part about who made the first attacks after the cease-fire ended. And staying true to form, Hamas does seem to have forgotten that they fired first.
But more importantly to the more radical elements of Hamas, are civilian casualties in their population, and even some attacks on Mosques where some Katyusha rockets are launched from, which are sure to grab the attention of the surrounding nations. Many of which would only be too happy to see Israel, or more precisely the Israelis, wiped from the face of the earth.
Hopefully another cease-fire will be agreed upon soon, not so much for the sake of Hamas, but for the sake of all of the civilians on both sides that are unwilling fodder for the current conflict. With Iran now looking for “suicide volunteers” and Mosques being attacked by Israel, it may be a good idea for Israel to bring this action to a close sooner rather than later, but that is just another stunningly superficial view. And a bit of wishful and undoubtedly naive thinking on my part.
