Ground Troops in Gaza

At first, I wanted to continue writing about my cruise, but the current situation in Gaza is too pressing and too close to me not to write about it. Right now, Israel has sent in ground troops into less populated areas of the Gaza Strip in order to put further pressure on Hamas to halt all rocket attacks. While I agree with the goals of this operation, the means that Israel is using to achieve these ends are not perfect and the loss of any non-terrorist life is a clear tragedy. Below you will find a brief history of the situation and bits of my views on the current actions of both sides in the conflict.

The history of the region since 2005 shows the mutual failure of Israel and Hamas to achieve a stable, free Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. When Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally in 2005, there were wide hopes that the Palestinians could establish a lasting, civil state within the Gaza Strip. However, what has occurred in the past three and a half years is very far from those hopes and dreams. Upon departure, Israel left behind successful industries that the citizens of Gaza could have used to establish a successful economy from a prospering greenhouse plants industry to farms that produced a decent portion of Israel's annual harvest. There were also factories that employed many Palestinians under Israeli control from 1967-2005. As the last Israeli troops left, all of those facilities were raided and different people stole valuable parts, which made these facilities unusable.

With few jobs in Gaza and stories of supposed success from Hamas for ending the Israeli occupation, Hamas was in a great position in time for the January 2006 elections. Hamas provided social services that no other organization (Palestinian, Israeli, or global, i.e. United Nations, Red Cross) was providing at the time. With this context, it is not surprising that Hamas won the elections in Gaza with a platform that centered on the destruction on the democratic state of Israel. To be fair, Israel did occupy Gaza for 38 years and the people of Gaza were looking forward to self-rule for the first time in modern history. The international community did not respond kindly to the election of a group that called from the destruction of Israel. The international community placed three demands on Hamas in order for them to gain a seat at the table: recognize Israel right to exist, accept the Fatah agreements with Israel, and renounce violence as a means for achieving their goals.

The democratic process broke down quickly. At first, Hamas had a narrow edge among the Gaza representatives in Ramallah (seat of the Palestinian Parliament in the West Bank). In June 2007, Hamas was frustrated with the lack of progress through political means, so they seized total control of the Gaza Strip in a brutal civil war with Fatah. It is estimated that over a thousand Palestinians were killed in this brutal, internal conflict. In order to prove their complete control, Hamas laid mines all over their borders with Israel and Egypt in order to protect their land from any external invasion. At this same time, Hamas continued to fire rockets into sovereign Israeli territory. The IDF has noted that over 10,250 rockets have been fired into sovereign Israel from Hamas in the past eight year. Also, during this period, Hamas abducted Israeli solider Gilad Shalit from Israel-proper. Gilad is presumed to still be alive based on current information and is one of the biggest objects of leverage in the Hamas arsenal. One of the main reasons, I fear this current ground invasion is that I do not want to see any more Israeli soldiers fall into Hamas custody.

Due to the conflict in Lebanon and other various international pressures, Israel had not decided to respond to the constant barrage of rockets into Sderot and other communities near Gaza within proper Israeli borders. The situation continued to grow worse as time progressed and considering the ties between Hamas and Iran, many Arab states as well as Israel wanted to see a peaceful solution to this issue. Therefore, Egypt stepped in as a lead moderator to negotiate a six-month cease fire between Israel and Hamas that lasted until Dec. 19, 2008. As the cease fire ended, it was clear that Hamas was going to start launching rockets into Israel the day it expired. Hamas could have spent the last three years working with the international community to achieve a stable state within Gaza, but they willing chose not to do so.

Even though Hamas was a democratically-elected government, it has not served the role of a democratic government that is responsible for the welfare of its citizens. If it was a true democracy, then it would have continued to provide social services without the need to join its jihad against Israel. It would have given the citizens a chance for their children to get an actual, objective education instead of one that focused on destroying Israel from day one. So every time Hamas uses the argument that they were elected in a democratic process, remember that the basic tenets of democracy do not exist in Gaza. Again any state that calls for all of the citizens of a bordering state to be thrown into the sea, cannot be called a true democracy. Here is a link to quotes from the current leader of Hamas, and you can tell me what you think about them, . While Hamas may recognize the reality of the situation, the Holocaust is still much worse than any action Israel has committed.

With these conditions and newer, stronger rockets, Israel had finally reached its breaking point in dealing with Hamas. A week ago, Israel launched an aggressive bombing campaign on many Hamas targets across the Gaza Strip in order to halt the rocket attacks. At first, I was confused on why Israel believed that it could use force to quell the attacks coming from Gaza since it seemed as though violence only leads to more violence. For this week, the cycle of violence has kept on escalating to the point where Israel saw no other way to stop the rocket attacks on its citizens besides launching the ground invasion. While most of the world, including the Winograd Report (Israeli internal investigation of the Lebanon War), viewed the war with Hezbollah as a disaster, there have been no more rockets raining down on the north since 2006. Even it takes a month or two and causes Israeli causalities, the IDF believes that the end game of stopping the rocket attacks will be worthwhile.

The most troubling aspect of the entire situation for me are the non-Hamas related deaths within the Gaza Strip. During the bombing campaign, it is very unclear how many of the Palestinians that were killed were directly tied to Hamas. Without real identification, we have no idea who exactly was killed in the strikes. Even if we know the people, we are not always sure of their ties to Hamas. Just because a woman or a child died in an attack does not mean that they are always innocent. In 2006, Hamas tried to sent a sixty year-old grandmother into Israel to launch a suicide bombing on Israeli civilians. Is anyone who voted for Hamas in 2006 a target? You have to draw the line somewhere, but I have no idea where that line is drawn. Also, Gaza is a very densely populated area, so there is going to be some collateral damage. I really hope Israel is doing everything possible to minimize non-Hamas deaths, but I have very serious doubts. It is encouraging to see Israel send across trucks of humanitarian aid into Gaza every day, but those trucks are being seized by Hamas as they cross the border in order to make sure the leadership gets more than its fair share and therefore starves the population. Maybe with Israeli troops on the ground, the situation will improve for the average Gazan on a humanitarian level.

For me, the biggest question is now, how will this operation end? With the transition of power in the United States, the government is doing a pathetic job at trying to bring the sides together to create a lasting peace. Hopefully, the new Obama administration will set this goal as a high priority instead of something that is only pursued during the waning months of an administration. Unless Israel totally uproots Hamas from Gaza (something I am not sure Israel even wants to do considering the resulting anarchy and possible need for a long occupation of Gaza), Israel is going to have to force Hamas to make concessions if it is going to have any power in Gaza. Israel is trying to put a choke hold on Hamas, and maybe they believe this will lead to a forced peace, but it sound way too idealistic. In the meanwhile, Tony Blair, Nicholas Sarkozy, and the European Union is playing the role that the United States used to play in international affairs. While it is nice to see the EU caring about the rest of the world, a non-presence from the US only hurts American interests in the region and the world.

At this point, we can only guess what the future will bring and it sure looks dim. If Israel can stop the Hamas attacks, then it will be a great achievement which if done correctly restores the power of the Israeli military in the eyes of the world as the power in the Middle East. Many Sunni states from Egypt to Saudi Arabia are privately hoping that Israel can quickly defeat the Iranian-backed Hamas so they can maintain a balance of power over Iran. However, the populations of these nations are siding with Hamas in the interest of the mutual hatred of the existence of the state of Israel. If the conflict does not end soon, there are fears that these protests could seriously affect the ruling regimes across the Middle East. Throw an Israeli election next month into the mix, and this situation could be the catalyst for a new Middle East. But new does not mean better or mean peaceful based on the current conditions of the Middle East. Maybe there is hope for a lasting peace and seeing two or three prosperous states living side-by-side, but sadly this does not appear to be on the horizon.