Old friends, Israel and Palestine

So my friend Tim recently got a hold of me again. I've been trying to get a hold of him for months. It appears that his email filter was blocking everything from mail.com, which had the additional consequence of blocking anything that ended in mail.com...

Including hotmail.com, which is where my primary e-mail address has been for the last 9 years.

The thing about a good friend is that years can go by and you can not speak to one, but when they show up, it's just like old times. This is one of those friendships.

It took about 2 messages before we started talking about politics. We started talking about Israel and Palestine. Both of us are pro-Israel, however, I'm not opposed to the idea of land for peace. Tim thought Sharon and Bush were twisting the knife in the back of Israel.

For the sake of brevity, I'll try to paraphrase the arguments.

Here's the initial volley from Tim:

• My point against that is simply that America has been Israel's FRIEND since her birth in '48. Our muscle behind them has been one of the man reasons all the arabs in the middle east haven't wiped Israel off the map and pushed all the jews "into the sea" as they keep claiming they want to do. As a Christian, fundamentally speaking, it is WISE to befriend Israel, God's people and foolish to curse or attempt to ruin them. Given those two things, let's add a third, that if it was US being reguarly blown up from people coming across the border from Mexico, do you think our solution would be to give them southern California and Arizona to try to appease them? What Bush did is hypocritical, plain and simple. Not only that but it is a knife in the back to the Israelites whom we've supported for more than fifty years now. We HELPED DRAW those borders for Israel as a country back in '48 and now we're redrawing them, giving their land away to her enemies...

Yes, folks, this athiest has a fundamental christian friend. One of the weird things about Christians, one of the requirements for their end of world scenario involves having a strong Israel. You'd think they'd want nothing to do with the place. Oh well.

Of course, for this to be a dialogue and to have any value worth posting on my blog at all, I obviously took a different course. I think that Sharon's actions are the best possible given the situation.

The Gaza Strip is already inhabited by a primarily muslim population. It's value as a strategic position (the original reason why it was acquired), has diminished a great deal with the advent of long range missile technology. It's primarily desert and Israel still controls the main avenues of water in the area.

Giving this land to the Palestinians has two benefits:

1. It may lead to peace (possible, though not likely)
2. It will give Israel the moral highground.

If a peaceful Palestine emerges from the land deal, then the cost was worth it. It could lead to more land deals in the future. Everyone wins.

However, if (as everyone expects) the PA does not manage to keep the peace, Israel can say with impunity that it cannot be expected to give up more land as it does not lead to peace.

If there's really a problem, then an attack from a Palestinian state could be seen as an act of war, which could allow Israel to reannex the land. Though to tell you the truth I don't see that as happening. It would undermine the Israeli propaganda position, which I'll get to in a moment.

What's really ironic is that a Palestinian state would never have been formed without Israel. Israel allowed Palestinians enough space to foster their own national identity. Do you think they would have been able to gain their independance from Jordan or Egypt...think again.

What Sharon has finally realized is that Israel isn't really high in public sentiment around the world. Some of that sentiment is well founded. Some of that sentiment is richly undeserved, for example, a few years back there was news footage all over the news that Israel had killed this boy (whose last name was al-Dura). It was caught on tape and generated a huge reaction from muslims....except the entire thing was faked. Additional footage was found that shows the entire thing was staged, they dead boy even propped himself up from his prone position! Sad thing was that the retraction did not receive nearly as much coverage. There's a lot of anti-semetic propaganda out there and it was a front that Israel wasn't fighting on...

Until now.

If Palestinians chaffe so badly under Israeli control, let them be free. See what they do. If they are peaceful, then Israel hears the pleas of it's former citizens. If they are not peaceful, then at least Israel gave them the chance, and they blew it.

Even the evacuations have a place. In order for Israel to be seen as rational. The Israeli people must be seen to suffer by this action. Israel must be willing to sacrifice for peace. This shows that sacrifice. It shows that they are serious.

Perhaps that's also why Sharon is redirecting settlers to the West Bank. My guess is that that's the next area that will be negotiated if peace is obtained in Gaza.

Tim thought I was naive. Reminded me that Israel is HATED by its neighbors.

I responded that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result was madness. Israel has been trying to forcefully stop bombers for at least the last 20 years if not longer. It wasn't going to just stop.

I told him he was right, Israel's neighbors DID hate her. That's why she needed to look elsewhere for allies, and there would be no allies to support her unless she took actions to make herself seem reasonable, to take the moral highground, and to show that she was serious.

Sharon is making a risky gambit. However, it's the only way that I could see leading to results except brutal suppression.