Minor Thoughts from me to you

Futility in Gaza

The Palestinians continue to be in a bad situation. Michael Totten has been writing about -- and visiting -- the Middle East for several years now. He visited Israel last summer, during Israel's brief shooting war with Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza strip. While there, he interviewed an Israeli military officer.

At one point, they talked about the problem with terrorists hiding behind young children.

And ten, eleven, and twelve year old children come and take the launcher away afterwards. Often we're faced with fourteen or fifteen year old youth who come, armed, and place charges along the fence. When we see them, even when we see that they are armed, if they are only fourteen or fifteen we only shoot to scare them. We don't actually fire at them. Of course, only if there is no immediate danger to our forces.

"Our general instructions," he continued, "not just in the these cases, is if we see a militant who is armed, a terrorist, and there is no immediate danger to our forces, we don't fire if there is a danger that we would hurt the innocents, people who are not involved. But with that, it's important to say that when we have such aggressive fighting in populated areas, when there's an exchange of fire between terrorists and the IDF, there are cases where innocent people get hurt. But we warn as much as we can to step back, step away, to clear the area. So we see the terror organizations as responsible when civilians get hurt. And when there is a case and we know that a civilian was killed by mistake or unnecessarily, we check ourselves.

Sadly, the Israeli Defense Force is far more concerned about civilian casualties than the Palestinians themselves are. The Palestinians will actively put civilians in harms way -- then blame someone else for the inevitable consequences.

"About a month and a half ago," he said, "another event that shows you the dilemma here: Two terrorists with an RPG tried to shoot a tank. We shot back. In the same house the mother of them, and a cousin, were in the same house. They fired five meters away from where the mother and cousin were standing. The Palestinian headline said that a mother and child were killed. The child was twenty two years old. And he was a member of Hamas. So, I am not happy about the mother. But, this is my right. You know? In the houses of Hamas militants, and all the other terrorist organizations, there are storages of weaponry. That's because in the past we would avoid attacking houses with families. Which raises the question: Sometimes we as the IDF care more about the families and the children than he who would put them in danger. In a house, let's say of three floors, a whole floor may be used as a storage."

The Palestinians are woefully ineffective at fighting the Israelis, yet they continue to fight anyway. The ongoing struggle resembles self-immolation far more than it resembles war. Last summer, the Palestinian terrorists kidnapped an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. How did that turn out for them?

"All the year, before Gilad Shalit, no one. In the Shalit event, two soldiers died. And after that one more soldier died from friendly shooting. That's all. So this is the big question for them. The spokesman of the government for Palestinians three days ago said the same thing I say all the time. For what? For what? For three soldiers who were killed in Gaza. In all the year something like 500 terrorists died in Gaza. So for what? The organizations of terror need to understand that it's not worth it for them. And they can choose. We left the territory in the Gaza Strip, so it's up to them. We will not stop the Qassam only with military pressure. They need to decide that they want to stop it. And if they will stop the Qassams, if they will stop the terror, free Gilad Shalit, we won't have anything to fight about. And Karni will be open more. And everything will be better for them, not for us.

Not very well.

What We "Know" About Gaza

A few weeks ago, Michael Totten's co-blogger Noah Pollah wrote about the conventional wisdom most people have about Gaza and Palestine.

The first is the notion that power would moderate Hamas.

The second is an idea that dates back at least to the start of Olso in the early 1990's. It is the belief that Israel must make concessions in order to validate and strengthen the Palestinian moderates and marginalize the radicals.

[...]

Yet Israel's withdrawal from Gaza happened just four months before the election, and the commotion surrounding that event distracted many people from taking note of what the withdrawal meant for the Palestinians themselves.

[...]

And what it meant for the Palestinians, especially the residents of Gaza, was that Hamas' fierce resistance over the decades had finally forced an Israeli retreat. It was the Shia reaction to the 2000 Lebanon pullout all over again, with Hamas playing Hezbollah. Hamas was able to campaign proudly on this victory, which was viewed as additional evidence of Hamas' strength and competence. And so it seems clear that a massive Israeli concession -- its departure from Gaza -- did not strengthen the Palestinian moderates at all, but in fact did the opposite: it vindicated the extremists, who unlike the moderates could declare a great victory and bask in the ensuing public admiration -- and collect a lot more votes when election day arrived.

[...]

Finally, there is the matter of foreign aid and its relationship to democracy-promotion. The Arab states and Iran have always spoken with great high-mindedness about the plight of their brothers in Palestine, but these regimes in practice have always lustily enjoyed seeing their brothers become permanent wards of UNRWA, settle into never-ending refugee status, and stagnate in extremism and violence. Since Hamas came to power, as David Frum helpfully notes, the gushers of largess that flow into the Palestinian territories have actually increased.

Wrap Up

Gaza is a mess. And nothing we seem to do makes it any better. How bad of a mess is it? Well, right now Hamas and Fatah are engaged in civil war over control of the Palestinian government. How can you possibly fix an area that dysfunctional?

Both sides are taking a time-out from the hatred of Israel to waste each other. When they're not fighting each other, they're busy taking 500-3 losses at the hands of the Isaeli army. I don't think most people over there are rational any longer.

After reading these reports, I understand exactly why Israel wants to build a fence around Gaza. Maybe if we wall these terrorists in, we can look back over the wall in 50 years to see if anyone's ready to give civilization a try. Until then, why not prevent them getting to you to hurt you?