Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

On June 28, 2006 the Israel Defense Forces reentered the Gaza Strip ostensibly to win the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit. Corporal Shalit had been kidnapped by Palestinian militants 3 days earlier. The Israeli operation has been codenamed "Operation Summer Rain".

Since the attacks began Israel has destroyed roads, bridges, water plants, and electrical power stations. Israel has arrested Palestinian parliament members and targeted the Prime Minister after declaring their intention to assassinate him. The attack on Gaza has left the 1.4 million inhabitants in the densely populated Strip without electric power, running water, and with very little food. The United Nations has warned that the already dire conditions of the Palestinian people are now on the verge of a humanitarian disaster. Amidst the suffering, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has ordered more intensified attacks on the Palestinians:

The strikes appeared to be a direct response to the instructions of the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who told subordinates at a cabinet meeting on Sunday that he intended to make the lives of Gazans ever more miserable until the captured soldier, 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit, was released. But Israel also yielded somewhat to outside pressure on Sunday by allowing a limited supply of fuel and food into Gaza.

Mr. Olmert, whose air force has already bombed Gaza’s bridges, crippled its only power plant, shelled the Palestinian prime minister’s office here and subjected all 1.4 million Gaza residents to night after night of sleep-depriving sonic booms, said he had ordered the military and government "to do everything in order to bring Gilad back home."

The message from Israel is clear: surrender the soldier or all Palestinians will suffer. Asked on CNN’s Late Edition if the Israeli assault was harming the Palestinian people, Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres said that if the Palestinians hand over the soldier the attacks will stop. So the Palestinians should stop complaining and hand over the soldier:

ROBERTS: Vice Premier Peres, the question is, is this operation harming the Palestinian people as much or more than it’s harming the Hamas government?

PERES: Well, they can get rid of it in one moment. If they would release the soldier, the operation will be over in a moment’s time. It is up to them. But they cannot keep the soldier as a hostage and then complain.

By the way, when it comes to electricity, we checked beforehand. If the hospitals have generators to supply the necessary electricity to the people who are in hospital, we wouldn’t bomb otherwise. But if they want to change the situation, it’s in their hands. They don’t have to complain.

So, once again, the Palestinian people will have to endure more suffering at the hands of the Israelis until the latest "point of no return" is crossed and magically the status quo is again restored. The politicians will argue, people will be killed on both sides, blood will be on everyone’s hands, extremists on both sides will continue to drive the agenda, and through it all Palestinians who have been refugees on their own land since the Nakba will continue to bare the brunt of the insanity.

Nakba is the Arabic word for "catastrophe". The Palestinians refer to the exodus during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War from their homes in what is now the State of Israel as the Nakba. But as with all aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the cause of the Nakba is hotly disputed. It is so disputed that the fact that I, in this post, am calling it the Nakba will likely garner some criticism. The Israelis and Palestinians it appears operate from two sets of facts. The irony is that with two sets of fact they both want to occupy one piece of land.

Regardless of whether the Palestinians left willingly or were forced out, the result has been the creation of a refugee nation of Palestinians who have lived in miserable conditions ever since. Since 1948 the people of Palestine have been used as pawns between the Arabs on one side and the Israelis on the other. The Arabs have always used the Palestinians as a tool to achieve their own domestic agendas. The Arabs have always given the Palestinians just enough to survive, but never more. The Israelis on the other hand are suffering the results of an incomplete exodus of the Palestinians. Israel has a refugee problem within its self-declared borders. It has a population that it does not want and cannot seem to get rid off. Add to that the fact that every now and then the Palestinians rise up against the Israelis violently in self-determination and you have the makings of a perpetual Nakba.

Instead of Peace we are treated to a "Peace Process". The "Peace Process" is a euphemism for a level of violence with acceptable losses of civilian lives on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. This Nakba has its own check and balance and always reaches a macabre equilibrium. Whenever a possibility is raised for meaningful progress in the "Peace Process", extremists on either one side or the other will cause just enough damage to scuttle the progress. The "Peace Process" unfortunately is designed with a built-in veto by any insignificant extremist that chooses to scuttle progress. Thus, equilibrium is always reached and the Palestinian people’s status as a refugee nation is guaranteed.

In the latest incident, just when there was news that Hamas might accept Israel’s right to exist, the inevitable match was lit to burn the prospect to the ground. As with all assaults on the Palestinian people this assault will soon end. There will be horse trading between Israeli and Palestinian politicians and both sides will step back from the brink. Ultimately Israel will likely get its soldier back and Hamas militants will likely get the release of some Palestinian prisoners in exchange (though, likely not right away to avoid an appearance of quid pro quo). Everything will be back to "normal". The Palestinian people will be left to pick the dead amidst the rubble and try to move on.

The Nakba will continue.