On a per capita basis, the HAMAS attack on Israel is even more catastrophic than our 9/11. The 1300 dead and 3400 wounded is a record that can only be surpassed by World War II Jewish deaths.
The Israeli response to the HAMAS attack is just beginning even though there are already some 2400 Palestinians killed and 8700 wounded in the conflict. Like America’s hunt for Bin Laden after 9/11, Israel is bent on entering Gaza and rooting out and degrading HAMAS to such an extent that the terrorist organization will ceased to be a viable vehicle for future violence and bloodshed.
While there is no doubt that the Israeli armed forces are capable of accomplishing their goals in Gaza, there are lingering questions about the unpreparedness of the Israelis for the attack in the first place. Among the most important questions that may have led to that unpreparedness (aside from Netanyahu’s trial for corruption and his effort to diminish the power of the country’s Supreme Court) are the ones that have to do with the autocratic tendencies of the Prime Minister’s regime, the unilateral taking of land from the West Bank Palestinians and creating an internal national political backlash that divided the country.
Notwithstanding the cause of Israel’s unpreparedness for the HAMAS attack, there is an even greater question that needs to be answered. What is the Israeli government going to do after it pacifies Gaza again?
In Exodus, the movie (1960), the protagonist played by Paul Newman offers his Arab friend an invitation to build a country together after independence. If that were the case today, the Palestinian community would outnumber the Jews as they represent 52 percent of the region.
Failing a two-state solution, Israel’s democracy is facing a dilemma. It either helps build a Palestinian nation or absorbs the Palestinians and become a minority in their own country.
Anything else is problematic because what is now being practiced is apartheid. That political condition is incompatible with a democratic nation.
As for the Palestinians, the formula for dominance in the region is unsustainable. Since independence in 1948, the tendency has been to try to rally the Arab states to attack the very existence of Israel rather than seek to coexist through the establishment of sovereign states with borders.
The issue of freedom, human, and civil rights has been achieved in the past by more peaceful means with great success. Mahatma Gandhi was able to gain independence for India and what are now the nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh exercising a policy of nonviolence.
Our own civil rights movements in the United States have yielded excellent results over time. Martin Luther King and his generation, for example, were able to achieve relevance for the Black community following Gandhi’s formula.
Mexican American organizations after World War II and the Chicano Movement later were able to bring back visibility and hope to an oppressed community that had lost everything. Also, with great perseverance, the Latinos stands at the edge of becoming the face of a renewed America.
As for the United States, we must meet a growing challenge in Asia and the Pacific and cannot afford to linger for long in age-old struggles in places like the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The advancement of liberty and democracy has to be shared with others across the world.
For the Palestinian people, the bloody HAMAS brand of behavior cannot be allowed to stand. At the same time, Israel has to rethink its very function as a democracy.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of LaVozColorado. Comments and responses may be directed to News@lavozcolorado.com.
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