Words over the recent conflicts and humanitarian crisis in Gaza have been flying across this campus as swiftly as snowballs on Bascom. The pages of this paper have recently been peppered with quotes from Palestinians by Kyle Szarzynski and quotes from Israelis by Jordan Soffer.
The truth is that this is a ridiculously complicated situation that nobody outside of the two territories can perhaps comprehend completely — no one comes back from a Campus Antiwar Network meeting or a Birthright trip with such intricate knowledge of what exactly is going on in the Holy Land.
Soffer diplomatically pleads “to the media, to governments around the world, and to every student on this campus to help find that common ground.” It is a step in the right direction, but a step several years behind the times. To imply that common ground doesn’t exist already does a severe injustice to the millions on both sides who peacefully seek a two-state solution.
The two-state solution has the highest support among both peoples. Most Palestinians acknowledge that Israelis must have a state (they have put down their roots as deeply as the English in Northern Ireland). On the other hand, most Israelis say the same for the Palestinians, who cannot just fuck off to a place that they don’t come from.
Carrying out the solution is not easy, however. As Thomas Friedman eloquently put it in the New York Times, “Hamas is busy making (it) inconceivable, while (Israeli) settlers have steadily worked to make it impossible.” A great schlep is being done to both Israelis and Palestinians by those who benefit from hostilities between the peoples. While Hamas gains notoriety, and distance from Fatah, by firing rockets in the vicinity of civilians, some overzealous Israelis continue to settle in agreed upon Palestinian territory, destroying Palestinian homes in the process. The generals on both sides, meanwhile, get to keep their jobs and build their budgets.
The recent Israeli incursion was simply asinine if its goal was to eventually achieve peace. What has been achieved since December when the crisis began? The military campaign certainly did nothing to bring elements of Hamas back into the fold of Fatah and establish peace between the Palestinians themselves — an important element in the creation of Palestinian autonomy and independence. A score of people are dead, some were thugs, many were innocent women and children, and the peace process has taken a further step back.
Hamas rockets are inexcusable but cannot be an excuse for the intensity of Israel’s reaction. By funneling its scarce resources into such relatively useless rockets while its people suffered tremendously under a crippling economic blockade, Hamas was greatly undermining its legitimacy in Gaza. Hamas was arguably on the road to destroying itself from within, had the Israeli government played the waiting game more prudently. Admittedly, it is difficult to win an upcoming election — Feb. 10 — when the government does nothing in response to a few crude rocket attacks.
In Madison, we can debate about the issue in the papers all we want and, seemingly, not much difference will be made. I implore you — consume information, read books with five-star Amazon ratings, watch movies such as “Paradise Now” or “Live from Bethlehem” — an excellent documentary on Palestinian media produced by University of Wisconsin students. As Amira Hanania said, we are “the future leaders of America and in politics nothing is very far from America. (We) have a responsibility to make our country do whatever it can to make the lives of Palestinians, Israelis and all people throughout the world as good and peaceful as possible.” Or at least, as the Flight of the Concords say, “Just think about it. (falsetto) Think, think about it.”
James Sonneman ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science.
