Was Israel Punked by Hamas? Are Progressives Supporting Palestinians Being Punked too?

Can we conclude that the leaders of Hamas made a cold blooded decision to sacrifice hundreds of Palestinian lives. No. Most likely they expected a more moderate Israeli response. The Hamas leaders probably expected to only sacrifice ten or twenty Palestinian lives. They gambled. The Palestinian people lost.

Writing in The Nation, Robert Drefuss writes,

“In Israel, the bloody holocaust they've unleashed is an election game, wherein Netanyahu and his slightly more moderate rivals in the Olmert-Livni bloc compete with each other to show who is best at slaughtering Palestinians. In Palestine, a similar election dynamic is underway.”

Hamas, the Israeli politicians—they both sound like Bush and Cheney, using violence and war to maintain their power base.

And let’s not forget that the Egyptians and Saudis, who don’t like Hamas, were not exactly opposing Israel’s response, initially. The Egyptians told Hamas not to do it and, once the attacks started, Egypt even helped block its Gaza border.

Why would the Saudis and Egyptians seemingly side with Israel? There’s a reason we’re seeing clearly now. Hamas, aligned with Hezbollah and supported by Iran, sets an example that could incite the people of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which the downtrodden in those nations might be inspired to replicate—uprising and rejection of the powers that be.  Of course, this pattern of supporting power balances that repress and hold back democracy has been repeated again and again by US leaders.

Ah… but there’s more, and I’m not selling Ginsu knives. The reason US leaders support dictators is because they justifiably fear that if democratic elections are held in Muslim nations, then the democracy will last one election, which will give power to mullahs and ayatollah types who will permanently install sharia-based government, like we’ve seen in Iran and,  with policies like we see in Saudi Arabia, where th Saudi princes allow Wahabists to run a feudal theocracy.

The multiplicity of factors proves there are so many layers of influence and complications within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is almost impossible to tease them apart. That's what makes the conflict the hardest problem in the world. There are many who believe there can be no solution.   

If there is one, it would require the major players pulling back and insisting that both sides stop the violence and work out a non-military solution. It's the only way and it must include compassion instead of revenge.

George W. Bush curried the favor of a small minority of Jews, mostly the Orthodox, who liked his hands-off approach. I think this was very bad for Israel and the Jews worldwide. Israel took many more extreme actions that engendered the enmity and hatred from much of the Arab world

Here's hoping that when Barack Obama takes office, he'll work more closely, through Hillary Clinton, with the region, and that he'll pay attention to not only AIPAC, Israel's top advocacy PAC, but also to J-street, the new, progressive Jewish PAC, which calls for less violence and a political solution.

Israel needs tough love – strong, firm, determined guidance from the U.S. – which drastically cuts back on the abuse of the Palestinians. They need more of a Three Cups of Tea approach – helping them with education and health care. They need to work with Israelis who are not toxic bigots and haters like the settlers who break Israeli laws, who engage in the same kinds of pogroms against Palestinians that Russian Jews were subjected to by the Czar’s army over 100 years ago. .

The U.S. should put its foot down on further settlement by fundamentalist extremists in Israel and call for the arrest and prosecution of the Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians.  The problem is, when George Herbert Walker Bush tried this, he was really hammered by AIPAC.  Some attribute his loss to Bill Clinton partly to that position.

The Palestinian people should arrest and prevent those who fire rockets into Israel, giving Israel the excuse it needs to hit back ever so much harder. To do that, they need to elect people who promise to work with a Ghandian approach. 

The only way the Israeli and Palestinian people have a shot at peace is for outsiders to put pressure on both sides to make it happen and to stop the violence. It can be done. It will take time. There will be times when progress made slides backward. But violence is not the answer. The answer lies in the direction of Ghandi and Martin Luther King. Anything else is simply incontinent emotional or political impulse. The world needs to come together to find a better way.

A PS. If you are one of those who simply vilify Israel, you are helping the right wing Israelis who want to keep the perpetual state of war going. They use your comments and postings describing your hate and vilification of Zionism and Zionists to prove that their approach is right. In an interview, I told Progressive Rabbi Michael Lerner, “On OpEdNews, we have some people who post saying Israel is evil, that Zionists are evil…”

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