On the Contrary

The Sunday news shows were focused on the Israeli invasion of Gaza.  Typical of the visual media, they were putting up pictures of wounded Palestinians and asking if this response to the rocket attacks by the Israelis is disproportionate to the damage of the rocket attacks.  As Mayor Bloomberg pointed out (visiting over there), that is truly a stupid comparison (“If you’re in your apartment, and some emotionally disturbed person is banging on the door and screaming, “I’m going to come through this door and kill you,” do you want us to respond with one police officer, which is proportional, or with all the resources at our command?”). Said better by Tzipi Livni, Israeli Foreign Minister (Fareed Zakaria’s GPS):

“I can’t understand what is the nature of proportionality which is needed. They targeted last week a school in Beersheba, in Israel. Do you think that the proportionate action is to target a school? We are not going to do this. They are targeting civilians. We are not going to do this.

So, the only measure that we are taking is to have them understand that this needs to be stopped. This is the expression of — the right of self-defense of the state, and we tried to — we tried a truce. We decided not to target at all. We decided not to retaliate at all. It didn’t work.

So this time we needed to say that, yes, maybe it is not according to — we are not answering one-to-one, one mortar, one missile come from Israel. This needs to be stopped. So, the question of proportionality I think is being misused against Israel.”

Meanwhile there are calls for a cease-fire and negotiations.  Once again a truly pointless exercise since Hamas won’t agree to stop the rocket attacks.   First and foremost is to understand what Hamas wants.  On Meet the Press, Mr. Jeffery Goldberg related how in an interview with the Hamas leader Nizer Rayyan, Rayyan demonstrated the fallacy of thinking negotiations are going anywhere.  As he told it:

“There was no flexibility with Rayyan.  This is what he said when I asked him if he could envision a 50-year hudna (or cease-fire) with Israel: `The only reason to have a hudna is to prepare yourself for the final battle.  We don’t need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final battle with Israel.’ There is no chance, he said, that true Islam would ever allow a Jewish state to survive in the Muslim Middle East.  `Israel is an impossibility.  It is an offense against God.’”  Or as Mr. Goldberg put it, “Well, it’s hard to negotiate with God, obviously.”

In other words, negotiations with Hamas are going nowhere.

Note that several pundits pointed out that Hamas is a duly elected political force in Gaza where upon Bernard-Henri Levy, Author of “Who Killed Daniel Pearl” on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS countered:

“But when Hitler ruled Germany, he was elected by the German people. He had huge roots in the German people. Nevertheless, when he was defeated by the Allied armies, you had a great German president who said that it was the liberation of the German people. You can be elected and you can be a tyrant. You can be elected, and you can be the curse, the malediction of your people. Hamas is one of the names of the malediction of the Palestinian people.”

Democracy is greatly misunderstood in this country or should I say, most including our President, have a very shallow understanding of it.  Its not the just the voting, it is the protection of minority rights, and institutions to ensure justice and the rule of law.  Hamas was the tyranny of the majority.  But I promised you a way forward and it came from Richard Haas, President, Council on Foreign Relations.  Mr. Haas offered the following (also on Fareed Zakeria’s GPS):

“But what you’ve got is a situation where Hamas is clearly going to be weakened. It won’t be destroyed, it can’t be eliminated, but it will be weakened. And the real question is then whether the United States steps in, because there may be an opportunity here.”

“I’d say two things above all (need to be done). One is on the security side, I think we should look at the idea of some type of an international force in Gaza. We don’t want an Israeli occupation. We don’t want the reestablishment of Hamas’ primacy. Why not ultimately think about some version of an Arab League or Islamic Conference force to provide security in Gaza to make sure that smuggling stops once and for all?”

“And secondly, we need to give the moderates in the Palestinian world an argument. We need to give them evidence to say what Hamas is doing doesn’t pay off, doesn’t lead to a Palestinian state, but moderation does.”

“And the only way that will happen is if the United States and Israel make it happen. So, what we have here is potentially some military progress. But what we really need to see now is complimenting military progress with a larger security approach and with a diplomatic approach.”

“Israel cannot succeed by military means alone, but it might set a context in which imaginative foreign policy can prosper.”

When Fareed asked if a cease-fire now would be beneficial Mr. Haas answered:

“No. I think the incursion — there’s a legitimate reason to keep going, to keep weakening Hamas. But it’s never going to be enough. It has got to be complemented sooner rather than later with economic initiative, with the diplomatic initiatives. These can be made conditional.”

From my point of view the way forward is simple and was eloquently described by Mr. Haas.  Weaken Hamas as much as possible and give the moderates every reason and chance to take over.  This will only happen when the world shuns Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and recognizes that organizations dedicated to the destruction of other states and utilize terrorism to achieve their ends are not to be negotiated with, only hunted down and prosecuted as the war criminals they are.  The really sad thing is that had the Palestinians taken a page from Martin Luther King or Gandhi, and taken the moral high ground of non-aggression, they probably would be an independent state today and the world would put major pressure on Israel to right any of the settlement/territory issues.  Instead they have become the harborers of murders and terrorists who have no moral high ground and will keep the violence going forever.  Please don’t bother us with who committed the first sin.  Nothing justifies the Palestinian’s present course.  They put Hamas in power and now they are hostage to its methods and means.  They are paying the price in “collateral damage.”  There is no other way.  It is such a waste.

As the year draws to a close, nothing really changes and the latest in foreign affairs may get us distracted from our own economic woes.  So with that in mind here are a few tidbits to think about:

• Hamas and the Israelis (New York Times) – Well they are at it again.  Hamas has been dropping rockets (up to eighty a day) from Gaza into Israel on a fairly continuous basis and now the Israelis are responding.  The UN is going to meet and call for a cessation of hostilities and around and around we go.  Now I will give you that the Israelis have been bad actors and their settlements in disputed territory are an abomination, but does anybody get the continued launching of rockets is a terrorist activity?  If you want to end this, it is time to settle it and the Israelis have taken the first step.  The only way that Hamas with their sworn destruction of Israel strategy will stop their ceaseless violence is for the people to finally reject their terrorist acts.  If each time you launch a strike, you pay dearly, after awhile maybe the population will put a stop to tolerating these rocket attacks.  What should catch your attention is that Hamas must keep the conflict going with Israel or they would actually have to deal with the problems in Gaza created by themselves and the Palestinians.  It is time for the UN to take a side and end this madness.
• India and Pakistan (New York Times)  – The Pakistanis are moving troops out of the Taliban controlled areas so they can confront the Indians.  Once again they are playing right into the terrorists hands.  The whole idea was to stir up trouble between India and Pakistan so that the pressure would be off their tribal areas.  Both this and the Hamas/Israeli problem remind me of Shakespeare’s Henry V.  Henry knew that a war with the French would distract his own citizens from their own injustices and focus them on an external foe.  So instead of dealing with your own issues it is so much easier to stir up trouble with someone else and then get your citizens to rally around the flag.  Remind anyone of George Bush?
• Healthcare – I see where Tom Daschle, as Barack Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services,  in his first major speech since being asked to head President-elect Barack Obama’s healthcare reform effort, on Friday announced a nationwide campaign this month to solicit public input on improving the nation’s healthcare system.   I find this a little strange and time wasting to tell you the truth.  As a friend expressed it to me the other day, people who think they have healthcare only have to get sick to find out they don’t.  We have a system based on profit and as such incentivizes denying care and only insuring healthy people.  All the problems arise from this basic flaw.  But what is most troubling about this fact finding is that it ought to be around the world, not the United States.  If you look at England, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, and Taiwan, you would find completely different implementations of single payer plans, and you do like the Taiwanese did, design you system to take advantages of the best of each of these systems.  But no, we have to reinvent the wheel.  We are an arrogant bunch aren’t we?  No wonder we are falling behind the rest of the world.
• Energy Efficient Houses (New York Times) – I read an interesting article about how in Europe they have gone back to building extremely “tight” homes to reduce or eliminate heating costs and have solved the problem of indoor pollution by using extremely efficient heat exchanges so that fresh air brought in from outside is preheated.  In another article I saw where the hope in California for the economy is the rebirth of the housing industry.  See the connection?  Why are we still building houses with yesterday’s technology?  Why aren’t we requiring that new houses meet extremely stringent energy standards so that our energy needs in the future would be greatly reduced?  Oh, I forgot, that would be government interference with the marketplace so we can continue to do stupid and short sighted things.
• Caroline Kennedy – Oh can we get over this soap opera?  Governor’s can appoint who ever the hell they want to.  The voters will eventually get their say.  Governor Patterson is no fool and he will appoint someone who he thinks can bring home the bacon for New York.  For those of you who are afraid of a dynasty, then why the hell did you vote for George Bush after his dad?  If Governor Patterson thinks Caroline works, and she doesn’t, you will get your chance to have your say on the re-election of both of them.  In the meantime the media needs to get a life.
• Man Shoots Talker in Movie Theater (CNN) – Apparently a family that kept talking during a movie so enraged a gentleman that he shot the father.  I would have to say that if I was on the jury I could not convict.  I could be in his shoes, but my wife won’t let me take a gun to the movie.

It is always heart warming to know that after another year we have learned nothing.