World Politics: Israel and Gaza

israel gazaThere has been violence between Israel and the residents of the Gaza Strip since day one. In the wake of WWII the Allies carved out a country that was called Israel as a place for Jews, a great gesture to a People who had been tragically and deeply wronged through the Holocaust, and a gesture that displaced and infuriated generations on non-Jews who lived, had lived, or still live there. The Gaza Strip is a buffer zone between Israel and the non-Jewish Palesinian states. Conflict in the Gaza Strip has been constant. The United States has always been an ally of Israel and tacitly condoned their actions, violent or political, to protect their country from real, perceived and latent threats. Reuters reports that yet again, Israel has bombed the Gaza Strip once again. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the recent bombing raid was a response to firing from Gaza. He added that Israel would respond to any future shooting.

Israel has an inarguable military advantage over anything that anyone in the Gaza Strip can do. All peace treaties and negotiations have failed for decades. There is little hope of things calming down completely any time soon, and hearing Israel say that they will respond to any and all shots is discouraging, especially if it will be with bombing raids. Though, it is reflective of the way that the U.S. approaches foreign policy with some of the conflicts we are in- responding with a larger firepower military solution to each gunshot. Whether it is effective in stopping further action I can’t personally say. Maybe responding with much larger force is why the U.S. and Israel continue to have that military advantage.

"We aren't ready to accept rocket fire at our communities. Our enemies should know this is our policy.

We aren't ready to absorb rocket fire on our settlements,” continued Netanyahu. The bombing raid was on a smuggling tunnel between Gaza and Egypt and are a typical target for Iraeli retaliatory action. This one was suspected of being used to smuggle ammunition and bombs. Last week there were mortar rounds shot at the Israeli Erez border while medical patients were being taken out by ambulance. The bombs exploded around 300 meters away in Palestinian territory with no injuries. It would be easy to say that Israel should not do this, that they should be the bigger country, so to speak, and to reconvene negotiations, or to make some kind of gesture of peace in the face of conflict.

But would this embolden those who have vowed to live their lives in order to bring Israel down? Or is Israel, to protect its very existence, obligated to respond with massive military force anytime it sees any kind of  military attack?

With the U.S. responding to terrorist threats with extreme military force all over the globe, this is an interesting case of seeing another country respond in exactly the same way to aggression that is right at their border. Kind of like the U.S. and Cuba in the 60’s.

What would we be doing if Canada or Mexico was attacking our borders?