A Matter of Trust

It is perhaps unfortunate that Israel is being blamed for a blast at a hospital that ostensibly it is not responsible for, but I have a lot of trouble feeling sorry for the IDF.  The situation exemplifies why Israel needs to follow the spirit of international law instead of constantly looking for technicalities.  If they committed to never bombing hospitals in the first place there would be no doubt that terrorists inside Gaza were responsible for the blast.  The IDF has set itself up to be accused of things it has not done.  It’s a matter of trust.

No one should deny that Hamas is a dangerous, barbaric, neighbor–a terrorist organization right on Israel’s doorstep.  But at some point Israel needs to come to terms with just how many civilians it is killing. More than anything, Israel has to learn when it just isn’t worth it.  Proportionality can be subjective.  But doing whatever you can do is different from doing what you should do.   

Israel needs to learn that it has nothing to gain and everything to lose by killing Palestinian children.  This has been the greatest obstacle to peace and a two state solution all along.  Israel believes that its only course of action is to create “collateral damage” when the exact opposite is true.  The only productive course of action is to reduce the death of innocent civilians.  Israel can’t accomplish anything to further their security until they embrace what international laws of war were designed to accomplish–that is, the reduction of civilian casualties.  Arguing about those laws is meaningless.  It really doesn’t matter why Israel is killing so many innocent civilians, it is that  it is killing so many innocent civilians.  A dead child is a dead child.  The family of that child will not, and should not have to, understand the minutiae of international law.  Humanitarian law is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.  If Israel wants peace it will have to find a way to kill fewer civilians–period, full stop.  It cannot expect peace and “collateral damage” to co-exist.

As long as Israel continues to push back on the international community it will continue to have the problems it has.  Not allowing fuel to enter Gaza serves no purpose whatsoever.  Even if Hamas mangages to somehow get its hands on some of the humanitarian aid, Israel is better off in the long run.  

Calls for a ceasefire go too far; Israel has the right to respond militarily.   An invasion of Gaza may be warranted and is understandable.  But, there are rules to war; and those rules apply to Israel just as they apply to any other country.  This is not a time to parse details or mince words.  At a certain moment Israel must face up to the things that it has done to further the violence in the Palestinian conflict. 

That doesn’t make Hamas right.  There is never any excuse for the kind of atrocities they engage in, and they too are an obstacle to peace that must be removed.   But there are things above and beyond a ground invasion Israel could, and will have, to do, to get Hamas out of power.  

 Only when Palestinians can trust that Israel isn’t going to engage in collective punishment can there be a way forward.  Without that the constant fear of dying as “collateral damage” will continue to inflict psychological damage on Palestinian children.  And as long as Palestinians live in fear, there will be Hamas.