gaza – Oscar Valdes

No On a Two State Solution

Negotiations are under way to end the conflict in Gaza. But the conflict won’t end. It never does.
Why should Israelis live under the constant threat that Palestinians will violate any agreement they make and attack them again?
Since Israel’s independence in 1948 there have been many efforts to establish treaties calling for peaceful coexistence.
Sometimes they have come close, but the initial agreement always breaks down.
Repeatedly, it’s the Palestinians who initiate the attacks on Israel or beat the drums of war.
The Palestinian strategy is familiar. Kill Israelis, take hostages and then wait for public opinion to come to their rescue.
Just as Palestinians have failed, so too the other Arab nations.
All share a history of ganging up against Israel and yet the small nation, with the smaller army, always beats them back.
To try to force Israelis to accept a two state solution does not make sense any more.
I am sure that, as a people, Palestinians have many talents and capabilities. As a nation, however, they have deferred again and again to leaders bent on inciting rage and enmity against Israel.
From the start Israel has had a right to a piece of that land. The stories of their peoples have been profoundly intertwined. The Bible and Qur’an speak of their common origins. And yet, Palestinians have seen no need to compromise.
We can blame their atrocious leadership for it but the people themselves also bear a measure of responsibility for their unending calamities.
Palestinians have become a failed nation who’s unwilling to face the fact that a neighbor they despise has thrived and become a first rate country. A first rate country that is also superior to any of the other current Arab nations.
That has to hurt.
Rather than try and improve their conditions, Palestinian leaders keep stirring those resentments.
Other nations, eager to help (never mind China, Russia or Iran who only want to stir the animosities for their own benefit), should not underestimate the importance of such emotions. They are unlikely to go away.
Still, Gaza must be rebuilt. But Hamas should not be allowed to wield power. They’ve proven themselves incapable of leading their people.
One alternative would be for the United Nations to step in and govern that land until such time – decades from now – when Palestinians, freed from the toxicity of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, will rise to take the leadership of a modern state.
No weapons should be allowed in Gaza.
Arab nations may not want to help in rebuilding Gaza, whatever their reason, but they bear a good deal of historical and moral responsibility for having encouraged anti Israeli sentiment and its ghastly consequences.
If you have the time, go to the website for Freedom House and look at their interactive world map where nations are ranked by how free they are.
In the region, Israel is the only democracy. A little speck of land in the midst of autocracies and despotism.
No Arab or Muslim nation in the area has yet developed the capability to form and maintain a democratic government.
Wonder where Israel gets its strength from.

Still Hamas Does Not Surrender. Why Not?

Photo by Edmond Dantu00e8s on Pexels.com

Because they have innocent civilians in Gaza shielding them. Because they’re counting on world opinion restraining Israel’s determination to defeat them.
Israel belongs in Palestine. So do the Arabs. But reckless leadership has kept the flames of enmity and violence alive in Arab hearts and minds for more than a hundred years.
And the cost has been enormous. Not only in lives lost but in opportunities missed.
Jews never conquered the vast territories that Arabs did in times past when they reached into North Africa and Spain which they held for centuries.
Arab minds and their creativity gave us enormous advances in the sciences and humanities. But then the lights dimmed and other peoples took the lead.
Why shouldn’t Israel be in Palestine?
Both Arabs and Jews have inhabited that land since the beginning of recorded history.
Jews have migrated all over the world, and they have faced hatred and persecution in nearly every place they have gone.
All the while they longed to return to Palestine.
The migration back to Palestine started before WWI and then grew steadily, even against opposition of major powers like England. Then came the Holocaust and the horrors of it hardened Jewish resolve to return to their ancestral home.
When the United Nations consented to the creation of Israel in November 1947, borders were drawn that allowed for Jews to coexist with their Arab neighbors. But such was the resistance of the Arab world that immediately after Israel declared itself a nation in May of 1948, the surrounding Arab nations attacked it. And it hasn’t stopped.
Yet every single time Jews have beat back the Arabs.
It’s going to be 76 years this next May, and still the Arab world doesn’t step up and say, ‘Let Israel live!’ ‘We will strive for peaceful coexistence. We renounce violence.’
Is there any oil in Palestine? No. Arab countries have the oil riches.
And yet Arabs look at Jews with envy.
What Jews have done is affirm themselves in a way contemporary Arabs have not been able to.
Jews took what land they hand and made it cultivable. They toiled and invented and transformed themselves into a leading nation. All the while the surrounding Arabs watched in astonishment. Maybe they were asking themselves, ‘there must be something magical about that land that Jews have prospered so much. We need to get back in there.’
But that’s not it.
What Jews have is a determination to succeed that Arabs have not found in themselves. They look back on their history and know it’s in there, somewhere, but they just can’t find it at this time. They look to their leaders but they don’t get answers.
Arabs are ruled by kings and dictators but not by elected representatives. And so until the Arab peoples embrace democracy, there will not be peace in the Middle East.
The Arab world’s tolerance of the existence of Hamas is a sign of how much they need to grow politically. They seem unable to publicly reject the group’s violence toward Israel.
And so Israel must keep affirming its right to exist and keep prospering.
And the West will keep supporting them.
Israel has work to do also. They should veer more to the political center.
Coexistence with a Palestinian nation is possible, so long as that nation is demilitarized. This must be done because of the long history of attacks on Israel.
Israel has had great leaders but a man like Netanyahu is toxic. The other day he said that Palestinians should be relocated to the Congo. Yep. It made front page news.
He has yet to explain how come Israel’s military vigilance did not anticipate the Hamas attack.
Fortunately, Israel’s Supreme Court came out against a Netanyahu inspired rule to weaken the court’s power and so give himself more.
The fight for the survival of democracy is constant. Here in America we now have a candidate who wants to diminish our system. I speak of Donald Trump, who incited an attack on Capitol Hill on January 6th 2021, aiming to overturn the results of the election that defeated him.
But America will beat Trump. And his supporters will have to reconsider how to better deal with opposing views.
The enemy of Arabs in the Middle East is not Israel. It is despotism and dictatorship in their own lands.
To find their voice, Arabs must fight against those who suppress it.
Not having a voice means not thinking clearly and allowing others to choose your fate.
Which is why so many Gazans have died.
Hamas, surrender now!

Where Are the Palestinian Diplomats?

In this hour of need, when Palestinian casualties, men, women and children are climbing in numbers that greatly exceed Israeli ones, as is always the case, where are the Palestinian diplomats?

While a truce in the hostilities is discussed, the slaughter continues. Irreparable losses mount.

Lives are lost. The already impoverished living conditions in Gaza are made worse.

Where are the Palestinian diplomats?

Where is the internal resistance to the Palestinian forces of destruction, still vainly clamoring for a victory in the battlefield to reclaim lost territories and access to holy sites?

Where are the Arab nations that should be interceding and telling Hamas to stop what amounts to calculated self-destruction?

A time for reckoning must come. It has to because it will save lives and offer hope for some kind of solution.

Hamas, or any armed Palestinian faction cannot destroy Israel.

Israel is there to stay.

But world opinion can be enlisted in favor of the cause of displaced Palestinians, provided they commit to peaceful solutions.

It will take Palestinians renouncing the current leaders that continually raise false hopes that an armed solution is possible.

It will take Palestinians confronting leaders who stir hatred instead of healing.

What is lost is lost. But much can be retained and even gained if Palestinians commit to peaceful resolutions of the conflict.

All manner of world assistance could pour into Gaza and the West Bank to aid Palestinians. To help with education and training and jobs, provided there is a clear commitment to peaceful coexistence.

Wounds need to be healed and a thorough examination of the history of the existing divisions made. Nations from all over the world would be willing to step in and assist.

Universities and training centers could be set up in Gaza to elevate the conditions of the people, instead of continuing to live under the blockade they are now under.

But peace has to come first.

A willingness to say, ‘no more bloodshed regardless of what happened before. Let us stop killing each other. Let us stop dying for the sake of old hurts. Let us celebrate life and build a future.’

If Palestine would embark on such a course, it is quite possible that progressive forces within Israel would be mobilized to assist in the process.

But it has to start with the Palestinians. And this is a good time as any.

Let the world help. Please.

Act now.

Embrace peace.

Put down the guns.

Resist and disown those who preach warfare.

Oscar Valdes. Oscarvaldes.net.