Just to refresh everyone’s memory (as if we need it):
The Gaza Strip is a narrow piece of land along the Mediterranean coast between Israel and Egypt. Just 40km (25 miles) long and 10km wide, it is home to more than 1.5 million Palestinians. The territory was defined by the Armistice Line following the creation of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent war between the Israeli and Arab armies after which Egypt administered the region until Israel captured it during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Gaza has been under Israeli control since then.
The majority of Gaza’s residents are refugees who fled, or were expelled from, or who merely sold their land to the Jews moving in after WWII, to what became Israel in 1948. Most Gazans live in eight refugee camps to which the United Nations pitifully delivers health, education and other humanitarian services. Pitifully is the UN’s highest standard of excellence. But that is another article. As a result, today, Gaza has one of the highest population densities on earth. About 20% of refugee dwellings are not connected to the sewage system and waste water flows in open channels throughout Gaza. Proof is the mere comparison of the birthweights of the average baby born in Israel and his Palestinian twin.
Israel has maintained debatably tight control over everything that enters Gaza and as a result of Hamas winning political control inside Gaza, has intensified it’s stress on the population inside Gaza.
Now, if you suddenly see similarities to what Polish Jews endured in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940, that is your own doing. I will admit though, that I most definitely see the same similarities, with the following exception.
Whereas in Warsaw the Jews were powerless against the great inhuman oppression they faced, today, Gaza is under somewhat more free control under Hamas. But then again, Warsaw was allegedly run by thugs as well. The problem with this today though, is that Hamas is a staunchly pledged anti-Israel organization that has in past, conducted most definite terrorist acts against Israel. Furthermore, Hamas is allegedly sponsored partially by Iran. Allegedly and most likely. Hamas defiantly does not recognize the right of Israel to exist. Consequently, Israel does not recognize Hamas. The US too, does not recognize Hamas. Hate is a word that is not strong enough.
But this is even more puzzling.
The West Bank, the other Palestinian “ghetto” if you will, is run by another former terrorist organization, Fatah. Fatah was founded by the most famous defiant Palestinian, Yasser Arafat. In it’s “Day of the Jackal” days, Fatah carried out many more acts of terrorism than Hamas has so far. Hijackings and blowing up passenger planes, public bombings, even the 1972 Olympic massacre whose film ironically made millions for Jews. Fatah has done far more than Hamas has so far. When Arafat died in 2004 though, whether from simple senility, or simple exhaustion, he in the end, finally accepted Israel. He was succeeded by another former terrorist, one with his own super hero name and everything, “Abu Maazen”, which in Arabic means “Father of Maazen”. He now goes by his more boring name, Mahmoud Abbas which in Arabic means “Sellout”. Abbas has managed to convince Israel that Fatah has become a peaceful political organization, and has even offered Israel the branch of branches, publicly stating recognition and acceptance of the right of Israel to exist. Israel and therefore the US too, now like Fatah. The West Bank ghetto is a bit nicer than Gaza. But only a bit.
The final piece of the puzzle that you need to know is that Israel, like San Diego and almost all of the US southern border, relies heavily on cheap labor that it can find, to do the things that Israelis, like Americans don’t like to do. You know, the same usual crop picking, gardening, restaurant work, and other low skill service areas that funny enough, make a country appear to be civilized.
So shall we recap?
Israel has created 2 ghettos. One in the West Bank that it and the US likes, run by a former terrorist, heading a terrorist group that has merely said that it now renounces terrorism, and has merely said that it accepts Israel. The another ghetto, in Gaza, that Israel and the US really really doesn’t like, run by Hamas, an active terrorist organization that refuses to merely say “it”.
Now if you suddenly see that none of this makes any sense, and that this is all one big humanitarian disaster, that too is your own doing. I will admit that I most definitely see it as a humanitarian disaster. I will further admit that in the 21st century, it is an utterly unacceptable situation for any country bordering on the Mediterranean sea to conduct itself in this barbaric fashion. Especially Jews. Especially after the Warsaw and subsequent other Jewish ghettos during another time, but still fresh stench of history. Tragically, the former concentration camp prisoner, has fully transformed into the concentration camp prison guard. Although Israel has been on the hunt for any remaining traces of “Boys from Brazil” or Argentina, and the rest of the world, the SS has in fact been reborn inside Israel herself! The institutionalized contempt for Palestinian life, too obvious for anyone to deny.
Hamas, Fatah and terrorism? Understandable? Some say yes, some say no. I say, when you instigate people, and open it for view, an atrocity such as this, in the modern day, brings with it unpredictable consequences you can’t possibly imagine. If any of us were Palestinian, I wonder if our outlook would be as certainly clouded with the sheer amount of blood in our eyes. If we were Israeli, would the memory of Warsaw too, blind us to what we don’t seem to realize that we are now doing ourselves?
At this writing, in this most recent attack on Gaza, in response to short range rockets that Hamas in spite of the border lockdown of Gaza, has somehow “acquired”, and is now firing into Israel at will, Israel has now killed either 1300 or 600 Palestinians in it’s re-occupation of Gaza. According to Hamas, it’s 1300 and many or most have been children. According to Israel, 600 and most were used by Hamas as human shields. You start to see the problem. Israel has a grand total “lost” of 13 dead. 10 of which were soldiers.
Facts now turn to fantasy.
What Israel could do is force-grant everyone living in Gaza and the West Bank immediate full Israeli citizenship. Anyone who refuses, can move to Jordan, which is in fact a fully functioning Palestinian state, that everyone keeps saying everyone wants. Jordan merely has an unfortunate name, that was merely given to it by the British, when His Royal Highness King George VI, merely created another bloated monarchy that along with the lovely American Queen Noor, and the even lovelier Queen Rania, in effect, rules Jordan. Rather oppressively to be honest. Albeit temporarily to be a betting man. But don’t mistake it. Jordanians are mostly ethnically Palestinian. Look it up.
Any Palestinian, who accepts Israeli citizenship and stays, would immediately receive full rights to enjoy. This not only includes welfare, and the occasionally more useful common law of Habeus Corpus, but also requires that Palestinians would be forced to give up the false arrest, seizure, and indefinite detention without charge problem, that they “enjoy” today. In essence Palestinians would instantly gain the human rights they are fighting for. And yes, they’d be giving up the dream of converting the ghettos they now live in, into 2 Palestinian run autonomous Israel-hating mini-ghettos.
Israel would immediately realize a benefit (or curse depending on how you look at it), because there would suddenly be no one to hate anymore. On the plus side, or a bonus, cleaning up Gaza and the West Bank and putting in a decent sewage and water system, could be yet another opportunity for a budget increase request to the US. Sweetened now, because as rebuilding Iraq winds down, Halliburton could be help Israel lobby for funds to rebuild.
Abu Maazen and Hamas? With full Israeli citizenship rights, all sins could be forgiven procedurally, and they could now stand and sit side by side former enemies, and become fat, active members of the Knesset, and represent their “districts” and slowly and surely, melt away into the low, boring, drone of politics. The all too familiar sound that corrupt and ultimately harmless politicians seem to make.
But as I said, this is where fact becomes fantasy. And leave it to yet one more smart-ass Iranian, to try and cleverly solve everyone else’s problems, while his own laundry needs a good cleaning.
