The Ongoing War against Reality

[meti57b]

The Ongoing War against Reality
By Henryk M. Broder
June 28, 2006

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,424152,00.html

Many are treating the apparent recognition of Israel by Hamas as a sign of hope. It's not. Indeed, the Palestinians have no such intention -- and have left Israel with only military options.

Once again the Palestinians are in the process of shattering the Israeli dream of peace. The building of a tunnel under the border, the attack on an army post and the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier haven't just served to stir things up in the stagnating Middle East war. The attack also served to bring the Israelis face to face with the limits of their power. And to provide the Palestinians with a short-lived though uplifting feeling of superiority. It's difficult, after all, to categorize an assault on an army unit as an act of terrorism.

Recent history has seen the Palestinians firing homemade, short-range Kassam rockets from Gaza into Israel and Israel responding with "targeted assassinations" -- which have often resulted in civilian deaths. That was, though it may sound cynical, Middle East business as usual -- and also mirrored the situation in the north where Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon has hardly resulted in instant peace there.

Now, however, the conflict has reached a new level. The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza last summer has more than anything motivated militant Palestinians to demonstrate to Israel that the conflict is not primarily about territory, the end of the occupation and the return to the 1967 borders. Rather, it's about all or nothing. It's about the control, not the division, of the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Were the Palestinians to invest only a tiny percentage of the energy they consume in internal conflict and resistance against Israelis into the reconstruction of the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and Gaza would be much better off.
==snip==

[pooja]

1. Because Hamas has never recognized Israel as a country.

They are still fighting an occupation of their lands. Its similar to Iraq I suppose. What if we put up a little bagdad USA. Gave it a ton of money. Took natural lands of the Iraqi's... Would the Iraqi's ever recognize this little nation of USA just because we said it exhists... look at the history before judging the results of that history.

[Ech3l0n]

2. Very flawed analogy but that's besides the point

Every nation was founded through violence and oppression. There are no saints in this world. You can either recognize this reality and move on to do something constructive (like agree to two state solution), or retain the infantile fundamentalist mindset and lash out destructively harming yourself and those who you consider to be the Other.

[pooja]

3. I understand this and you understand this but may I ask you

how long have you lived in a Israel-Palestinian state that you would understand what is like to be on constant edge.... The Irish fought for yrs in the Northern section... did it make sense to anyone--no, but did it happen, yes.

Maybe if Israel stopped dropping mortar shells on Palestinians every night, they would be willing to discuss a few more things.. and maybe if Palestine people's stopped suicide bombings and hostage taking this would happen... but I don't see it happening unless the US stops siding completely with Israel.