Winners and losers
The war in Gaza preys on my mind, as it does on the minds of very many people. While thinking about the current news I am close to finishing David Landau's vast biography of Ariel Sharon. And one of the distressing insights that comes out of that book is Sharon's struggle with his own party, Likud. His fellow parliamentarians vehemently opposed his disengagement plans in Gaza and the West Bank, while the vast majority of Israelis supported it. It was the "Settlers" and the rabbis who were behind the opposition. It was a sad reflection on Israeli democracy, where the popular democratically elected Prime Minister was hamstrung by his own political allies. Now there is a repeat of the war in Gaza. Vast numbers of Palestinians died, and close to fifty Israeli soldiers as of today and three civilians. The numbers probably go up as I type. In any conflict there are winners and losers. The winners in this war are Hamas, who forced Israel to wage a war on their terms and gained the sympathy of the rest of the world, Fatah, who kept out of the conflict and are given credit as peacemakers, the Egyptians for whom the Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood was a thorn in their side, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other Sunni Arab states that don't mind that an unruly fundamentalist group gets hammered. The losers are Israel who ended up fighting an unpopular and unwinnable war with no clear outcome, Netanyahu, who showed little statesmanship, the Zionist dream of a democratic state where Jews and Arabs lived in peace along side each other. tolerance of alternative opinions, where anyone not in 100% agreement with what is going on is branded an enemy, the Americans who invested a lot of political capital in trying to cobble together some sort of peace agreement, and the whole world where outmoded bigotry and antisemitism gained a renewed foothold.
Dad, you claim that that the "Zionist Dream" is one of the losers; it is true that the dream of a "democratic state where Jews and Arabs lived in peace along side each other." has always been just that - a dream, however I think that the Zionist Vision has been proved correct - Thousands of missiles rain down in Israelis, and Jews are attacked throughout the world (especially in Europe), and the UN calls a special meeting to blame the Jews.
ReplyDeleteif Zionism taught us anything, it is that if we don't look out for ourselves, no one else will look out for us. And thankfully the Zionist dream was fulfilled, we now have a strong, independent state, with a strong moral army that is able to protect Jews anywhere in the world (and yes - the IDF with its Iron Dome has protected the lives of millions of Israelis) and provide a haven for Jews anywhere in the world, right now especially for the Jews in Europe, many of whom are talking about leaving.