What’s the Solution?
True, the Israeli government and public can’t be expected to sustain rocket attacks without some form of retaliation. But Hamas isn’t attacking Israel in a vacuum, either. It’s attacking in large part as a result of long-lasting, long-bred, resentments fostered in large part by Israel’s siege of Gaza. Hamas has displayed self-defeating intransigence over reaching a political solution—either with Israel or with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. But Israel has displayed equally self-defeating intransigence.
Hamas’ attacks on Israel won’t achieve much but further taint Hamas’ already discredited image in the world community and, increasingly, among the Palestinians of Gaza as well. Israel’s attacks on Gaza won’t achieve much either but discredit the Israeli military while pointing out the limits of Israel’s iron-fist strategy. The solution between Israelis and Palestinians has never been military. It cannot be, when more than 8 million people are jammed together over a crescent of land smaller than New Jersey. The solution has always been political.
For now, and all pretensions of “road maps for peace” and fanfare summits aside, neither side is interested.
