A Farewell to Gaza

Don Carl | January 24, 2008

The New York Sun has an excellent editorial on the recent wall bombing by Hamas and others:
Rather than forcing the Gazan Arabs to join with the West Bank Arabs into a state of “Palestine” that has never before existed and has few of the elements of a successful nation-state, why not let Gaza revert to its pre-1967 status as part of Egypt? Egypt, at least is a country with which Israel has a peace treaty and diplomatic relations, which is more than can be said for the Hamas terrorist organization that now controls Gaza.

Part of me really likes that idea. However, part of me is disgusted that Israel is alone among nations. The purpose of a military in war is to take and defend land, that Israel’s military managed to capture (Conquer) Jordanian and Egyptian land, while they were at war with Egypt and Jordan ought to be viewed as part of the common practices of nations. For some reason, however, Israel doing what nations and nation-states have done throughout the course of human history is viewed as either being wrong or onerous. That Israel’s conquest occurred in the twentieth century could be one reason, Nazi Germany’s conquest of Austria and Poland and France were not allowed to stand either. But, there is a pretty large difference between the two, Germany LOST the war in which it expanded it’s borders, Israel did not. The biggest component I can see for the widespread support of a new nation called “Palestine” is anti-Israeli sentiment, basically good old fashioned antisemitism with a new politically correct label. However, the territories in question are, for now under Israeli control, and that would make the attacks by Hamas and other terrorist groups a civil war, wouldn’t it? Those funding Hamas and the other terrorist groups, therefore are actively supporting a rebellion against the rightful and lawful government.