How NOT to treat your enemies
By 
Shan-ul-Hai •
April 27, 2008
Today, Israeli forces attacked a Hamas leader’s house and killed his 14-year old daughter, among other civilians. This is a few days after Hamas offered Israel a 6-month cease-fire, which Israel is planning on rejecting because they don’t want to talk to Hamas. What I’d like to know is this: what exactly is Israel trying to accomplish by promoting this violence?
Anybody can tell you that the right way to deal with a fundamentalist organization is not to provoke them further. When you reject a cease-fire and then go and attack the leader, how do you expect to really manage the negative sentiment? It’s starting to seem like Israel’s goal is just to eliminate all of the Palestinians rather than to come up with a peaceful solution. This seems to be the best political move for somebody looking for votes from the Israeli population; the hardline attitude must be popular, since it’s definitely prevailing.
I know that Hamas said that they intend to end Israel permanently, so the Israelis probably aren’t too happy about that. But will it really help solve the problem if they provoke more violence? They won’t be able to eliminate the Arabs entirely, so how is it helping them to increase the hatred? The only way to solve the problem is to promote peace in the next generations, and this is definitely not the way to do it.
I guess that promoting peace isn’t the best political move. As long as Israel has American support, they have the ability to flex their muscles throughout the Middle East… so why not do it?
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I would find it hard to negotiate with people who state their goal is to destroy you. If Hammas is serious about peace then they must recognize Isreal’s right to exist. If they don’t then whats the point of negotiation?
If Hamas is a terrorist organization out to get Israel (which is what I think your post is about) it’s interesting that Israel denies their offer of peace. If Al-Qaeda were to present America with an agreement on peace, I’m not sure how our leaders would take it. We claim to have been seeking revenge for 9-11 (although I think our objective has long strayed from that excuse) so if we’re out for revenge, it’s very unlikely that we would accept peace negotiations from someone like Osama Bin-laden. We’re out to try him and the leaders of Al-Qaeda for crimes against America.
That’s just a comparison, I don’t pretend to be fully knowledgeable of what’s going on between Israel and Hamas. But it seems like that’s where Israel’s trying to take it.
[…] think this is a step in the right direction. As I have written once before, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the only way to reach a permanent solution is to […]