People
all over the world are railing against the loss of innocent
lives in Gaza because they don’t grant Israel the right
to bomb residential buildings where Hamas fighters are
embedded. This raises the question of whether there
should be sanctuary or safe haven in times of war?
The
long and the short answer must be categorically NO because
Hamas, or any disgruntled faction, militia or nation
could wage war and then retreat to a safe haven with
impunity. In most wars, hospitals and places of worship
have served as safe havens provided they exercise neutrality,
refusing to accept neither combatants nor weaponry in
their spaces. So when Hamas embeds itself with the local
population, it knows that it is asking of it, without
explicit consent, to risk the ultimate sacrifice.
In
dealing with the embedded, Israel has four options.
(1) With respect to sparing the lives of women and children
and non-combatants, it can grant Hamas safe haven and
either fail in its mission, or resign itself to being
in a permanent state of war. (2) It can lay siege to
the residential building, mosque or hospital and eventually
flush out the adversary, a dangerous and costly proposition
-- in terms of time and resources -- in an hostile environment.
As far as I know this has not been tried. (3) In respect
of world opinion, it can send in and purposefully sacrifice
its soldiers in lethal urban, door to door combat. (4)
And finally, with the goal of minimizing casualties,
it can explode a verified enemy target, neutralizing
both the embedded enemy and civilians, and suffer the
consequences of hostile world opinion.
From
the Hamas perspective, it has to hunker down somewhere,
and it can’t be somewhere easily identified as a military
target, so it would seem that it has little choice but
to embed itself with the local population. Since there
has been no widespread protest from the Gazan people
demanding that Hamas vacate their dwellings or surrender,
we must conclude that in general the locals aren’t as
disturbed as world opinion on the sacrifice they are
being asked to make, just as Hamas is self-evidently
OK with it, otherwise it would surrender, and the slaughter,
or in media-speak, the genocide, would immediately end.
As
it concerns the tragic loss of life of non-combatants
(children, mothers, the elderly and infirm), who should
bear the brunt of the blame in light of Hamas's steadfast
refusal to surrender? Which means Hamas is winning the
all important messaging war because the world is blaming
Israel for the murder of innocents.
Which
isn’t to say that on a daily basis there aren’t outraged
Palestinian
voices cursing Hamas for the destruction
it has wrought; but in the absence of a unified front
calling for Hamas to surrender, one is forced to conclude
that the conditions in Gaza before the war were such
that despite the suffering, the tragic loss of life
and devastation of infrastructure (hospitals, schools,
mosques) the principals in the gruesome conflict would
rather continue fighting than capitulate, that no sacrifice
is too great for the cause of freedom and self-determination.
Nonetheless, one must wonder: If prior to the war Hamas
enjoyed the support of 75% of the population but only
25% supported military intervention,
why did it turned a deaf ear to the general will of
the people it was elected to serve and instead opted
to do Iran’s bidding?
* * * * * * * *
Without exception, every people in the world, defined
by language, culture and religion, feel compelled to
acquire a territory in order to fulfill their destiny.
What we learn from history is that some people get their
territory and others don’t – and whether that is fair
or not is beside the point.
In
realpolitik, every
land belongs to the occupier until someone
takes it way. That’s the law of life, or as Mark Twain
observed, “There is not an acre of land on the globe
that’s in possession of its rightful owner.”