It Won't Happen Overnight...

Looks like Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories are at it again. I am a little bit sick of writing posts like this. What set it off this time was the kidnap and murder of three Israeli boys*. Horrific crimes unfortunately happen a lot all over the world. It’s a crime not an act of war. In any other part of the world it would be handed over to the police and hopefully solved.

But what is Israel’s response to this horrific crime? Revenge. Israel has destroyed the houses where some of the "suspects" lived. This is the sort of justice that a two-year-old might think of. You called me a smelly poo poo face so I am going to destroy your sand castle. Israel’s response is even more ridiculous because it punishes the entire family of the supposed perpetrator. So you are the mother/sister/brother/father/uncle of the scumbag that commits this crime so you lose your house. How, by any stretch of the imagination using whatever moral code you choose, is this the right thing to do?

Of course not. In fact it is a crime itself. Israel gets away with this because of the large Israel lobby that equates the criticism of Israel with racism. Criticising an institution cannot be called racist in this way. Am I racist because I think that Robert Mugabe and large portions of his government have destroyed the once prosperous Zimbabwe? Of course not, it would be absurd to suggest otherwise.

The rest of the world lets Israel get away with murder - literally. The response of many Western nations to the events of September 11, 2001 make it difficult for Western governments to criticise Israel. Many of the abuses that Israel has done over the past 50 years our nations are now willing to commit. I’m talking about drone strikes and targeted assassinations.

If you know anything about history you will know that revenge simply does not end conflict. There are only two things that end conflict: sitting down and talking or annihilation of one party or both. As much as I dislike what Israel has done in its recent past, I don’t believe that they are going to start nuking Palestinians any time soon. This leaves only one solution: talking.

The rest of the world needs to come down hard on Israel and hold them to the same standards as any other nation. We need to be willing to tolerate inaccurate accusations of racism. We should not let our collective guilt over the Holocaust contribute to a never ending conflict. I think the Palestinian leaders need to rethink their strategy implementing not-violent conflict techniques - and stop lobbing rockets over the border. To a certain degree Israel is correct that other nations would not tolerate rockets being Fired over the border from a neighbouring nation. It happens to South Korea for instance. In most parts of the world, if a nation discovered that its citizens were firing rockets on another nation they would put a stop to it - they are criminals and should be treated as such. But Hamas will not stop firing rockets if Israel keeps bombing and vice versa. One side or another needs to be the better country and turn the other cheek. If Israel stopped bombing pretty soon Hamas would not have a political motive to continue the bombardment. Alternatively, if Hamas stopped, Israel would have no motive to continue their attacks.

The fact is that no conflict lasts forever. Europe was once in a far worse position. One day there will be peace in the Middle East - that is one thing I am certain of.

*I can't find a balanced story. I am absolutely disgusted by the unbalanced reporting on this issue. It seems that almost everywhere in the Western media it is a crime to criticise Israel in any way. “The reason is that those letter writers realize that Israel will find the killers of the Arab boy and deal with him in a proper court of law. Hamas, on the other hand, praises their psychopaths and elevate them to the status of national heroes.”

But Israel's response wasn’t balanced they destroyed the perpetrators houses in what they call "collective punishment". If an entire people can be at fault they should have gassed 6 million Germans after World War II – no wait make that 60 million 85 to be safe - damn there just aren’t enough Germans to make this analogy work. Maybe I can convince Angela Merkel to introduce a baby bonus...