Gaza

I have Jewish friends.

I also have Arab friends.

All my friends know me better than to expect me to shirk away from writing on controversial topics.Not even the middle east quagmire is out of bounds for me.

They all also know me enough to know that I will not give a toss if they decide to delete me from their friends' list after reading this note.So if you are not like most of my friends,stop reading right now

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First, a disclaimer.

This writer has no interest in establishing right and wrong on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.He also does not profess to be an expert in history of any kind,religious or military.But like all sensible citizens of the world,he would like to see a peaceful and prosperous world.

The world has certainly gotten tired of the tantrums endlessly emanating from the middle east.The proof of that is the muted response that has greeted another round of carnage in the Gaza strip.The rest of the world is focussed on resurrecting a global economy currently on life support.

Four Israelis have been killed by rocket fire from Hamas militants so far while five hundred Palestinians have been killed,one hundred of them civilians.Several are children and women.And the killings have just begun as thousands of Isreali special forces mount a ground assault under cover of darkness, armed with night visors and goggles.These images are eerilly similar to the American invasion of Baghdad in 2002. Ehud Omert will be hoping his forces fare much better than the Americans have so far.

In the history of the world,unscrupulous men of power and means have repeatedly reached their lofty ideological goals by sacrificing the lives of innocent civilians and the weak.On both sides of the conflict we have heady leaders who would stop at nothing to achieve their ideological goals.It is time for the regular folks to say no.Since I was old enough to follow news on TV or radio,it's been one breaking news or the other from this troubled region.

Although there is enough convincing argument from both sides to confound an average neutral onlooker to perplexed muteness,neutrals are no longer interested in who is right or wrong,aggressor or oppressed,everyone just wants this madness to stop.

It is a long long way from that famous picture of Bill Clinton sandwiched between Yasser Arafat and Yitshak Rabin on the front lawn of the white house in 1993,signing the Oslo accord,resurrecting hopes of another camp David accord.It was not to be.

Rabin was assassinated and a scheming,demented Arafat expired.

The history of Isreal as a nation will make interesting reading for any of my audience who wishes to update themslelves on wikipedia.It is only sixty years long.It is certainly not my intention to copy and paste wikipedia and bore you all to death.

It is however instructive to learn that while strict christian theological historians and bible scholars would have us all believe that the Israel nation was promised a return to the holy land,Palestinians were nonetheless met on the ground when the earliest wave of Jewish immigration began after the first world war.The Jews were fleeing nazi persecution.

The strength of the Israeli nation was initially bolstered and almost solely sustained by American military and economic support upon the latter's emergence as the sole world superpower following the second world war.Since then,the Isrealis have emerged as a nuclear power and a self sufficient nation economically and militarily.Israel boasts the 44th highest GDP in the world.

Put that in context,more than 10 million people live in Lagos alone,the commercial capital of Nigeria...that is more than the total population of Israel! Nonetheless,American economic and military aid to the Israelis continue due to the strategic relationship they maintain.

The timing of Olmert's current operation is revealing.Missiles did not start firing into the Isreali southern bother with Gaza just yesterday.It's been an on-going feature even throughout the much talked about Egyptian brokered ceasefire agreement.The leaders at the Knesset are well aware that a new regime is in-coming to washington.It is unclear how an Obama administration might approach Israel.

Tactically,it would be much easier for Israel to listen to "pleas" from Obama to end an invasion than to deal with an open restraint againt starting one from the new American president at the cost of lost aid.While considering such a plea,the troops already on the ground can still pound Hamas targets and root out missile factories prior to any withdrawal.

The problem with all this naked show of military power is that it is so twentieth century.Israel should have learnt its lesson from both it's earlier Hezbollah offensive in Lebanon and America's monumental failure in Iraq.The enemy of the twenty-first century is largely faceless,in caves or amongst civilians in heavily populated areas.They hide in the hills of Tora Bora,Afghanistan, or the slums of Gaza.They operate in abandoned old collapsing buildings in Fallujah.No amount of artillery bombardment can decisively defeat such an enemy.Invading forces always lose in urban warfare,ask Vietnam vets.There has to be another more sensible way.

A major issue is where the prevailing local Arab opinion lies.Israel has made no new Arab friends with its latest offensive.Muslims all around the world daily stage protests in front of western embassies against the invasion.It is hard for muslims not to perceive this as a war against their brothers.In doing so though,many of the protesters ignore the fact that Hamas continues to throw missiles into southern Israel even as the invasion began.

Hamas and Hezbollah,while they benefit from my earlier analysis of urban warfare in conflicts like this,nonetheless cut a very familiar picture at the back of my mind. It is that of my 3-year old son provoking 8-year olds at a friend's party.For every tiny smack he delivered,he got absolutely clobbered.He has since learnt his lesson.

Hamas and Hezbollah have both sworn not to ever learn their lessons.And Israel too,sadly, continues to display astonishing anterograde amnnesia.All that the rest of us want is for all this to stop.

The challenge is how?

A friend recently suggested that this all happens to fulfil a biblical curse.He quoted some scripture that condemns descendants of Esau and Jacob to perpetual warfare.He reckons Jews are descended from Jacob and Arabs from Esau.If he's right,there will be no solution to this,and my great grand children will still read about trouble in the West Bank and the Gaza strip.

At the rate things are going currently,will there still be a Gaza strip, a West Bank or I dare say, an Isreal at that time?

I don't know.