The small war being fought between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is depressing and pointless. What's clear is Israel's goal: to stop Hamas rocket attacks on the nearby cities of Sderot and Ashkelon. Journalists of all types, but especially critics of Israel, have claimed that Israel is bombing the Gaza Strip for political reasons. Ehud Barak and his Labor Party appear stronger because of their unabashed willingness to bomb Palestinians and that could help them in the upcoming election. I can't give much weight to this theory as a primary reason for these attacks however, because it was Hamas who violated the cease-fire and the immediate Israeli imperatives (as they always have been in these situations) are defensive.
What are less clear are Hamas' motives. Every barrage of rockets they send over the border brings forth unrepentant heavy bombing of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is lucky if they kill one Israel civilian while every Israeli counter-attack kills dozens or hundreds of Hamas militants, civilians and whole families. Critics rave about the disproportinality of the Israeli response, but there's no better immediate military tactic for stopping the rocket attacks than bombing launch sites and command headquarters. Israel's response is the only logical one for protecting her own people.
Most explanations of Hamas' motives in this conflict revolve around the desire for a fairer cease-fire involving the opening of Gaza's borders. The best such explanation is the one in the Lebanon Daily Star published here:
While undoubtedly correct to some degree, the purely political explanation of Hamas' motives ignores the basic fact that humans are emotional creatures who often act impulsively when logic would suggest they do otherwise. Gaza is a city plagued by emotions of deep pride, deep hatred and deep dejection. It is a 25 mile by 4 mile prison in which 1.5 million people languish in the spector of their defeat in 1948 when they were expelled from their homes in the Palestinian countryside by a despised enemy they had no chance of defeating. They don't control their own borders, their power is routinely cut, their fuel and food supplies are interrupted at will and their economy is in a permanent state of utter collapse. For someone growing up in Gaza there is little hope for a better life.
Launching their peashooter rockets at Israel then hunkering down and waiting for the bombs to fall is an expression of their lack of hope more than it is a political tactic. By inviting death, they are in effect committing suicide. Clearly the young men of the Gaza Strip are so dejected that they would rather go straight to heaven than live without their pride. Indeed the heaven of the Qur'an is a glorious place, what with all the virgins and such merriment. But to claim that their motive in dying is going to heaven is to deny due credit to the stronger reason: escaping hell on earth.
Coming Up Next: How it got that way, 1948
