Egocentrism

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Brookline, MA, United States
I'll post rants here, and musings; articles and thoughts about articles. I'll keep it quite complex and yet astoundingly simple: whatever it is I am interested in at any given moment.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Today's Most Popular Strip

Gaza has, for a long while, given "strip" a bad name. Chicken strips, steak strips, and strip steak are, shall we say, divine inventions. Not to mention the Bada Bing. But the little sliver of land I prefer to call Philistia (if the Romans only had aspirated consonants to play with) appears to be making all the news right now. So, sitting on the fourth floor of בית ספר החינוך and looking out the window at a breathtaking sunset to my right and the Dome of the Rock right in front of me, I thought I'd offer some thoughts.

1. I tried, as the war was beginning, to imagine a reasonable argument against the Israeli decision to retaliate. Needless to say, the thought experiment failed, and even my awesomely left-wing Skinny Mama of my Favorite (or Fat) Baby put it: I hate the cycle of violence, but I can't blame the Israelis for retaliating, and I don't know how to end the cycle. Agreed.

2. I spent the Shabbat with a חיל בודד, the legendary Bombs over Maghdad, who can probably still give Napoleon a run for being Napoleonic. In the midst of an intense (and highly rewarding) conversation about Israel and Israel education late Friday night, he opined that anyone who believes in a two-state solution must support what Israel is doing now in Gaza. Why? Because a two-state solution requires peace between the two states, and the rocket attacks on the Negev are not on territory inside '49's green line (Sharon helped to make sure of that by pulling out of those territories in Gaza). In other words, save the unilateral abandonment of the Gazan economy (and the not insignificant mistreatment of the former residents of גוש קטיף), Hamas theoretically has what the international community says it should have: control over its own territory. Attacking Israel - and especially Israel proper - from within that territory should be treated as an act of war. There's no two state solution if you only want one state, sans so-called Zionists.

3. What scares the most is Barak's statement that the ground incursion into Gaza (which currently appears to be attempting the impossible: to teach the Israeli public about fractions - first dividing Gaza into two, now three sections) will not be short. I would assume that the IDF would take the successful approaches of Gulf Wars I and II - a quick, overwhelming military strike followed by an equally quick retreat. No one wants to end up in a long-term ground war with guerrilla terrorists that we can't win.

My hope is that Barak said this only to lower expectations of a quick withdrawal, so as to make people like him even more when he pulls troops out before we all think he will.

4. The whole Wag the Dog approach is a frightening one, but I don't think it's real. Yes, Livni and Barak have what to gain from a successful, short-lived, low-casualty, high-upside military action, but the odds of those four criteria being met are quite slim, and we all know who wins elections in the middle of Palestinian uprisings and suicide bombings (see: Shamir, Netanyahu, Sharon). More importantly, this wasn't a created war, this was retaliation that should have happened weeks ago.

5. Jerusalem is tense, and though I can't put my figure on how, the tension is affecting me. You wonder when the first פיגוע will take place, and where, and how much Israel has learned from the Second Intifada in order to prevent attacks.

6. Every Israeli army veteran is just waiting for the call that he's been called up - not a fun way to live your life, I imagine.

Today I was informed that one of my professors, who will be speaking at JTS next week, had planned to have one of his doctoral students lecture next week but it seems like the student will be in the צבא.

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Eight years ago next month, I moved to קיבוץ סעד. There, I took a picture of a plane flying over us as it was landing in the Gaza airport. There, we used to often frequent the Subway across the street run by מושב כפר עזה. Probably too tasteless, but I think they should have found a way to market "רצועות כפר עזה" - chicken or beef.

Political messages must be sent, and the current support of the world (especially parts of the Arab world and the E.U.) are astounding. (Unprecedented?) I still wish innocent or good people on both sides did not have to die or be maimed in the process.

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