You’ve got to take a look at this.
Kudos to Hewitt for inviting Greenwald onto his show. Their discussion—on Gaza, American foreign policy, the costs of war, and moral equivalency—is both civil and significant.
It’s the kind of debate I wish I heard more often.
Obviously I side more toward Greenwald on this point—in that I think that Israel’s current bombardment and invasion of Gaza isn’t going to increase their security in the medium to long term—but I do understand what Hewitt is trying to say.
What else can Israel do? It’s citizens are in a state of siege, which obviously isn’t acceptable. Should it just let the rockets rain down?
I go with Greenwald on the answer: “It’s not just a one-sided question, which is what should the Israelis do about rocket fire, the question also is what should the Palestinians do about the fact that they’re essentially occupied for a foreign army for four decades, and have walls built around them, and blockades imposed on them. And I think all these issues need to be resolved in order to have a real resolution. I think dropping bombs in a densely populated civilian area like the Gaza Strip isn’t going to solve any of it. It’s just going to exacerbate it.”
If Israel eradicates Hamas, what’s going to fill the vacuum? As Greenwald says, certainly not a moderate and peaceful political party. More likely an even more implacable and violent extremist paramilitary-terrorist group.
In the long term the only way for Israelis to be safe is to be at peace with their neighbors. And that’s going to require marginalization of the terrorist groups that haunt its borders. Which can only be achieved by giving the moderate Palestinians, the average Palestinians–the ones who want to achieve their goals through non-violent means–a viable and developable territory. Settlements will have to be pulled back out of the West Bank and the socio-economic barriers that criss-cross Palestinian territory will have to be taken down.
Unless some serious steps are taken in this direction, there’s no reason to believe that the current on-off warfare won’t continue to escalate and take an even deadlier toll on both sides.
