Conflict Near Gaza

In my last post I stated: “It is our own willingness to be caught up in these kinds of blame that provide the political, financial, and human support necessary to wage war.” I didn’t realize that within 48 hours an incident near the Gaza strip would ignite an intense example of such emotionally-charged finger-pointing, or that so much of the world would get caught up in the blame. Over the weekend the Israeli navy intercepted a flotilla of boats attempting to run a naval blockade and deliver aid to Palestinian residents of Gaza. On one of the boats an Israeli boarding party was attacked while rappelling from helicopters and responded by opening fire. Nine people on the boat were killed. In the following 24 hours the Turkish president condemned the incident as a bloody massacre and violent protests broke out across Europe and the Middle East.

This incident is full of errors and situational mistakes on both sides. It was the ninth time this aid organization tried to forcefully run Israel’s naval blockade. Israeli intelligence misjudged the cargo. The aid organization ignored warnings it would be intercepted and refused to route the cargo through an Israeli port for inspection. Members on one of the six boats attacked the Israeli boarding party. Israeli forces were not prepared for physical resistance to their boarding efforts, so ended up using lethal force instead of riot-suppression tactics like tear gas. Moreover, this particular incident is only one small act in a much larger, and much more complex story with root causes going back nearly a half-century. Consider this brief background:
· 1967 - Israel seizes control of the Gaza area as part of the Middle East War. For the following 27 years continual conflict waged between the Palestinian residents and Jewish settlers.
· 1994 – Israel officially recognizes the Palestinian Authority and withdraws its military from the population centers but continues to control the borders.
· 2000 – An uprising of Palestinian residents in Gaza begins launching rockets into Israel. Israel responds with military strikes.
· 2005 – Israel evacuates all Jewish settlements in Gaza and withdraws all troops.
· 2007 – Hamas seizes control from the Fatah ruling party. Israel closes its borders and imposes a blockade of Gaza to prevent the build-up of arms by Hamas. However, the blockade also creates severe economic hardship on the residents of Gaza.
· 2008 – Israel allows six boats of aid into Gaza but suspects that shipments also contain weapons. In December Israel invades Gaza in an attempt to halt years of rocket fire. But the conflict further impoverishes Gaza’s population.
· 2009 – Israeli navy captures one boat headed to Gaza and blocks two additional flotillas.

The accumulated emotions of the Palestinians and Israelis living within this scenario understandably drive them to blame each other for every new incident. But nobody is really to blame. And there is no innocent victim. Over the past 50 years an enormous number of individual decisions and actions taken by individual people have brought us to the present moment. Each of those individuals thought they were doing the right thing to support their cause at the time. But many of those actions aggravated the larger problem. Solving the conflict will require thoughtful solutions that provide for the economic welfare of Gaza residents while also providing for Israel’s security against cross-border rocket and terrorist attacks. It will also require dissipation of the hatred built up between both parties.

Those of us watching from the outside have a moral obligation to mitigate blame and to call for calm, rational thinking focused on a viable agreement over Gaza. Incendiary protests or inflammatory patronization of one side while blaming the other only hardens positions and drives further escalation of the conflict. To that extent we become partially responsible for the aggression. Blame is a powerful emotional reaction when things go wrong. It stokes our sense of righteousness. It allows us to vent our frustrations on the chosen scapegoat. But it doesn’t solve problems.