July 22, 2014--Terror Tunnels
I've been struggling with what to say about the current Israeli incursion into Gaza and the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel. All precipitated by the savage killing of three Israeli youth by Palestinian terrorists and the equally shocking capture, torture, and murder of a Palestinian youth by three equally-youthful Israeli ultra-orthodox fanatics.
One could say that this exchange of barbarisms was precipitated by many decades of animosity, ethnic and religious bigotry on both sides, and claims and counterclaims about territorial primacy. There is enough blame to go around and around and around and . . .
There is no good solution here.
Actually, there is the idea of one--the so-called two-state solution--but the motivation to agree to this in practice is virtually non-existent. Radicals and hateful people--again on both sides--make any possibility of compromise remote. I almost wrote "hopeless."
Hopeless is the way I feel and thus my reluctance to try to write about the situation. I dislike even the prospect of considering hopelessness.
Anyone who feels that what is happening now will lead to any sort of reasonable progress on all the conflicting but often legitimate concerns knows nothing about the irreconcilable history that stretches back millennia in that fraught region. When people feel that their right to exist and have a homeland in the area--actually, in Palestine or, of you will, Greater Israel--is divinely sanctioned or, in Israeli's case, chosen for them by God, it is hard to think what adversaries might productively say to each other if they could be induced or compelled to negotiate.
In truth, both sides, not just the side represented by Hamas, do not recognize the other's right to exist. Militant Israelis--more and more in charge of the situation--would as much like to see the Palestinians eliminated or, minimally, expelled from the contested region as radical arabs would like to see Israel "pushed into the sea."
It has even gotten to the point where Hamas and Israel do not know how to effectively wage war against each other.
The best current example is Israel's inability--despite it military superiority and high-tech capacity to deploy smart bombs and anti-missile missiles--to suppress the fighting capacity of their decidedly low-tech foe who blend into civilian areas of Gaza when Israeli troops and weapon systems appear.
Israel cannot even wipe out the tunnel system that enables Hamas fighters to manufacture home-made bombs and rockets and, using them, infiltrate into Israel proper to carry out acts of war and terror.
As incredible as it may seem, until the new military regime in Egypt clamped down on them, there were at least 1,200 tunnels connecting Egyptian Sinai and Gaza and many dozens of others linking Gaza with Israel itself. Some of these latter tunnels--ones Hamas calls "terror tunnels"--penetrate nearly half a mile into Israel. Others, reenforced by thousands of tons of concrete, are over 100 feet deep and, for reasons I cannot explain, go undetected by Israeli satellite, inferred, and other intelligence assets.
We are not talking about a 2,000 mile border like the one between the United States and Mexico which is thus impossible to make impenetrable, but rather a relatively short one in a circumscribed geographic area. One would think it would be relatively easy for Israel to know about every one of these tunnels since they have the will and technology to do so. But that appears not to be the case as the Israeli military is right know risking life and limb to find and seal them.
And so when they do finally find and destroy them all, where will things stand?
Pretty much where they were five years ago, a decade ago, a century ago, a millennium ago. There will be a brief halt in the mass killings as both sick step back under worldwide diplomatic pressure, lick their wounds, rearm, rage on about the cruelty of the other side, ratchet-up the hatred, and get ready to do it all over again within the next two to five years.
Just as the sun inexorable rises and sets, this too shall come to pass.
One could say that this exchange of barbarisms was precipitated by many decades of animosity, ethnic and religious bigotry on both sides, and claims and counterclaims about territorial primacy. There is enough blame to go around and around and around and . . .
There is no good solution here.
Actually, there is the idea of one--the so-called two-state solution--but the motivation to agree to this in practice is virtually non-existent. Radicals and hateful people--again on both sides--make any possibility of compromise remote. I almost wrote "hopeless."
Hopeless is the way I feel and thus my reluctance to try to write about the situation. I dislike even the prospect of considering hopelessness.
Anyone who feels that what is happening now will lead to any sort of reasonable progress on all the conflicting but often legitimate concerns knows nothing about the irreconcilable history that stretches back millennia in that fraught region. When people feel that their right to exist and have a homeland in the area--actually, in Palestine or, of you will, Greater Israel--is divinely sanctioned or, in Israeli's case, chosen for them by God, it is hard to think what adversaries might productively say to each other if they could be induced or compelled to negotiate.
In truth, both sides, not just the side represented by Hamas, do not recognize the other's right to exist. Militant Israelis--more and more in charge of the situation--would as much like to see the Palestinians eliminated or, minimally, expelled from the contested region as radical arabs would like to see Israel "pushed into the sea."
It has even gotten to the point where Hamas and Israel do not know how to effectively wage war against each other.
The best current example is Israel's inability--despite it military superiority and high-tech capacity to deploy smart bombs and anti-missile missiles--to suppress the fighting capacity of their decidedly low-tech foe who blend into civilian areas of Gaza when Israeli troops and weapon systems appear.
Israel cannot even wipe out the tunnel system that enables Hamas fighters to manufacture home-made bombs and rockets and, using them, infiltrate into Israel proper to carry out acts of war and terror.
As incredible as it may seem, until the new military regime in Egypt clamped down on them, there were at least 1,200 tunnels connecting Egyptian Sinai and Gaza and many dozens of others linking Gaza with Israel itself. Some of these latter tunnels--ones Hamas calls "terror tunnels"--penetrate nearly half a mile into Israel. Others, reenforced by thousands of tons of concrete, are over 100 feet deep and, for reasons I cannot explain, go undetected by Israeli satellite, inferred, and other intelligence assets.
We are not talking about a 2,000 mile border like the one between the United States and Mexico which is thus impossible to make impenetrable, but rather a relatively short one in a circumscribed geographic area. One would think it would be relatively easy for Israel to know about every one of these tunnels since they have the will and technology to do so. But that appears not to be the case as the Israeli military is right know risking life and limb to find and seal them.
And so when they do finally find and destroy them all, where will things stand?
Pretty much where they were five years ago, a decade ago, a century ago, a millennium ago. There will be a brief halt in the mass killings as both sick step back under worldwide diplomatic pressure, lick their wounds, rearm, rage on about the cruelty of the other side, ratchet-up the hatred, and get ready to do it all over again within the next two to five years.
Just as the sun inexorable rises and sets, this too shall come to pass.
Labels: Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Middle East History, Palestine, Two-State Solution
posted by Steven Zwerling at
4:58 AM
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