Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Gaza Violence Commentary, Part I

Gaza of the Phillistines, the thorn in Israel's eye since the days of Avraham Avinu (Abraham) is bleeding again. Refreshing the news ticker every few minutes is like watching an unraveling sporting match. The Hamas gang started with a major upfield disadvantage, holding Gaza city and Beit Hanoun but seeing the southern two thirds of the strip entirely in Fatach control. In a stunning comeback, Hamas has overcome its poor opening position by moving swiftly downfield, catching Fatach by surprize. By this evening, they had advanced far south, killing dozens of Fatach gangsters and capturing or surrounding their positions. It's been a rough match, with plenty of horrifying plays including tortures, mutilations, tunneling under a Fatach command center to detonate a one-ton bomb, assassinations of clerics, hurling prisoners from high-rise buildings, executions of the wounded in their hospital beds and murdering doctors who treat them, to name a few. It's important to remember that the stories we see on the news are but a sliver, a tiny peek into the Gaza nightmare. When we hear of twenty fatalities in Gaza fighting, think one hundred.

It's being called a "coup," and a "civil war," neither of which are accurate because they imply that there exists a "Palestinian" people, a unified nation, which is struggling over its future direction and purpose. In reality, this is just clans and gangs in a subnational, largely illiterate society, fighting over money. The savage killing is a result of the policies of misguided, wealthy western states, a consequence of fifty years of broad-minded political correctness run wild.

The basic principle of Jeffersonian democracy, encoded in the United States constitution and later to spread throughout the western world, is that all people are created equal. While this idea originated with the concept of equal protection from government encroachment, this idea was later extended, with Communism and its baby brother Socialism, to the idea that all people have the right to equal income and privileges, regardless of how much ability they show or hard work they invest. Extending equality even further, multiculturalism posits the concept that all cultures and religions are created equal. One can not judge the merits or values of a culture without being "judgmental." Words like "good" and "bad," "civilized" and "barbarian," label the user as a chauvinist and a bigot.

Multiculturalism leads to projection. Since all cultures are created equal, all cultures must be similar. If a Los Angelino can feel a stronger sense of national brotherhood with a New Yorker three thousand miles away then he can with a Mexican three hundred miles away, then the "Palestinians," or for that matter the "Iraqis," must share similar national bonds.

Because all men and all cultures are created equal, all that's necessary for solving the world's problems is empathy and dialog. If the "Palestinians" are blowing up buses, if Egyptians and Saudis are flying airliners into buildings, then they must have a real grievance. After all, I wouldn't do such a thing if I didn't have a real grievance, so the same must apply to them. Once all grievances are appeased, then the "root cause" of the violence will be gone. All horrors and atrocities committed may therefore be excused as being unavoidable consequences of some initial injustice.

Since the "Palestinians" are not responsible for their own circumstances, it is therefore the duty of the rest of humanity to shield them from the consequences of their actions. Since day one, the United Nations has poured money into Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (Yesha) to provide food and education to the hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Arabs' failed attempt to strangle Israel in the cradle in 1948. This welfare proved a magnet for anyone in Araby who wanted to live on the dole. As a result, hundreds of thousands came flocking to Yesha to get a piece of the loot. Rather than get the refugees back on their feet, this unearned wealth taught them that violence is much more lucrative than productive work. Today, Gaza is hugely overpopulated, with no chance of supporting it's 1.4 million residents (number subject to downward revision over the next several months.) Today, even with the international aid embargo intact, the Palestinian Authority still receives $1.2 billion per year from other sources.

Naturally, the international community has learned nothing from the past 60 years of failures. Convinced by Hamas claims that the fighting has been caused by the international aid embargo, Norway, and soon other European nations, have decided to violate their earlier pledges and begin flooding the strip with money. This will likely have the opposite effect. After all, the fighting in Gaza started over who gets which cabinet position, since these positions give the authority to distribute the massive quantities of cash flowing into the strip. By dumping more money into the pot, the Europeans merely sweeten the prize of whoever wins.

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