No Endgame in Gaza

 

 

 "Bombs and tanks do not answer questions. Who is to govern Gaza if not Hamas or Israel itself? Does Israel really think that somebody else—either an international consortium or a Palestinian puppet regime—will sail into a blood-soaked hellscape of rubble and dust, inhabited by traumatized survivors, and take responsibility for rebuilding, policing, and governing it? How is Israel going to make the kind of peace with its immediate neighbors without which the security of its citizens cannot be rebuilt?

While these political questions go unanswered, so do the moral ones. How many deaths are too many? How are obligations to international law and common decency going to be fulfilled in dense streets crowded with children, women, the elderly, and the sick? What is the “self” in Israel’s “self-defense”? Does it see its true image in this bloodletting? Can it imagine a life beyond revenge"

READ ARTICLE BY FINTAN O'TOOLE