Grossman and Gaza
Israeli author, David Grossman has a reasoned piece in the NYT today about the current Israeli campaign to crush Hamas. He argues for a 48 hour unilateral ceasefire on Israel’s part. Grossman, whose eldest son was killed in the 2006 Lebanon War, maintains that such an approach taken early in that conflict, would have put Israel in a much better position now. During the proposed 48 hour ceasefire, he suggests that international mediators should be invited to resolve the immediate crisis. His analysis takes note that Israel has the duty to defend not only Israeli citizens subject to Hamas rockets, but also innocent Gazan Palestinians.
David Hulme
January 8th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Interesting idea, but care will need to be taken to define “immediate crisis” in fair, balanced terms. One of those terms surely must be the end of shooting weapons at each other; another term must surely be the end of collective punishment (which includes, actually, both Hamas rockets fired into civilian areas and Israeli economic/medicine/energy boycotts and denial of basic human rights to the people of Gaza). Have I said anything yet that reasonable supporters of either side could disagree with? It really is hard to make any statement on which all participants can agree in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It would be nice to hear that I have just done this. If so, then, maybe we can move forward. Someone please tell me if the above formulation is sufficiently neutral and balanced.