Richard Cohen on Israel and Gaza

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(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

This editorial in the Washington Post does a good job of demonstrating what reasonable support of Israel should look like. Cohen says, for instance:

Palestinians have suffered greatly. They have legitimate grievances. Israel has at times been a bully, and the slow and steady march of West Bank settlements is both wrong and destructive of the (nonexistent) peace process.

He concludes that while both sides have their grievances, in this instance Hamas is doing more to impede the peace process than Israel is.

I would disagree with several of Cohen's points, of course. For instance, he emphasizes the fact that Hamas seeks the destruction of Israel, without acknowledging that Israel likewise seeks the destruction of Hamas. And more importantly, he repeats the common argument that Israel cares more about civilian lives than Hamas does, as evidenced by the fact that they use more sophisticated and discriminating weaponry.

As I've said before, this argument is basically worthless. Hamas is not foregoing sophisticated, discriminating weaponry that it has access to. It is fighting with the weapons that it has, as outgunned as it is by a state of Israel backed by the United States. And Cohen tries to dismiss the actual body count ("The rockets do some, not a lot of damage, but that’s not the point") but in reality it's very relevant. As "Jerry Haber" says (in a piece that is very much worth reading in full),

Bombs fired discriminately that kill  large number of civilians are worse than rockets fired indiscriminately that have little chance of hitting anybody.

But at the end of the day I can respect Cohen's position. Perhaps supporting Israel is the best bet for a real and lasting peace process in which Israel will be secure and the Palestinians no longer oppressed. But the important point, as Cohen seems to recognize, is that that conclusion is one that must be based on a careful and thorough consideration of the situation. It is not one that can be resolved, as many would have it, by chanting slogans about Israel's "right to defend" itself against the "terrorist organizations" in Gaza.