Gaza thoughts

 

So, the (orange skinned) global political powers that be have decided that the war in Gaza (aka the defeat of Hamas and the people that put them into power) is to cease, in return for the release of some 20 (possibly alive) Jewish hostages (i.e. ordinary people caught up in a medieval, religiously motivated power struggle). Seems like a "bare minimum" kinda deal to me? Don't get me wrong, any kind of war is awful and unnecessary and is to be avoided at all costs but sometimes you have to respond to an aggressor, i.e. when some external power decides to attack your country with thousands of rockets per month and a barbaric ground invasion, after which they retreat and claim victimhood, I would feel inclined to ask some more probing questions? 

At this unfortunate late stage, I would be inclined to want to press home my military advantage, like the UK/US did in Germany and Japan in 1945 with overwhelming force (i.e. disproportionate) but apparently Jews aren't allowed to do that, they must compromise and pull up short of the kind of "total victory" that we we thought obvious and necessary back in the day. Such is Middle Eastern politics, like the invisible gods that supposedly oversee that part of the world, it works in mysterious ways..

So, we all hope the killing (on both sides) has stopped but what next? If I were Jewish, then I would try to figure out how to deal with an enemy who seems to have developed, over many years, a PR and social media following sufficient to persuade the majority of university students in the "West" to support your terrorist activities and for any retaliation to cause enough faux outrage to make your politicians doubt their own common sense in favour of popularity. It's a tricky conundrum for our leaders, admit the plain logic of the situation or yield to the populist emotional reaction of the voting masses (who may in part also be rabidly antisemitic)

I'm so glad I'm not vested in active politics!