Friday, July 25, 2014

Scientific Iterative Warfare

We seem to experience a long train of historical wars in Gaza, first related to Intifada, others to rocket fire, and now, even to kidnapping of teenagers. These are all historical events, which by themselves were notable, but what causes the war, the fact that it inevitably repeats itself continually? In particular, what is the meaning of the repeated Israel attacks on Gaza, which inevitably result in killing hundreds of civilians?

From the Gaza side, the fighting is simple and understandable, since there is an Israeli blockade of Gaza. The Israeli side complains, however, that the Palestinians don't accept the status quo. There is no recognition of the Jewish state, the State of Israel. The Palestinians on the other hand, composed of Sunni Muslims, believe that Israel has gone beyond its rights in many ways, and is dedicated to their destruction.

When Israel conducts its war against the Palestinians, as a matter of fact, it has this meaning, "We will kill you." They don't have to say it, of course, they just have to kill hundreds or thousands every time they attack, and then obtain a cease fire, so that the message will be delivered to every Palestinian man, woman and child.

Alternatively, the Israelis could kill all. This is clear. A superior military force usually gets to assert its own conditions on a settlement. Its easy to imagine that most Israelis would not want to kill 1.8 million Gazans, however they might like to permanently defeat Gaza militarily. If Gaza was defeated militarily in such a way that the people were humiliated and enough of their rights taken away so that they were unable to exercise the right to elect a government freely, and this could be enforced as a permanent status quo, there could be no danger of Gazans ever again demanding anything at all. This has been tried already, of course, and the ultimate failure of armed occupation, is the reason why Gaza is self governing now, instead of being run by the IDF, as it used to.

This is the meaning of the 0.1% death toll of every Israeli military incursion on civilians. It simply states, "We could choose to enslave you, but even though we want to, we can't, so we're here doing the best thing instead. We'll just kill a few thousand of you, enough so that you each know someone killed or injured, and when you agree to a cease fire unconditionally, we'll stop. If you don't agree to the cease fire unconditionally, of course, we might not stop, and the number of dead among you might grow, so think hard before you make any reciprocal demands."

It's all about scientific permanent war. What could be simpler?