Revenge of the nerds

This morning I started counting all the on-line headlines that were along the lines of: 

"[fill in country / organization name] ... calls on Israel to immediately halt attacks on Gaza"

I stopped counting after 17.  Disgusting!

You'd think millions of Sudanese refugees were being butchered in the streets of Darfur.  Oh wait, what am I thinking?  That's not newsworthy!

No, it's just little Israel - the nerds of the global schoolyard - being taken to task for daring to step out of character and defend ourselves.  For all our patents, scientific breakthroughs, high-tech start-ups and Nobel prizes, the world still finds it amusing when we're forced to take a break from running the world media and banks, to run for the bomb shelters.

There is a comforting familiarity to the international amnesia over cause & effect here in the middle east.  It's an almost willful desire to transform a straight-forward Casus Belli and measured (not to mention legal) military response, into a murky chicken and egg scenario (i.e. the well-worn 'cycle of violence').

The worst part is that the world's tired excuse for the years of silence and neglect that has led to a good portion of Israel's population living in bomb shelters, is that they insist they can't impose the rule of international law on Gaza.  Gaza is chaos, they say... a failed proto-state.  The world wants order, of course... but they throw up their hands at the futility of asking Gaza to adhere to the rules of civilization. 

I forget... while the Red Cross has been busy screaming for Israel to spare the poor Gazans, has anyone asked if they ever got around to demanding access to kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, even once?  Oh right, no can do... that's Gaza.  That's out of our jurisdiction!

In reality it's a simple case of the nerdy kid getting beaten up on the way to school for his lunch money - or for the sheer hell of it - isn't it?  He's asked his friends for help.  He's asked his teachers for protection.  He's even gone to the principal's office a few times to see if there is something - anything! - that can be done to stop the beatings.  But nobody wants to confront the bullies.   Off school grounds there isn't much anyone can do! 

So finally, on the last day of school, the nerdy kid - who has done nothing to the thugs to arouse their endless violence except continue to come to school and exist -- realizes that if he doesn't take a baseball bat to the thugs who've been torturing him all year long, next year they might actually kill him.

It's really that simple. 

Yet as I've predicted in the past (before the 2nd Lebanon war), this one will almost certainly go according to a predictable trajectory.  For new readers, it goes something exactly like this:

Ever since Nasser accidentally discovered the trick in 1956, every subsequent Arab leader has stuck to this tried and true formula for military success:

1. Instigate a war with whatever you have at hand; terror attacks, rocket fire or an actual invasion. 
2. Once the war is well underway and you are in the process of having your ass handed to you... get a few world powers or the UN to force your opponent into a cease fire. 
3. Whatever you do, don't surrender or submit to any terms dictated by your enemy.  That would ruin everything!  All you have to do is wait it out and eventually the world will become sickened at what is being done to your soldiers and civilian population... and will force a truce.
4. Once a truce has been called, you can resume your intransigence (which probably caused the conflict in the first place), and even declare victory as your opponent leaves the field of battle.

This tactic has never failed.  Not once! 

In fact it worked so will for the Egyptians in 1973, that to this day they celebrate the Yom Kippur War - a crushing defeat at the hands of Israel's army -  as a military victory!  No kidding... it's a national holiday over there!

So why does anyone think this time will be different?  Within hours of Israel beginning its surgical strikes against purely military targets in Gaza, all of Israel's detractors, and most of it's 'friends', began calling for 'calm', 'a cease fire', 'a return to the negotiating table', 'restraint'...  

Not one of those things is in Israel's interest right now!  The only thing that is in Israel's interest at this point is for the world to STFU (hint: that doesn't stand for Slice The Fudge, Ursula), and finally let an Arab government reap what it has been sowing for years.

You say that it's Israel's fault because we've been embargoing a democratically elected government in Gaza?  You ask what choice did the poor Gazans have but to lash out? 

I have news for you... democracy is about more than just elections.  Democracy is what that an elected government says and does while it is campaigning, as well as what it says and does once it assumes power. 

Without mentioning names (and thereby invoking Godwin's Law), suffice it to say that we don't have to look very far back to identify certified monsters who were swept into power on the crest of overwhelming democratically expressed popular support.

Hamas has stated publicly before, and since, their election (and it is written quite clearly in their charter) that their entire raison d'être is to destroy Israel.  You take them at their word on absolutely everything else... except that.  Why do you suppose that is?

Mark my words... the only way this ends well for Israel (and by 'well' I mean that it buys us more than a few weeks of relative calm), is if Hamas is forced to actually say the words "We surrender" in front of the whole world.  Anyone want to give odds on that happening?

I honestly don't know how badly Israel has to demolish Gaza's infrastructure before someone over there waves a white flag.  My guess is that so long as there is a single Hamas leader left breathing, nobody will dare step up and do the responsible thing for the people of Gaza. 

That's okey-dokey with me.  We know where pretty much all of their bunkers are at this point, and so long as we are able to resist calls to "immediately halt attacks on Gaza", I have no ethical problem with introducing every last democratically elected Hamas official to Allah. 

Do you think for one moment that Hamas would hesitate to do the same to us if the tables were turned?  No?  So why are you demanding a higher standard of conduct from us? 

We may indeed be the nerdy kid.  But if our friends won't stand by us;  if the teachers, and even the principal, refuse to protect us when we tried to play by the rules;  well, as you've pointed out so many times before... your rules don't apply once we're off school grounds.