On the letters page of yesterday's New York Times, a reader from Haifa asked Americans to consider what their government would do if a terrorist organization in Mexico started launching missiles at Texas. "How long do you think the United States would tolerate having rockets fired at Americans in El Paso?"
If you've heard this question raised elsewhere lately, it's no accident. According to Akiva Eldar, chief political columnist for Haaretz and coauthor of Lords of the Land, an important new history of the settlement project, a film has actually been produced that compares Israel's southern border to that of the United States. "Would the United States ignore rockets fired from Mexico into San Diego?" the narrator asks.
What's wrong with this analogy? I defer to Eldar, who points out that Israel's border with Gaza is actually different than any other border in the world, notwithstanding its withdrawal from the territory in 2005:
Israel controls the entrances and exits, as well as access to necessities such as power and water. Mexico has not spent the last three or more years under an American aerial and sea blockade. Moreover, Israel's impressive victory in the Six-Day War turned the West Bank and Gaza into one ethnic unit. In the peace agreement signed by Egypt and Israel in 1979, the Gaza Strip remained in Israel's hands. The Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians, signed in September 1993, determined that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are one political entity. This means that as long as the West Bank is under Israeli occupation, so too is Gaza.None of this justifies the conduct of Hamas, which Eldar (like me) would love to see removed from power. But he recognizes that this can only happen through the ballet box, and that analogies to the borders of other countries will prove persuasive only when Israel demarcates permanent borders with the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In other words, after negotations resume to end the occupation.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Why isn't anybody talking about how Israel attacked an American boat filled with humanitarian relief? The boat had doctors, surgeons, and former Representative Cynthia McKinney on board. It also had a CNN reporter--but even CNN buried the story.
Seriously?!?! I mean, the boat was sinking! They were about to jump ship. The video speaks for itself.
http://www.governmentalityblog.com/my_weblog/2009/01/israel-attacks-american-medical-supply-boat-headed-for-gaza.html
I also point to this piece by Daniel Levy from J Street, whom also points out the deep flaws in this analogy:
We also frequently hear the claim – what would America do if it came under rocket fire from Canada or Mexico? Again, there can be no justification for rockets targeting Israel's south, and of course America would respond if it were under fire from Canada or Mexico. But let's at least complete the analogy and here is that bigger picture. Gaza constitutes under 6 percent of the '67 territory in which a Palestinian state is supposed to be created (Gaza, West Bank, Palestinian East Jerusalem), about 94 percent remains under occupation so under our scenario 94 percent of Canada or Mexico would have remained under a 40 plus year American occupation with settlements and roadblocks, and with the "liberated" 6 percent still under siege. Now I like the Mexicans and Canadians as much as the next person but is it totally inconceivable that under such circumstances some of them would have formed hardline armed groups that would even become very popular and use that 6 percent of territory to launch attacks against America? I will leave it to your imagination.
The link is below. The piece is very much worth reading: http://www.prospectsforpeace.com/
Eyal,
You're making a valid point. Gaza is not Mexico. The situation is infinitely more complex than the 'thought experiment' suggests. Why not leave it at that?
Instead, you link to a rather tendentious piece published by...your employer, The Nation. And you quote, approvingly, the observation that "The Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians...determined that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are one political entity. This means that as long as the West Bank is under Israeli occupation, so too is Gaza."
How is one supposed to respond to that? Gaza and the West Bank are discrete geographic entities. It's one thing to assert that so long as the West Bank remains occupied, the Palestinian state as a whole can be said to be occupied. But that's not good enough for Eldar. He would have us believe that, the principles of physics be damned, a soldier standing in Nablus is occupying Rafah. That occupation is a binary condition - the territories are either completely and utterly occupied, or they are not. That is the very sort of absurd reductivity that has produced the present state of political paralysis.
I'd also note that Eldar rushes to discredit the overly simplistic analogy, but at no point in the peace, does he offer an answer to the question it poses. He makes an eloquent case for resumed negotiations, and for the ultimate need for a political settlement. I buy it. But that still doesn't answer the immediate question - Can any state stay passive in the face of rocket attacks on its sovereign territory? Is it the magnitude of the Israeli response to which he (and presumably, you) object, or to Israel's having responded with force at all?
Do you think Hamas would have the degree of support that it does among regular Gazans if Israel loosened its stranglehold on food, medicine, and fuel? When Hamas is the only institution willing and able to supply the Gazan citizenry with the fundamental necessities of existence, how can Palestinians, in good conscience, choose to repudiate the only political group that that's looking out for their interests and the interests of their children?
It's hard to rationally apportion blame for this debacle when Israeli policy has been to keep Gaza on the verge of starvation and Hamas' has been wreak random havoc in Israel for its own sake. Still, it's hard to sympathize with the Israeli argument that they are the aggrieved party when you've got classrooms spattered with the guts of dead Palestinian children.
While Eldar makes a decent point, I would have far more sympathy for this viewpoint if Hamas wasn't trying to smuggle rockets and firearms through their borders for the past three years.
People who counter this analogy often refer back to the Israeli blockade as though its taken place in a vacuum--it hasn't. Israel evacuated the settlements in Gaza in 2005, and imposed the blockade when Hamas overthrew the Fatah security forces two years later, in 2007. Its worth recalling that Egypt too, closed its border with Gaza, fearing a spill-over of militancy into its borders.
So perhaps had Mexico been smuggling in rockets, grenades, and firearms into its borders from say, the Pacific ocean, in the two years prior to a larger war taking place, it too would be under an American air and sea blockade. As for the fact that the West Bank is still under occupation, well that's both simply indefensible and foolish for the Israelis.
nobody's ever heard of the "Free Quebec" movement?
admittedly that was intra-Canada, not Canada vs. US, but the Canadian government didn't seem to think it created any kind of reason to bomb Montreal....
JY
Let me ask you a question. Do you also hold Israel accountable for buying up weapons in the last two years? Do you hold America accountable for selling many of those weapons and even gifting some to them? Because if you don't then you have to ask yourself how do you see the Gaza strip and the West Bank? Are they truly supposed to be independent places/democracies or are they prisons? Name me another country/nation/state that is barred from actually going out and buying weapons or the components to build them in the same way that the Palestinians are. They have no military. They have no arms budget. Now you may say they don't need weapons. Thats fine. But then why does everyone else but them get to have them?
Look I am truly tired of actually trying to go back and forth with people over this issue. Its like some people will find any kind of way to justify Israels actions in this situation. Thats fine. But understand this, the people of the Gaza strip are in a prison. Just the word "smuggle" that you used to describe what the closest thing to a military in Gaza has to do in order to get weapons itself pretty much confirms that. And don't get it twisted, they also have to "smuggle" food and medical supplies into Gaza otherwise they would have to go without. So until we imprison any other country/nation/state and control what they can and can not do, use, and where they go any attempt at an analogy will always fail. Even Cuba who we loathe is allowed to trade with other countries and control their own economies and goods and services.
Now I know most of us have seen some kind of prison documentary at one point in our life. How many of those places were nice docile places versus ones prone to outbreaks of violence? When you put people in a prison and you don't even have guards in there to police them you can always expect violence and unrest. That will never change no matter what military strategy is employed until the people in Gaza no longer feel like prisoners.
sgwwhiteinfla:
If Israel used the weapons it purchased from Americans to indiscriminately lob missiles at people then your point would hold water. Maybe I was unclear in my previous post--Hamas smuggled in weapons so they could use them, unprovoked. And yes, medicine and food also has to be smuggled in--that's my entire point! There IS a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and has been before the war that began there a week and a half ago, but again, food and medicine would not have to be "smuggled" if other things, like weapons weren't being smuggled, to be used against Israelis!
I too, am as tired with this as the next guy, but I still feel its necessary to defend this point. Its not like Fatah is weaponless in the West Bank, but they don't use their weapons (in fact, many of them were armed by Israel). The problem is, and was, squarely with Hamas.
Technically any modern day Pancho Villas who choose to let loose with some rockets from Juarez could claim their just battling a few hundred years of occupation and trying to take back their ancestral lands. I grew up in Texas and wave the flag, but I'm pretty sure we learned the state was hijacked by a bunch of debt ridden loons with long rifles, Bowie knives, and raccoon pelt hats who were eventually backed by the good old US Army. This guy might want to read about the settlement of the Mexican War and the total slave state land grab the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was. Or he could grab U.S. Grant's memoirs and see what he thought about the whole affair.
These wacko analogies that try to compare totally different countries with totally different cultures are ridiculous. It's like telling your mom that all the other kids would do it so you have to do it. Mom sent my ass to my room when I talked like that.
I had no idea that dance was the key to removing Hamas from power. One wonders if Enrico Checcetti might have solved the whole Middle East crisis if he had taught there instead of St. Petersburg...
JY
The ceasefire held until Israel bombed the tunnels. No matter how many weapons were smuggled in they weren't being used. Like I have said before if you are going to blame Hamas for smuggling in weapons you have to blame Israel also for planning their attack for the last 6 months. Again Israel didn't stop buying weapons in the last 6 months, did they?
Another reason why this is a flawed analogy is that Canada is not Iran. Totally different circumstances between the USA and Mexico and our neighbors vs. Israel and Gaza and their neighbors. Analogies are frequently imperfect, but this one is so wrong it beggars belief.
In fact, John Gunther recorded a similar conservation with an American Journalist and Hitler talking about the "unfairness" of the pre-war Polish Corridor cutting off East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Hitler asked his interviewer how the USA would feel if Texas was separated by an arm of Mexico from the other 47 States. Gunther stated in 'Inside Europe' that when the Journalist replied "The difference is that Canada is not France", it greatly shocked Der Furher (but nobody else) that there could be different ways of observing the situation!
BTW- Sorry to violate Godwin's Law... :-D
Folks,
Thanks for the comments and the link to Daniel Levy's fine piece. Yeah, the blockade on Gaza was imposed in 2007 but a closure was imposed right away, in 2005, as Levy notes. I don't think Akiva Eldar needs to be informed Gaza and the West Bank are discrete geographic entities - I read his piece as saying they're linked politically.
What if Mexico lobbed rockets into San Diego? What would the USA do?
Well… if Mexico lobbed rockets into San Diego… and IF Mexico were to build walls winding through the streets of the United States designed to separate us from them... and IF Mexico cut off our supply lines to food and medical aid… and IF Mexico controlled our air space… and IF Mexico periodically assassinated our appointed representatives… and IF Mexico cut off our access to our own shores…
… we would do nothing. Because IF Mexico COULD do all of that we would be to weak to do anything about it. In fact we would probably be content with the fact that only a few rockets were lobbed our way.
But Mexico CAN’T do all of that.
Soooo… in response to them lobbing rockets we would be forced to defend ourselves. The most certain way to do that would be to slaughter those who were doing the lobbing. Now if that means innocent women and children die so be it. Wars will be fought.
But lest we never forget this – for every innocent woman and child slaughtered we would surely create ten times more of those who lob rockets.
Peace is the only soil where change can grow…
APGTG
Diana - they're not hurling rockets at civilians in Ottawa, nor do they deny the right of Canada to exist. I wish Hamas were fighting for the liberation of Gaza. They're not - they're fighting for the total obliteration of Israel. That is their express purpose in accumulating arms. And their explicit interest in a ceasefire is not to help the Palestinian people, but to re-arm for the final battle (according to Ghayan). Their positions in general aren't maintained because Hamas believes they best serve the Palestinians; they are theological convictions akin to Naturei Karta's theological objections to Israel. Hamas no more serves the interests of Palestinians than NK serves the interests of Jews - they both serve their theologies.
The Mexico analogy, like virtually all that I've heard, has enough caveats to render it meaningless. And tiring.
It IS worth noting that most of the mobility restrictions emerged after and in direct response to the intifada. They did not come from outer space. Many Gazans used to work in Israel, earned Israeli wages and pensions, and moved with relative freedom between the territories.
Lauren
Did you read the Greenwald piece that I linked to yesterday? You seem to have adopted the notion that Hamas can never change but history tells us that isn't true. Besides that Hamas was the one pushing for a cease fire most of last year and when they actually got one they enforced it. Hamas will never have the capability to destroy Israel and they know it. Do you REALLY think that Hamas wants war with Israel no matter what the conditions? I truly and wholeheartedly disagree. If the only thing they wanted in the whole wide world was to destroy Israel they would never have tried to get elected and never looked for any kind of legitimacy. That they even entered into any ceasefire with Israel last year flies in the face of what you are saying. To quote Greenwald
I should add to that list the Yesha/Gush Emunim/Kach /etc. settler movement. While many Israelis support at least a temporary military occupation of the WB for security reasons, these guys don't care about Israelis. They care for the Jewish people only in the abstract, as it suits their theology, and aren't serving the interests of any actual Jews.
While the Israeli majority (including settlers who are there for economic reasons and would leave if the govt tells them to) is fighting for a secure Israel, these guys are fighting for their biblical map.
Likewise, we should be under no illusions regarding what ends Hamas serves.
Man,I am sick and tired of the whole thing ... to the extent that in my darkest moments, I wish someone would just drop an H bomb on the whole area, sterilize it of the current population, and just start over. I'm definitely wishing a plague on both their houses....
What burns me, too, is that millions have died i n the Congo and thousands in the Kashmir, totally uncovered by the mainstream media... but let one Israeli or a handful of Palestinians die, and there is wall-to wall coverage. I guess i would like to see a tenth of the attention devoted to solving THOSE conflicts as is devoted to the Middle East conflict.
If Mexicans were firing rockets at El Paso?
I'd expect competent action to make it stop. Short-term movement to take them out if it's an isolated group. Short-term followed by long-term if it's a situation with lasting issues that mean that once we crush the current guys with rockets, new ones will show up. Either way, a calm analysis followed by solid action, followed by additional action until the job gets done.
This doesn't sound like analysis and action. It's sounds like "He hit me, so wham, I hit him back. If I didn't, people would think I was [insert insult laden with gender and/or sexuality issues here]."
It's like school boys proving their toughness.
It's not like grown men doing what it takes to protect their loved ones.
I keep thinking there's a hidden layer. There must be a mature plan they're hiding. I keep thinking that, but I also keep thinking that about Americans invading Iraq.
Eyal,
I wouldn't presume to instruct Eldar on geography, but his rhetoric could use some work. We all understand the point he was making, but he chose to make it hyperbolically. That's unfortunate.
How about an answer to the question I posed. Is it your belief that Israel should not have responded to Hamas' rocketing in any way? Did you approve of the initial round of airstrikes? Of those that followed? Of the ground incursion?
It's incredibly easy to find fault with the decisions that Israeli leaders have made, because they have all involved painful trade-offs. Israel faced no good options. I'm curious to know which you think it should have taken.
To ask "What would the U.S. do if Mexico attacked us over the border?" isn't a hypothetical question. Pancho Villa did just that in 1916. The U.S. did not respond by indiscriminately bombing Mexico and laying waste to the land. It responded by sending an expedition to capture Pancho Villa.