Time for Reason

Israel is now for all intents at war in Gaza and Lebanon. Ironically, these are the two locations that Israel has left since the year 2000. Both withdrawls were risky: Israel knew that by leaving southern Lebanon, Hezbollah guerillas would have freer access to the international border and more latitude to send both rockets and human attackers across the border. But too many Israeli soldiers were losing their lives in the war of attrition in southern LEbanon, and a similar situation, combined with hopes that the Palestinian government could be counted on to keep terrorists inside Gaza on a leash, prodded ISrael to leave Gaza last summer.
In both cases, Israel took a clear risk that chaos, rather than increased security, would result from the withdrawls. Under the best of circumstances, Israel knew that there would be attacks against its land and people from time to time. The one development that Israel did not expect, at least so soon, was the rise of Hamas to elected power in Gaza.
Now Israel has entered Gaza and Lebanon anew and, although the immediate provocations starting with the capture of an Israeli soldier are clear, Israel has nonetheless taken a dangerous and unproductive step backward in its quest to live in a Middle East neighborhood that, if never hospitable, will at least be sustainable. The immediate attacks against Gaza infrastructure in order to slow the movement of Hamas captors of the israeli soldier may have been the correct move militarily, I don't have the tactical knowledge to judge this. However, as I said in my last post, the knocking out of half of Gaza's electric supply in the process seems unjustified and pointless, and only serves to increase the suffering of the Palestinian people and make them less inclined to see Hamas as the organizatoin bringing about their misery. Israel was better served by the international political quarantining of Hamas that took place until a few weeks ago. Israel's recent missile attack on a Gaza house where a Hamas leader lived with his wife and children, in which the wife and children were killed but the leader got away, is very disturbing because Israel has shown that it does not have the ability to directly target leaders without taking out bystanders as well. On an even more disturbing level, Israel no longer places value on innocent lives in its drive to kill terrorists.
In this way, Israel has forfeited its moral higher ground: Israel can no longer claim to respect civilian life and in its own way has become a terrorizing machine for the "collateral" residents of Gaza.
In Southern Lebanon, Israel's incursions may if successful buy another period of a peaceful border, they may not. But Israel now has to deal with its own soldiers being captives of Hamas and Hezbollah, on two fronts. No amount of military actions will bring these soldiers back alive, they are being held as bargaining tools for the release of Hamas and Hezbollah members being held in Israeli jails. It they are killed, Israel can respond with even more force. But, what is the end game?
Israel is now in Gaza and Lebanon once again, and some day Israel will have to get out again. When and if those days come, years of occupation and battle will have advanced a mideast solution very little, and the situation may look very similar to today. In that someday, the momentary peace that could allow a redeployment would likely be fragile,and could easily be shattered by another round of cross-border attacks and abductions. Will Israel take a step back and work directly at peace? Will Israel take the higher ground and work toward a workable, if highly imperfect solution, that it is surely capable of doing. It has the character and strength to be the leader in the Middle East, but for the moment it is allowing itself to be lured into a pointless spiral of death, the game that Hamas and Hezbollah want it to play.