I don’t want to talk about the war, about its geopolitical consequences; you can find a lot in this subject in a number of sites. I want to concentrate on my personal feelings, views and ideas as they are reshaped because of this war and the one in the South with Hamas.
I consider myself as a leftist. I believe in human rights, equality to every person regardless of origin, skin color, gender, religion or any other criteria. If there should be any favor to certain individuals it should be based only on contribution to the society. As a leftist I am against the occupation of the Palestinian territories and I am against the settlements in the occupied territories. I believe in the two states solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But at the same time I believe in a peaceful solution. I cannot accept I cannot justify terrorist act, suicide bombing, and Qasam or Katyusha rockets launching on civil population. There is no justification what so ever for any terrorist act against civilians. Moreover, any nation seeking for independence must lose its natural right if it uses illegitimate methods. I believe that means justify the goal and not goals justify means.
In the last decades leftists fought for these ideas. Slowly these ideas took roots, and even non-leftist recognized the reasoning and understood that our mail goal is a free and democratic Jewish country. And it cannot be reached with continuing the occupation; we have to relinquish Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
So Israel disengaged from Gaza, removed all settlements and with all the troops. The Palestinian answer was launching hundredths of Qasam rockets in South Israel. Just as the Hezbollah answer to Israel’s withdraw from South Lebanon was organizing a number of kidnapping, violating the blue line and launching massive rocket attacks on civilian targets in North of Israel. I stayed in my village; during the war more than 600 rockets hit the neighborhood. There is no single army installation around my village, just a small city (Ma’alot) and a couple of small villages. The only reason to launch rockets on us was to kill and terrorize civilians.
So where is my leftist belief standing? Do I still believe in the same solution as before? Yes, I do. But I don’t believe reaching this goal shortly. And I don’t believe we should do any more unilateral steps reaching. Every time Israel unilaterally withdrew, the Arabs interpreted it as weakness. They never interpreted our pull-out as opening a door for negotiations for peace talks.
So we should stop any further withdrawal. We have to express our will and eagerness to a solution but at the same time we have to take any possible steps guarding ourselves, including building a security wall even if it hurts some Palestinians access to their land. They should fight the militant terrorists if they feel this wall harms their life.
I am not the only leftist (radical or liberal) feeling this way. After years of demonstrations, Peace Now activities, the Palestinians paid back us with terror and more terror. So now they are alone, without our support and without understanding.
For somebody who disagrees with me, I attach these pictures. They were taken in the Tefen Industrial Park (about 5 km from my village), hit by a Katyusha rocket. Fortunately it hit an open area and it broke only some windows. But the same rockets killed a number of people when their car or flat got a direct hit. Tefen is an industrial area. There is no army installation there, only hi-tech companies with people wanting only peace and a decent living.So, dear Palestinians, until you are not ready for a peacul solution for an acceptable compromise, forget about me. Call me only when you are ready!
