Can You Say, "Overkill"?

If Fred Rogers were alive today – and spoke fluent Hebrew – would he be saying this to the Israeli government?

I don’t begrudge Israel the right to defend itself, but you can’t tell me there isn’t a proportion problem involved in its response to the Hamas-fired rockets coming from Gaza. This is the most densely populated place on Earth, so it’s said, and Israel’s “surgical” air strikes to damage Hamas can’t help but kill civilians. The sheer number of them seems to have another purpose, what we in the U.S. call shock and awe. And if there isn’t enough awe inspired, Israel might launch a ground invasion.

Does Israel think that its military response is somehow going to liberate Gaza from Hamas domination? It’s more likely to have the opposite effect: uniting the Palestinians and drawing in support for them from other players in the region.

What has Israel offered to Gaza as an alternative to Hamas? During a discussion I heard on CNN this week, it was noted that while Gaza is firing rockets at Israel, there’s been no such aggression from the other Palestinian enclave, the West Bank. According to the commentators, this is because the West Bank actually has something resembling a middle class, for whom revolution isn’t top-of-mind.

Perhaps the Israeli government believes that Gazans deserve their misery for electing Hamas as their own leaders in the first place, so the place is left to fester. I once compared Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, which, of course, is seriously unfair. Even so, you would think that having the Warsaw Ghetto in its experience might make Israel a little more sensitive to what happens to millions of desperate people crammed into a small space.

At what point will Israel finally conclude that its message has been sent? We can only hope that point comes soon.

Friends Don't Let Friends Massacre

How many Israelis does it take to change a regime?

A companion question is: With all the fancy high-tech weapons Israel has (many of which are made in the U.S.A.), why can’t they hit the side of a barn door? I guess if they just blow up the whole barn, they don’t have to bother answering that one. Whoops, I guess we hit another hospital. Sorry, we weren’t aiming for those foreign journalists.

At the risk of repeating myself, if the Israelis want regime change in Gaza, they should just go ahead and do it and stop pretending they have other goals. But couldn’t they get it done without this level of carnage?

We’ve often heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing something painful over and over again and expecting a different result. Hamas can unrecognize Israel all it wants, but there is no scenario under which Israel is going to disappear. Similarly, Israel can’t expect Hamas to disappear, either. Trying to make it disappear hasn’t worked; it has simply given Hamas legs. What about trying another approach, if there are any left?

So there likely will be a unilateral Israeli cease-fire worked out with the help of the U.S., if there isn’t one already by the time you consume this. It will happen very conveniently just before Tuesday’s inauguration of a new American president, and before Israeli elections. And everyone will pretend that Hamas isn’t in the room.

But no one can pretend that 1,100-plus Palestinians haven’t died. Nor can anyone with an ounce of reason blame it all on Hamas. The United States and Israel are, in theory, friends and allies. But aren’t their times when you have to tell your friends they’re behaving badly?

There, now I’ve said it.

To Israel: Just Do It

I'm getting a little tired of hearing the statements of Israeli officials justifying the bloody military invasion of the Gaza Strip – but it’s not about the justification.

If someone were firing rockets at my country, I certainly wouldn’t want to sit around and take it. But stop trying to tell me how surgical this response has been or that you’re paying attention to the humanitarian situation in Gaza. By now, these explanations sound pretty hollow.

It looks an awful lot like what the Israeli leaders really want is regime change. Can you blame them? Hamas has never admitted Israel’s right to exist, and it’s just a little too friendly with Iran. Further, Israel maintains that Hamas took over Gaza by coup and that the group’s mismanagement of the enclave and disregard for the average citizen is the real reason Gazans are suffering. Sounds like a good formula for regime change to me.

So go for it, Israel! Destroy Hamas. But if you believe the Palestinians in Gaza would have a better life, then you have some obligation to supply a reasonable -- meaning humane and fair -- alternative. If the people of Gaza aren’t willing to allow themselves to be governed by Fatah – well, Israel, it’s your job to solve this problem. As they say, if you break it, you own it.

You owe the world no explanation for changing the regime in Gaza – but don’t sugar-coat it, just do it. But I hope you’re better at the regime-change business than we have been in Iraq.

There, now I’ve said it.