Ender's Game and the Gazan conflict

The classic 1985 story of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card gives some insight into the mentality of war.  Early on in the book, when the boy Ender is attacked by his classmates, he retaliates and beats his opponent into complete and senseless submission.  When asked why he retaliated so violently, Ender's response is, "I have to win this now, and for all time, or I'll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse." The recent movie re-make put it in even plainer terms.  "Knocking him down was the first fight, I wanted to win all the others [in the future].  So they'd leave me alone."

Let me be very very clear - I'm not saying at all this gives anyone an absolute moral right to beat anyone else into submission.  I'm just saying it's an understandable sentiment, and a very tough call to make.  But what would make someone feel this way about conflict?  And in the light of today's front page news on the Straits Times, the Israel-Gaza conflict in particular?  Well, I've had the relatively rare opportunity of having been to Israel and interacting with the locals, so I'd like to think I have some firsthand knowledge about this, limited as it may be.

Many of the people in Israel are immigrants or children of immigrants.  Remember, they came to Israel as a last hiding place, after the Holocaust, when their leaders and neighbours and governments either actively sought their extermination, or stood idly by while the extermination took place.  Could you imagine going home to a country or neighbourhood where this had been done to you?  So for many Israelis, the land of Israel is their last stand.  They have nowhere else to run to.  They have to defend this land with their lives, particularly in a neighbourhood where the official objectives (Hamas and Iran, to name two) are the complete extermination of Israel.

So when the rockets start flying into Israel, I'm just saying I can understand why they adopt Ender's response.  Having said that, our Foreign Minister's statement, noting that both sides bear some fault, is important.  To paraphrase a few bits of the Straits Times report: 

"Hamas fired over 2,000 rockets into Israel, inviting retaliation and putting Palestinians in the line of fire.  The rockets have been intentionally launched from densely populated areas, and a Hamas spokesman spoke on national TV about the strategy's effectiveness. Hamas in Gaza should also take maximum precautions to ensure that civilians are not put in harm's way.  Unfortunately, Hamas' cynical approach has been the very opposite - to deliberately use civilians as shield... Hamas knows that its cause is helped when Gazans die... 

While we understand the legitimate right of Israel to self-defence, the rising Palestinian death toll... is tragic and extremely distressing.  It raises the question of whether Israel's response to the threat is proportionate.  Whether or not this response is justified, we believe that Israel can and should do more to ensure that civilian casualties are minimised."

I've served in our army, and seriously thought about these issues at length before.  So I invite you to think about them too.  Why would Israel attack civilians?  Because they love the publicity?  No of course not.  It's to raze the tunnels through which Hamas terrorists attack Israel, and stop the rocket attacks.

Now, you may argue that Hamas is only attacking because Gaza is under an Israeli blockade.  Well, I ask the same question.  Why would Israel put them under blockade?  For the lovely publicity?  No of course not.  Why not blockade Egypt, or Syria or Jordan then?  The blockade is in place to stop the rockets from getting to Hamas of course.  Remember also that the 2,000 Hamas rockets fired into Israel are at civilians too.  It's just that Hamas misses the target a lot more than Israel.

Now, many of us have children.  If someone starts shooting at them, would you not stop them?  Would you say - well, most of these bullets are not hitting the target, why not let them continue shooting?  The kids are mostly going to be OK.  Probably.  Right?

No of course not.  These are not mere sticks and pebbles.  They're bullets (and in the case of Hamas, rockets).  So, we want to disarm the shooter right?  So what do we do?  First, we try to disarm the shooter by stopping the shooter's supply of guns and bullets.  When that fails, we shoot back.  But there are other people in the way.  What do we do?  What do we do??  He's mostly missing his shots, but he's still shooting at us!  Give a warning to those people - get out of the way, I'm going to have to shoot back!  But they're not listening, they WANT to protect the shooters.  Now what?  What do we do??  What do we do??!!  WHAT DO WE DO???!!!

What do you do?  No easy answers I'm afraid.

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