January 31, 2008
By endorsing a letter urging Israel to end the “siege” of the Gaza Strip, the leader of U.S. Methodists demonstrates yet again the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” dilemma facing Israel.
In the summer of 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, bowing to international pressure and accepting its own analysis that a Jewish presence in the strip was a liability. The goal was to give Palestinians there a shot of autonomy, a proving ground for statehood. The Palestinians’ answer has been the election of a Hamas government — committed to Israel’s destruction — and a non-ending barrage of Kassam rockets aimed at the civilian population in Sderot.
Israel has so far resisted pressure to launch a massive re-invasion of Gaza — a move so many other countries would have taken. Instead, it imposed economic sanctions and cut fuel supplies. The goal was to pressure Gazans into reconsidering the faith they put in Hamas.
When Hamas militants breached the wall separating Gaza from Egypt, it proved a master public relations stroke. The scramble of tens of thousand of Palestinians for food, fuel, and cigarettes was portrayed by many of Israel’s critics as a sort of liberation day. Bishop Felton May of the United Methodist Church certainly viewed it as such, writing this week about “one and a half million people imprisoned and without proper food or medicine, 800,000 without electricity supply.” He called Israel’s sanctions “illegal collective punishment, an immoral act in violation of the basic human and natural laws as well as International Laws.”
Bishop May gave lip service to Israel’s security needs, saying, “Israeli policy inflexibility is intensified by the actions of Hamas and its rockets.” Well, yes. But what does he suggest as an alternative to economic sanctions?
Israel has tried the carrot. It tried the (economic) stick. And unless leaders like May begin to aim their moral outrage at the Palestinians who are inflicting misery on their own people, Israel may be forced to adopt a military response that no peace-loving bishop could tolerate.
Comment: editorial@njjewishnews.com