Israel, Gaza, And War

Major happenings going on in Israel. First, a map of the region in question:


Similar to the stuff with Pakistan, a lot has happened in the past couple weeks, so this will be something of a whirlwind catch-up session. You can read more about all these events by searching Breitbart.com.

Here's the short version.

In the last Palestinian election, it came down to two terrorist groups, Hamas and Fatah. Most people realized that giving any terrorist group the sort of legitimacy of a political party, but nevertheless, that's what happened. Fatah won the election, but Hamas soon took over the Gaza strip through a bloody revolution. Since then, they've been constantly sending rockets into Israel. Suicide bombers also made their way across the border frequently.

In response, Israel built a security wall to seal off Gaza, and the violence dropped. [Side note - see how well a security wall/fence can work?] In recent months, Hamas began sending more rockets over the wall and into Israel, which prompted Israel to cut off supplies to the area through the border crossings. The public outcry was ludicrous, if not predictable - the world condemned Israel for not supplying the terrorist group that was constantly firing rockets into its own cities. The Palestinians whined and cried about not getting supplies despite the fact that they continued firing rockets at their providers.

This kind of backward thinking is typical of Palestinians, but somehow it's always Israel's fault (despite the fact that Gaza is adjacent to Egypt, too).

Then, in January, Hamas engineered the collapse of a significant portion of the wall between Gaza and Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flooded over the border to get supplies. For several days, the traffic flowed back and forth without restraint, but eventually Egypt closed the border down again to preserve their borders and sovereignty. [Hm, sound familiar? Why do they get to do that but we can't...?]

Naturally, Hamas doesn't want that, so there is currently a dispute over who gets to control the border crossings, with Israel weighing in, too.

Now, why should you care about this? Because it looks like Israel is about to go to war again, and this chain of events is largely the cause of it. Oh, and it's also President Bush's fault for trying to introduce the peace process and elections into these terrorist organizations.

Now, I agree that it's the height of foolishness to ever think that giving a terrorist group the power and legitimacy of a real political party. But, can anyone blame Israel for trying to protect their own borders, property, and citizens? For the U.N. and the world to condemn Israel for cutting off supplies to the very people who were attacking them is absolutely ridiculous, and evidence that there is a rabid anti-Israel bent to much of the world.

We'll see in the coming days if another war does start, and if the U.S. gets pulled into it. Just keep your eyes and ears open.

There's my two cents.