Gaza Residents – War Not Worth It

Gaza resident are starting to voice discontent over their government’s recent war with Israel.

The group of neighbors surveyed the destruction wreaked on their residential complex by Israeli bombardment, with building after building flattened or punctured by shells. The men then began to voice something almost never heard out loud in Gaza: criticism of its Hamas rulers.

Exhausted by a month of pounding by Israel’s military — on top of seven years of stifling closure of the tiny Mediterranean coastal strip — they questioned Hamas’ handling of the crisis and the wisdom of repeatedly going to war with Israel.

“We do not want to be bombarded every two or three years. We want to lead a good life: Sleep well, drink well and eat well,” said Ziad Rizk, a 37-year-old father of two, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He stared at the damaged apartment building where he lived. His sofa and a blue baby carriage were perched precariously on a tilting concrete slab that was his floor.

There is more sentiment like that:

Even as they shared their views with the AP, they hedged their opinions. They never, for example, expressed a desire to see Hamas removed from power or abandon armed struggle against Israel. They have no love for Israel, though older members of the community fondly remembered the days when they commuted to Israel for day jobs that put food on the table.

“I respect the resistance. The fighters may be spending the night out there in open space facing the enemy while I have the comfort and satisfaction of being with my family,” said Loay Kafarnah, a taxi driver who lost his apartment in the shelling.

“But we also want to live. How can we have a war every two or three years? Is that a life?” he said, sitting on rickety plastic garden chairs with a group of close friends and neighbors.

Visible not far away were green fields and trees across the border in Israel. An Israeli train sped by. They could easily see across the border because, they said, Israel several years ago tore down a nearby orchard on the Gaza side that was impeding its soldiers’ view in.

“Look at what they have,” the 27-year-old Kafarnah said. “Why can’t we live like that too?”

The closure of Gaza stemmed from a series of suicide attacks sent against the Israelis. The fact that the government of Gaza also created unrest in the Egyptian Sinai caused Egypt to close off its contacts with Gaza.

Evidently war is not as profitable for the people as it once seemed.

The first Intifada was a result of the Arab economy in the area integrating with the Israeli economy. The rulers of the Arabs couldn’t sustain their rule if the Arab economy was advancing by integrating wit the Israeli economy. Their whole story and the whole story of the Middle East would be a shambles if that happened. So they started a war to stop it. And the war has stopped it. But the war is no longer popular after the latest pounding.

What I said in another post on the subject still holds.

Peace is better than war. Even if you lost the last one. And especially don’t be stupid and lose the next one too.