A Conspiracy of Idiots

There is no good end to the current Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza. This is true regardless of the actual on the ground result of the current bombing and invasion sponsored by Israel and the United States. This is true first because violence does not produce good results, something neither the current Israeli government nor the Bush administration has learned despite the clear lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also true in the realpolitic world that exists in the Middle East.

Israel cannot do what it is doing without the United States as a partner. The Bush administration has put the nation, once again, in danger by its lack of action to stop what is an action that has only one result for all us - a more dangerous world and a legacy of suffering that continues for both the Palestinians and the Israelis. It is a conspiracy of idiots who either do not want to learn from history, are just not bright enough to do so, or, more cynically, do what they do with eyes wide open in order to manipulate the public and retain power.

It would be too much to expect of the current political leadership of Israel and the United States to recognize and accept the ontological and moral judgement on this action - that violence serves no good purpose. Contrary to their avowed respect for the majority religious traditions of the societies they serve, these leaders do not believe the basic tenets of faith represented in the Scriptural utterances of the prophets and of Jesus.

That said, one is hard put to understand what logic compels them to repeat the errors that have led to the current situation of instability and loss of military/political and moral power that both these nations have experienced in the last eight years of ongoing conspiracy between the Bush Administrtion and a series of Israeli governments. Evidently, neither set of leaders has yet to read the terrorist's basic manuel for victory in which it is clearly stated on the first page that the primary purpose of throwing stones at the enemy (rockets from Lebanon or Gaza or planes toppling towers) is not to inflict damage or to win victory, but to draw out the enemy's strength onto the ground controled by the terrorist so that a strategy of gradual attack of the enemy's power is possible. There is nothing more that Al Quaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas would have wanted than that the US invade Iraq, the Israelis bomb and, even better, send troops to Gaza. Once accomplished, it does not matter what the outcome on the ground is, the terrorists win.

In this case, HAMAS cannot be defeated either because, in Gaza as in Lebanon, the Israelis cannot achieve any tactcal or strategic goal, i.e. taking out the HAMAS capacitlity to launch rockets or to actually remove HAMAS from power or because if either of these goals are achieved, HAMAS has greater credibility as the defender of the people and more possibilities for recruitment from the population that suffered from the invasion. And, no matter what the specific outcome, Iran is strengthened in the region and the allies of moderate Palestinians, Egypt and Jordan, are weakened. The moderate Palestinians represented by Fatah also are weakened. Everything that HAMAS has wanted, they gain.

Of course, there is a logic to this idiocy. It is a logic that serves the leaders but not their people; a logic that is shared by HAMAS and Hezbollah. It is the logic that the current power structure is served by continued conflict and the worst that could happen would be that peace breaks out. For HAMAS it does not matter that Israel would reoccupy the Gaza: they are, after all, better at insurgency than they are at governing. The worst that could happen to HAMAS is if Israel would desist, open the borders and encourage economic and humanitarian aid to come to Gaza.

What this logic means for Israelis, for Palestinians (and, to a lesser degree for US citizens) is more suffering, more violence, more conflict and less chance for peace and prosperity, peace and prosperity being anathema to the current power classes in all of these societies.

What is idiocy for some is salvation for others. Unfortunately, this salvation for the Bush Adminsitration, the Isreali government and HAMAS (which is idiocy) is suffering for the rest of us. That is why the media interest in who is right and who is wrong in this current situation and the efforts of supporters of either of the sides to the conflict to try to justify the actions of the side they support do not result in any change in the situation. Instead, they feed the conspiracy by covering up the underlying logic that links all them together - the logic that war is better than peace, at least for some.


It can be hoped that the new Obama administration will find a way to break open this conspiracy of idiots and provide some opening for those who truly desire peace to step forward and replace the conspiracy with a movement that will lead to greater justice and possibilities for peace for Palestinians, for Israelis and even for Americans.