Quagmire
Reader comment on item: Should Israel invade Gaza?

Submitted by Fred Schlomka (Israel), Nov 21, 2006 at 14:18

Israel can no more defeat the Palestinians than it could defeat Hizbullah in Lebanon. It's the same problem the US faced in Vietnam. You can't defeat an embedded ideology with weapons unless you kill large amounts of people in a very short time. (Germany/Japan 1945 for instance).

Most of us who live in Israel agree that we need to be back at the negotiating table. Tit for tat military adventures solve nothing. Americans, Pipes included, might be better off looking at their warmongering ideology than giving bad advice to my government.

You folks in the US might have solved your 'indian problem' by crushing them (or should I say genocide?) but we like to think we're a bit more civilized. 'Light unto the Nations' and all that.

And Mr. Pipes, what makes you think that the 'will to make war' can be crushed in the Palestinians through defeat. It can't be, any more than your will to defend the USA could be crushed. Genocide would do the trick, but I don't think Israel is up for it, not yet at least.

Fred
Tel Aviv

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.

Daniel Pipes replies:

You misunderstand what I mean by defeat. If there is a U.S. model, it is 1975, and the erosion of American will by a much smaller North Vietnamese force. What the Vietcong did to us is roughly what Israel could do to its Palestinian and other enemies.