[Air-L] The difficult conversations that we’ve already had

[Prof. David G. Schwartz]

As others have stated, I also have skin in the game - living in Israel for
over 30 years with some meaningful time here in the early-1980’s as well.
In fact I may be one of the few on this list who have actually been
shopping in the Khan Younis market - it was a great place to buy fruit in
the early ‘80s - Gaza had thriving agriculture, growing boutique tourism,
and relatively peaceful relationships - and Israel had full military
control. I would stop by on route to visit friends living in the northern
Sinai.

The first difficult conversation that we’ve already had came in the early
1980’s, when Israel withdrew completely from the Sinai peninsula, returning
it to Egyptian rule in 1982.  That involved displacing thousands of
Israelis from towns in northern Sinai, but after very hard discussions, and
harder protests on both sides of the decision, it was done. To this day the
Sinai remains largely demilitarized and peaceful (except for the occasional
Israeli-Egyptian joint operations to eliminate the ISIS terror cells that
pose a threat to us all). Egypt had no ‘from the river to the sea’
aspirations, nor a desire to reenact the Islamic conquering of Jerusalem.
So that difficult conversation has resulted in a stable peace.

The next difficult conversation that we’ve already had was in 2005 when
Israel unilaterally withdrew completely from Gaza, and handed Gaza to its
citizens to govern. Unlike the Egyptian-Sinai experience, however, Gazans
have accepted Hamas as their governing body and the last 18 years have been
dedicated to digging combat tunnels and building up missile stockpiles.
Unlike Egypt, the ruling government of Gaza has openly declared that Israel
and all its Jewish citizens, present company included, should be wiped out.
Egypt, by the way, a powerful Muslim country, 'blockades' the southern
border of Gaza to prevent the spread of Islamist terror into its own
territory - so that might also be an interesting conversation to have.

Does this make the Gazan people innocent bystanders?  Perhaps.  After
Israel's unilateral withdrawal, optimistic Israeli’s hailed the potential
to create “the Singapore of the middle east”, a booming tourist industry,
flourishing agriculture.  Instead, Gazans welcomed Hamas, a terror
organization whose goal was not to build Gaza and its future, but to
destroy Israel and its future.  For almost 20 years the ruling government
of Gaza has poured Western and Arab State aid into building networks of
attack tunnels, stationed weapons and military ordnance in homes across the
strip, in schools, hospitals, and yes, Universities.

For those concerned that the reports of combat tunnels under hospitals,
schools and private homes are “Israeli propaganda” - I can tell you of my
first-hand conversations with 8 different soldiers and officers, some my
students, who have been in those tunnels, hospitals, schools, and homes. It
is very real, and it is very embedded in the civilian infrastructure - and
it has to be destroyed.

Regarding some form of AOIR condemnation of attacks and destruction of
Universities - well, perhaps a good starting point for that discussion are
the 23 missile attacks launched towards my University since 7/10/23.  The
most recent missile attack on my University was on December 21st 2023 as I
was meeting with a PhD student in my office.  When the sirens went off we
had 90 seconds to get down to the basement bomb shelter where we waited
until hearing the explosions overhead.  Forgive me if I don’t feel the need
to apologize for the fact that Israel has good air defenses and my student
and I were not killed in these attacks launched by Hamas from Gaza.

You might ask yourself the “difficult question” of where these missiles
were launched from? Which Gazan hospital grounds, UNRWA site, University
campus, or ‘civilian’ neighborhood?

If you want to start the difficult conversation we should be having, and
are sincerely looking for ‘next steps’, start with an International outcry
to have Hamas lay down their arms, return the 136 hostages, and leave Gaza
- that’s the surest and fastest way to save Gazan civilian lives.  If the
Nazi army had capitulated in January 1945 perhaps the Allied bombing of
Dresden killing tens of thousand civilians could have been avoided. If the
citizens of Germany had overthrown the Nazis perhaps 350,000 to 500,000
German civilian lives might have been saved overall from Allied bombing.
But they didn’t.

--David
================
David G. Schwartz
Professor of Information Systems
Bar-Ilan University, Israel