LIKE A COILED SPRING...........

Paul Greenberg


Is there any book so derided as being
antiquated and irrelevant, and that remains so
contemporary and pertinent as the never really
Old Testament? For once again, for the third
time in less than a decade, the Israelis stand at
the gates of Gaza, the ancient capital of the
Philistines, and prepare to invade. Just as its
leader at another time, Samson ben Manoah,
seeing Israel harried by her enemies, finally
chose to take the offensive. You can read all
about it in the Book of Judges. Nothing ever
seems to change, at least not in that part of an
ever uncertain world.
The question by now isn't whether the Israelis
will be coming, but when. The aerial assault
against Gaza has already begun in response to
the rain of rockets that have fallen all over
Israel these past few weeks, penetrating
deeper than ever before. The surest result has
been to put this era's Jewish commonwealth on
a war footing once again.
How can this be? Wasn't this new unified
Palestinian regime in Ramallah, a coalition of
Fatah and Hamas, going to be a new, peaceful
government led by technocrats, not haters?
(Did anybody ever believe that, even those
who said it?) But the only technology this
"new" Palestinian leadership has seemed
determined to practice is firing ever newer
and bigger missiles at Israel. Thanks to that
country's Iron Dome defense, the missiles
haven't caused many if any fatalities, but they
have succeeded in mobilizing tens of
thousands of Israeli reservists, who are now
poised to roll into the Gaza Strip, aka
Hamasland, still again.
According to the latest reports, some 20,000
Israeli reservists have already been called up,
and a total of 40,000 are due to be. How long
can that little country afford to keep that many
reservists under arms without striking? The
aerial assault has already begun on a large
scale as hundreds of sorties prepare the way
for the ground troops expected to follow any
day, any hour. Hospitals on both sides of the
line are girding for the rush of casualties to
come.
To what end? Israel's prime minister, who
now finds himself a wartime leader, promises
that "Hamas will pay a heavy price for firing
at Israeli citizens." Benjamin Netanyahu says
this "operation will expand and continue until
the fire toward our towns stops and quiet
returns." Which makes the objective of Israel's
latest campaign clear enough, but how achieve
it? Questions abound:
Will this be just a partial and temporary
occupation of Gaza till Washington and the
rest of the world again force Israel to
withdraw short of a more permanent end to
the rocket fire out of Gaza? It's happened
before. Twice. Is the third time supposed to be
the charm?
Why should this invasion -- and its outcome --
be different from all the others? To quote one
resident of Gaza preparing to take shelter from
Israeli bombs once again, "We want ... a truce
and peace with them so our children and we
can live." Which sounds just like what people
on the other side of the divide want, too, but
whenever a glimmer of peace is spotted, the
violent bear it away. And the old cycle of
intermittent peace between regular wars
returns.
Short of occupying all of Gaza, or at least
establishing a buffer zone, a cordon sanitaire,
between Hamas and its supply of rockets via
the tunnels out of Egypt, what's to keep the
Israelis from having to invade a fourth time,
and a fifth, and so regularly on every few
years?
So long as there is no end to this fatal cycle of
sporadic peace and constant hostilities, and to
Hamas' control of Gaza with it, any real peace
will remain an idle dream, a brief and
temporary pause between bloody wars.
Meanwhile, Gaza begins to bury its dead and
Israel girds for the casualty reports sure to
come once the land war begins. When will that
be? Tomorrow, next day? Next week? Never?
The clock is ticking, the coiled spring is about
to be sprung, and then the fog of war will
descend again. And there will be only one
thing certain about this old, old story: It is To
Be Continued.
If this air campaign can suppress all that
rocket fire out of Gaza, at least for a time,
then both sides can issue separate but equal
declarations of victory, everybody can go
home, and the world breathe a sigh of relief.
In war as in showbiz, Give 'em a Happy Ending
Every Time!
But if not, then cry Havoc! and let slip the
dogs of war. And after that, who knows? For
every battle plan remains operative only until
the first contact with the enemy, limited wars
have a way of turning unlimited, and this
latest war for peace will bring anything but.
And once again, to echo the lament of Milton's
"Samson Agonistes":
Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves . . .