gargle.org - as effective as floss

We've heard the familiar lines. Mark Regev and Shimon Peres get on the major news networks and say that Israel is only bombing in defense of its citizens. They say that Israel does not target civilians, and would not be targeting anybody were it not for rocket fire endangering Israeli lives. I know this is true, and that the average Israeli wants peace under any circumstance, so long as it includes Israel's existence.

But even for me, this argument is a bit hard to swallow when faced with the civilian casualty rates in Gaza, when faced with hearing of whole non-Hamas families killed, albeit unintentionally, in an airstrike. Nonetheless, I know and trust Israel's intentions, while praying hard that we have a substantial goal and that that goal be achieved, as otherwise the civilian deaths would be doubly tragic.

Most of the world does not see it this way. Even outside of the world's billion or so Muslims, the case for calling Israel's force disproportionate is compelling. Israeli statements characterizing its actions as purely defensive, usually made only in times like these, ring pretty hollow when the world sees roughly 25 Palestinian civilians killed for every one Israeli killed. The stats do not make a great case for Israel wanting peace.

But Israel does want peace, if for no other reason than that demographic trends make peace in its own best interest. Sure we've had some stupid policies in the past- some ideological, many in reaction to past Arab hostilities- but by and large the only Israelis not now yearning for two states are a selection of religious settlers, and they are certainly in the minority. There would simply be no reasonable argument for Israel remaining a Jewish state 20 years from now if there were still no Palestine and Jews were in the minority in the combined land of Israel and its territories. No Zionist wants to get to that point.

This case needs to be made, and made frequently, in times of both peace and war, until we have two states. I'm talking flooding the airwaves with news show appearances and good old TV, radio and internet ads, devoted to arguing Israel's strategic interest in peace. If the world doesn't see us as sympathetic to Palestinian suffering, then instead of crying what will be perceived as crocodile tears, let's focus on the idea that a two state solution is an existential imperative for Israel, that it's the only thing that makes sense for Israeli posterity. Of course we should throw in the average Israeli's compassion for Palestinians, but illustrating the cold logic of peace would be much more effective in preventing peaceniks- often wary of any stronger party's capacity to feel- from becoming tools of Hamas and other true enemies of peace.