Scattered Work

A Narrow Path

A little over a week ago, Atlantic blogger Jeffrey Goldberg posted on why he hadn’t written more about Gaza:

I actually feel too close to this problem, a problem that symbolizes all problems. It’s true: I have friends in Gaza about whom I worry a great deal; I’ve seen many people killed in Gaza; I’ve served in the Israeli Army in Gaza; I’ve been kidnapped in Gaza; I’ve reported for years from Gaza; I hope my former army doesn’t kill the wrong people in Gaza; I hope Israeli soldiers all leave Gaza alive; I know they’ll be back in Gaza; I think this operation will work; and I have no actual hope that it will work for very long, because nothing works for very long in the Middle East. Gaza is where dreams of reconciliation go to die. Gaza is where the dream of Palestinian statehood goes to die; Gaza is where the Zionist dream might yet die.

Yesterday the New York Times published a fascinating article by Goldberg about the situation. It’s difficult reading or thinking about the conflict, because opinion has become so calcified, and the discussions involve vastly more heat than light. But Goldberg manages to elucidate the complex relationship between Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, and Iran, while offering the only seemingly plausible path to peace that I’ve heard:

The only small chance for peace today is the same chance that existed before the Gaza invasion: The moderate Arab states, Europe, the United States and, mainly, Israel, must help Hamas’s enemy, Fatah, prepare the West Bank for real freedom, and then hope that the people of Gaza, vast numbers of whom are unsympathetic to Hamas, see the West Bank as an alternative to the squalid vision of Hassan Nasrallah and Nizar Rayyan.

This political solution is in line with Fareed Zakaria’s argument that nations must be liberalized before they can be successfully democratized. Palestinian democratic elections gave us Hamas as a legitimized government. It’s clear that Hamas can neither be negotiated with nor bombed into submission. But if Palestinian government can undergo an internal liberalization, and if Israel responds with more moderation, there may be a narrow path forward.

Tags: Fareed Zakaria, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Jeffrey Goldberg