Israel Gaza Conflict, difficult to resolve

When the Al Jazeera journalists were arrested and put to trial in Egypt for allegedly supporting the Moslem Brotherhood, I was filled with deep sympathy and indignation with the Egyptian government. I don't support the incarceration or persecution of news reporters. I still feel that Sisi's government should have simply deported these journalists if these allegations had some truths in them. It can still do that.

For the record, Al Jazeera has its headquarters in Doha, Qatar. The financier of Al Jazeera news broadcast again is the government of Qatar. Qatar is ruled by a monarchy. Coincidentally or otherwise, Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood is also based in Doha. Hamas formed a coalition government with Fatah in 2007 and this government is administering Gaza today. It will be helpful to note that Gaza people are predominantly Sunni Moslems.

When Hamas started firing rockets into Israel, Israel responded by firing back into Gaza. Gaza being a densely populated area, it is difficulty for Israel to solely target Hamas fighters and as a result unintended civilian deaths results. Hamas seems to be firing from the civilian entities, schools, homes and other civilian locations. With Hamas firing into Israel, I think as Israel says, any government will respond by firing back in order to deter the attack and to protect its citizens. Hamas has no army bases which Israel could easily target in order to neutralize the aggressors. But I think Al Jazeera is fueling the conflict by how it reports on the conflict. Al Jazeera goes to lengths to portray Israel as the aggressor and would seem to want the world to think Israel is committing a war crime or genocide on the Gaza people. In all the Hamas Israel conflicts it was Hamas who fired rockets into Israel first and Israel naturally had to respond always. Israel government has the duty to protect its citizens. However, when deaths and casualties increase in Gaza, Al Jazeera is quick to vilify Israel. It seems it would please Al Jazeera to have rockets fired into Israel whilst Israel does nothing in response. However whenever Israel fires back to where the rockets are coming from, given how densely populated Gaza is, and that Hamas is firing from the midst of residential areas, civilians are unfortunately harmed. Interestingly whenever Hamas stopped firing, Israel indeed stopped to, and whenever Hamas fired Israel fought back. Hamas is firing from amidst the civilians and when these get caught in the crossfire and get injured or die, Al Jazeera uses the scenes to affect the conscience of the nations, the very thing that Hamas intends. Had it not been for the sophisticated Israel defense system, the iron dome, no doubt, Israel would have suffered heavy civilian casualties, for Hamas seems to fire indiscriminately into Israel.

The conflict occur a number of times with a frequency of one in in about 1.5 years and the very last time it was the Morsi government that brokered a ceasefire in November 2012. With the Morsi's Moslem brotherhood government ousted and now that Sisi's government is not in a cordial relationship with Hamas, it has been difficult for a ceasefire to be negotiated. The new Egyptian government called for a ceasefire on July 18 which Israel heeded and stopped firing for some eight hours, but Hamas rejected the ceasefire proposal outright but continued firing into Israel until Israel resumed firing back. The onus was again on Al Jazeera to explain to the world that Hamas continued firing because it had not been formally consulted about the ceasefire. It seems then that Al Jazeera is in direct consultation with Hamas, of course with the Hamas leader, Al Meshaal resident in Doha.

I am not Israel's spokesperson, but from what I have learnt, Israel does not aim to decapitate Hamas, but wants to weaken Hamas through destroying infrastructure Hamas uses to smuggle weapons into Gaza, and to destroy military arsenal and which it has already acquired . Hamas mission is simple and concise, annihilate Israel. All arsenal Hamas accumulates are meant for attacking Israel. In Israel eyes a weakened Hamas would not continue to fire rockets into its territory.

On its part Al Jazeera has been a lot silent about the Syrian conflicts where real and serious atrocities committed daily therein by the government of Syria against its own citizens. More than 2milion people have been displaced across the Syrian border and close to 2 hundred thousand dead. Talk about double standards.

Many diplomatic efforts, it is said, are underway in the Middle East to effect a ceasefire. Israel is insisting on a cease fire with no preconditions while on the other hand Hamas wants, as a precondition, Israel to lift its blockade on Gaza and to free some of its militants who are in Israel jails. Some of these militants have earlier been freed during the Gilad Shalit deal, where the Israel government ransomed him in 2010 in exchange of 1000 prisoners from Gaza, but now some of these men are already in Israel prisons. On the other hand if Israel lifts the blockade, Hamas will get a chance to accumulate more and even deadlier arsenal to destroy Israel with. It may not look sensible for Israel to just lift the blockade without some dependable affirmations of trust or at least without some agreed guarantee of checks or inspections.

Israel considers Hamas as a terrorist organization bent on destroying Israel. Hamas considers Israel as an occupier who is occupying their land. The land is Palestine originally and both Israel and Gazaens lived in Palestine some 2 millennia's BC. Al Jazeera considers only people from Gaza as Palestinians. Wars have always been going on between the two, Gaza and Israel from time immemorial. Many people may be familiar the story of Samson and Delilah. Samson was from Israel whilst Delilah was from Gaza.

The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, has urged all sides to resort to a ceasefire that will see the roots of the conflict being addressed. The roots are deep and the divisions profound. If you dig deep the issue will more likely border on religion and will end up in Jerusalem, at the Holy Mount. The story in the bible says the God of Israel chose Temple Mount as the place for His Name to reside. With David having been shown the place by God himself, Solomon, David's son, proceeded to build a Temple there, for God, and God's throne (ark of covenant) was placed therein. This temple got destroyed partially by Babylonians around 600BC as punishment for conforming to surrounding nations in worshipping idols, and failing to honor the stipulated seventh year Sabbaths. It was however rebuilt 70 years later though, with diminished splendor though, but was then destroyed completely by the Romans in 70AD, as if by design, to almost leaving no trace that there was once a House there. However the eastern wall of the Temple foundation is still conspicuous up to now. All Jews were sent then sent to exile all over the world after both Jerusalem and the temple fell in 70AD as punishment for failing to recognize and therefore honor the most sacred visitor to their land. After the gruesome Hitler's holocaust, United Nations voted in 1948AD on a resolution to create a state of Israel, still in Palestine. When Jews went back to their land they found it not completely vacant, and on the same Holy Mount, now stood a Muslim Dome of the Rock and an Al Aqsa Mosque, the third Muslim holiest site. However the Jews formed a secular government and Jerusalem was split into east and west Jerusalem with the Muslims administering the Temple Mount and therefore east Jerusalem.

The Quran does not mention Jerusalem *per se*, but mentions once, of the furthest Mosque and Muslims equate the Temple Mount as the place where their prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven from. Even though it is their third holiest site, there is some incomprehensible sensitivity with which Moslems treats this site, like there is an invisible hand behind. But accusations have been that Muslims are often seen kicking ball at the Holy Mount. Jews are left only with the Wailing Wall. According to the Jews' scriptures, Temple Mount has never belonged to the Jews, it belongs to their God. To some extent even the land belongs to their God. If one buys land from a co-Israeli, he should give it back free to the seller in the year of jubilee, the 50th year. The only benefit he derives from the land is only what the land yields, the crops.

Religion is something that people hold fundamentally and sensitively. Religion manifest directly often, as people's culture, or as an appendage to culture or culture as an appendage to religion. Whatever the cause of religion, people are ready to die for it. So solving conflicts with religious dimensions is extremely difficult for secular or atheistic world leaders. They see with eyes of men and some essential matters may be elusive to them. If God gave to inhabit, the same land to both Ishmael and Israel, then I guess there should be a good reason for him to have done that. But if he gives them the same land and gives them mutually exclusive religions and therefore different cultures then another logical conclusion will be that it may not be a same god but two different gods vying for the same land.

Only time will see the conflict resolved correctly and justly, in the meantime, world and regional leaders can only treat the symptoms of the Israel Gaza conflict, thereby alleviating human misery by temporary solutions.