Counterstrikes are counterproductive

There is a psychological misperception message affecting response to the Israeli attack on Gaza. It mistakes the actions pushed by leaders for the needs of people who inhabit the areas involved.

In common parlance about international affairs, we often tend to refer to countries as allies or enemies, as aggressors or defenders. The tacit support of the Israeli attack upon Gaza has been met by governmental statements from the region hoping for an end to violence on all sides.

But public protest in every Near Eastern country is delivering a different message of disproportionate response, collective punishment seeking to starve the people into submission, Israeli refusal to prevent violence from the settlements, and an unconscionable willingness to treat Palestinian lives as less valuable than those of Israelis.

These demonstrators in many countries, including the U.S., are taking heed of the Palestinian message to Israel.

It says, “You ask for a cease-fire but you break it. You expect a cease-fire without any cessation of cruel deprivations that kill our children and humiliate us.

“You honor the resisters in the Warsaw ghetto uprising, but will not even talk to the resistance leaders in Palestine.

“You do not negotiate with the government we elected. You ask us not to hurl small rockets at civilians but we do not have sophisticated guidance systems and the much larger weapons you aim at Hamas leaders are killing many more civilians.”

Governmental leaders prefer to deal with other governmental leaders. They lead us into the question of what side is to blame, what group needs to be punished or taught a lesson, rather than what people are to suffer.

But in the case of Palestine, and throughout the Middle East and beyond, it is the populace from whom future perpetrators of violence will be recruited.

Retaliation has been the policy at least since 1968 and it has not succeeded in quelling violence.

The policy has isolated the Israeli government and, to a degree, the U.S. government, not as much from other government leaders as from the people in those countries.

For those in Israel, and in the United States, who would like to reduce the likelihood of violent attacks by and upon our children, the continuation of this one-sided war is not only tragic but entirely counter-productive.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Pilisuk is professor emeritus, University of California, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, Berkeley.