The Flotilla

So many political posts in a row. I guess I'm a very political person. And yes, although I have not dedicated a long post to the current crisis about the aid flotilla sailing to Gaza, I do have strong opinions about it. I believe Israel is completely wrong to have attacked the flotilla with such overwhelming force. I do not believe that the Turkish volunteers were completely peaceful either as the video shows quite clearly.

I believe in the right of Israel to exist and I also believe that the Palestinians deserve their own, absolutely viable state. Which means no open-air prisons and Bantustans like Gaza. The more I think about it, the more I think that the first post-independence Indian leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru got it right. Opposing the partition of Palestine, they hoped for the establishment of a bi-national secular state. This was radical in its day and is still radical today. I doubt whether the votaries of either a Jewish state or a Palestinian state will go in for a wholly secular single state. In the end, though, this is the only lasting solution to the problem. It may be a pipe dream right now, but the alternative is either a Lebanon-like disaster (which is what happens when you try to create a multi-ethnic state based on religious hedging of bets rather than outright secularism) or else a continuous state of war. And Israel will only continue to win that war while her chief patron, the United States, remains strong. Unfortunately, the chief patron is going through a severe economic recession. There may not be much money left to protect clients in the near-term future. And I don't think China is going to step in anytime soon to fill the budget gap. Besides, as the state of Pakistan should make clear to Israel, one shouldn't base one's existence on one's indispensability as a client state.