Does Israel have the right to invade Gaza?

Yesterday, Israel launched a land campaign into Gaza.  This is after Hamas has fired over 350 rockets into Israel.  Israel has responded with limited, targeted air strikes; but enough was enough, and so yesterday – the ground war began.

Just so everyone is clear; I am a supporter of Israel, as a internationally recognized country, they have the right; nay, they have the duty to protect their citizens.  I am not trying to solve the problem, I am merely trying to get a better understanding and ask some questions.

I often hear on the news that the basic issue is that the Palestinians do not have a “home.”  I don’t think that is the root issue.  Throughout history, Israel and Palestine have gone back and forth, See the Historical Atlas of Israel-Palestine. For our purposes, lets start from 1516 – 1918; when Palestine* was part of the Ottoman Empire.  In 1922, the area of Palestine was placed under a British Mandate by the League of Nations.  Britain was called upon to begin facilitating the creation of a Jewish state within Palestine.  Within the year, the League of Nations and Britain agreed that it would not be East of the Jordan River.  In 1923, the Palestinian area was split in two at the Jordan river.  East of the Jordan became the British Mandate  of Transjordan, while the Western half was called Western Palestine.  In 1946 Transjordan was given its independence.

In November of 1947, the United Nations adopted a resolution to partition Western Palestine into two areas, one Arab and one Jewish. What I found interesting when performing my research for this is that the Jewish population approved of the plan, while the Arab population rejected it. Shortly after the resolution is adopted, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Transjordan invade the areas allocated to Israel by the U.N. to “exterminate” the Jews.  As history has shown, Israel survived this attack.  The Arab state in Western Palestine is never created, Instead Transjordan seized most of the land granted the Arabs for their nation.  The area not seized by Transjordan (the Gaza Strip) was seized by Egypt. An interesting note, Arabs that find themselves within the confines of Israel are given Israeli citizenship, 700,000 others flee from Israel. There are many wars that follow until 1978, when Egypt, Israel, and the USA agree.  The Sinai is returned to Egypt and a Palestinian area is planned for the West Bank. In 1993 the Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) was the main organization for the Palestine Authority, which oversaw Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.  In December 2012, the U.N. recognized the state of Palestine, which encompasses the area of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Now that we are done with our brief history lesson (there is much left out for brevity), let’s get back to the question at hand.  Does Israel have the right to invade the Gaza Strip?  We have established that Israel has the right to defend itself.  But why is a legitimately elected political faction (Hamas) attacking Israel using such indiscriminate means?  Hamas was founded in 1987 by Islamic activists in Gaza as an alternative to the P.L.O.  Their charter calls for an Islamic-based Palestinian state for all of what was Western Palestine.  Hamas leaders developed networks of social services which the P.L.O. were unable to organize, as such Hamas leaders are seen as being less corrupt. How should we make the determination?  John O’Sullivan has a pretty good measurement: “A Terrorist is a man who murders indiscriminately, distinguishing neither between civilian and innocent and guilty nor soldier and civilian.”  Terrorism he goes on to say, is a tactic, not ultimate goals.  Until Hamas stops employing indiscriminate violence, they should be labeled as terrorists and treated accordingly.

I ran across an interesting article in the Economist about why Hamas fires rockets.  I do not agree with the article, if Hamas was running a legitimate government, they would use other methods, not indiscriminate attacks on a civilian population.

In my opinion: Yes – Israel is fully justified, the US would do the same thing if Mexico launched rockets into San Diego.

* The name of Palestine (as a geographic area) ceased to exist during the Roman Empire, The term Palestine was not used to represent a geographical area until after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the end of W.W.I.