Around we go again

Police engineers examine the site where a rocket landed in Ashdod on Monday.

The IDF takes out a terrorist.  The rockets start to fly (more frequently than usual – they fly every day.)  Two populations run for cover, on either side of the border.  Lives are disrupted – lives are ended.    Israelis have no sympathy for those on the other side – they have none for us.   They don’t have much accuracy, so they aim for civilian areas and thankfully mostly miss.  We accurately target the rocket launchers, but inevitably hit civilians since they launch from population centers.   Everyone complains that the international news is biased against them because they report the suffering of the other side.  After a few days, a third party helps broker a cease-fire, and we go back to routine.

In the end, after all the destruction and disruption, no one has come out ahead.  The strategic situation is exactly as it was before.

It is starting to get too familiar.  Do we really still need to be doing this in 2012?

I am not saying that the IDF did not need to take out  al-Qaissi.  He was clearly a bad guy, and I believe them when they say he was planning an attack.  We also can’t just let rockets fall without a response.  It just seems to me that we have gone into reaction mode.  We have decided that there is nothing to do that could help promote peace, so we just manage the situation day to day.    Every once in awhile things escalate and then calm down, but we (especially the south) never really gets  completely quiet.

I still believe we can do better.  Despite all the ups and downs of the peace process, the two-state solution is still the best way to guarantee that there will still be a Jewish state in 50 years. Even Netanyahu has acknowledged that.   It will take leadership on both sides to make it happen, but we won’t get anywhere if we just keep blaming the other side and waiting for them to move.  In the three years of this government, there has been no movement, no peace plan presented, no initiative to break the logjam.  We have been playing defense and you can’t win the game just playing defense.

When I hear my leaders talk, I want to hear them tell me what they will do to make our lives and my children’s lives better.  I don’t just want excuses about why it’s all the other side’s fault.