STATES OF DENIAL

Two weeks ago Hamas fighters crossed the border from Gaza to Israel and committed atrocities on the innocent people there, men, women, and children as young as infants. Some twelve hundred souls were sent packing from their bodies.

Another couple of hundred were roughly placed on the road to Gaza in their new roles as hostages, human shields, and PR pawns.

Israel's Defense Force went to work, blasting buildings in vast, seemingly random projects of radical urban renewal, leaving ruins everywhere in Gaza City.

Immediately folks took to the streets across the globe to protest this action, the inciting events having been sent to the purgatory of yesterday's news.

Prompting the question: What should Israel have done in response to the (let's face it, barbaric) attacks by Hamas?

Let's look at the options:

1. Do nothing.

Just why they would take this option breaks down into two camps:

a) Israel had it coming. Nothing the Hamas fighters could have done would not have been perfectly legitimate activity in payback to any number of high-handed actions taken by Israel over the years, including grabbing the country of Palestine and hiding it beneath an entirely new country meant to be a homeland for the Jews of the world.

Many folks in the region seem to fall into this camp.

Or b) In a noble effort to end the tit-for-tat pattern of action/reaction, Israel might take the impossibly high road by simply not reacting to this egregious assault. Take one for the team, as it were, to open the way for new dialogue aimed at solving the Palestinian problem once and for all.

(As if there were a country in this world populated by human beings that Zen-like and mature.)

Since it's too late to take option one, let's move on:

2. Stop the bombing.

After a sustained two-week long spasm of vengeful and destructive action, Israel should now stand down. Moving to option 1b above, Israel could forgo any further damage in hopes that a new dialogue could now begin, the air having been cleared, etc.

This seems unlikely. What's been cleared is the path for a ground war, and it's likely that is what's going to be the future for Gaza. The only hope now is that the ground war can be fought in the most humane way possible, with the utmost care taken to support the almost entirely innocent civilian population. To make that work, the IDF would need to set up massive aid programs, running parallel to their hunt for Hamas fighters and leaders.

Will they take that effort? The US will probably insist, though the results are likely to be underwhelming. And the world will continue to grumble.

More options:

1) Hamas is targeted for destruction. Israel aims to kill every last one of those guys, to end forever the threat hanging over its head.

The problem there is that killing every member of the group is not enough. You have to eradicate the very idea of Hamas, lest it be rebuilt from the ground up. (With unlimited support from Iran.)

Even harder, you have to end the need for Hamas to exist, and that can only happen if a full and lasting solution to the Palestinian question can be achieved.

2) Hamas is allowed to survive. Unfortunately, Israel is in no mood to live with this option, no matter how the decision room is populated by so-called adults.

In fact, a long and protracted ground war is planned, one that will last many months. Can a build-up of US military power clamp down the region until Israel finishes its work?

Does the world have enough patience to let things play out? Probably not.

Despite treaties with some adjacent Arab nations, agreeing to the right of Israel to exist, everything might change in the face of long-term Israeli destructive action in Gaza. The war could widen until it becomes downright Biblical.

(I will remind you that some evangelical Christian groups in the US support Israel because they expect Armageddon to be started there. End Times, baby!)

The one thing that might keep this war from expanding uncontrollably would be to have an end-game solution simultaneously in the works.

(I'm trying to avoid the phrase "final solution.")

What could such a solution look like?

It would almost certainly have to be a Two-State solution that fundamentally restructures the region.

Imagine this: A census of the area, counting up all Jews and Palestinians. Then two new countries are formed, divvying the land in equal shares between the two groups.

Perhaps surrounding Muslim countries could contribute land of their own, to fatten the prize before partitioning.

Jerusalem could sit on the border, an open city available to all—Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druids, Zoroastrians, and so forth: a religious GTA free-for-all.

(Can you smell the smoke from the opium pipe from where you are?)

Israel, of course, would never agree to such a plan. Her Muslim neighbors might, but if the choice was between a two-state solution and a one-state solution (Palestine only), I think we know how things would go.

Basically, the continued existence of Israel depends on the willingness of the US to back it fully in whatever it wants to do. How long can that continue?

Perhaps all the way until Iran becomes a nuclear power.

Armageddon is starting to sound pretty good right about now. Two bad there's no actual reward for getting through it.

Just a radioactive wasteland populated by road warriors and hairy mutants.

Maybe Israel should set its sights on Mars.