The practical question regarding Israel’s recent invasion of Gaza is not “Who is right?” but “Can Israel last?”

As I write, Israel is using a military designed to fight hostile countries to fight a hostile population. In the modern world, this has seldom worked. To defeat a country you destroy its military and capture its territory. But Gaza has little military to destroy, no tanks or aircraft, and Israel already owns its territory. The IDF can invade but, afterward, the population will still be there, and still be hostile. Stabbing jello doesn’t buy you much.

Israel remains a small state in a region that intensely doesn’t want it. The rights and wrongs change nothing. Again and again, Israel lashes out, lashes out, against enemies that can be defeated but never decisively. And so the bombs fall on Gaza, on Syria, on Beirut, perhaps on Iran. Each war guarantees the next: 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, 2006, 2009, world without end.

Where is this going? How long can it continue? Another fifty years? A hundred? Say I, either the country finds peace with its neighbors or it goes the way of the Crusader Kingdom. We can stipulate that the Israelis are the world’s best people, or the worst. It doesn’t matter. You can die in the right as easily as in the wrong.

The Israelis appear to be trapping themselves in their own policies. They continue their annexation of the West Bank. The settlements are now so numerous and so populous that dismantling them is probably politically impossible for any Israeli government, which rules out a two-state solution. To control a large hostile population, you need harsh methods, which keep the population hostile. Arabs outbreed the Israelis, so that a proportionately declining number of Israelis rule a slowly rising tide of Arabs. Think: South Africa. How is this going to work? For how long?

Sigh.

Benjamin:

We are not going to lie down and die just because a bunch of Jew-haters wish it so.

We believe in victory over evil. Military victory is possible, and desirable. The alternative is a new Caliphite, for if Israel falls so will the West and a horrifying dark ages will choke the civilized world.

I think it's interesting that Fenenbock mentioned American taxpayer dollars. I wish Israel every success and I hope it continues to thrive and remain healthy, but I am not comfortable with American taxpayer dollars funding the country so much. If private individuals are interested, let them go ahead and give as much as they want to Israel. But I am wary of American taxpayers supporting Israel so much, or any other country for that matter. Especially now when we are in the middle of such a massive financial crisis.