I would like to offer a corrective to the “Paw Patrol” vision of global conflict in the letter “Cease-fire won’t work in Gaza” (Dec. 24, TribLive). The writer invokes the term “bad guys” multiple times, without identifying who the “bad guys” are and why they keep fighting Israel. The reason groups like Hamas exist is because Israel is an apartheid ethnostate. Like other apartheid states, it is extremely violent. This violence then creates its own violent resistance.
The only way to get rid of these “bad guys” is to stop creating them through violence. This means, like in South Africa, an end to apartheid. It means, like in Ireland, power sharing and an end to ethnonationalism. And like in these places, as soon as the state violence ceases, so does the guerilla warfare and terrorism. If Israel stops being an apartheid ethnostate, it will stop meeting resistance from the people it is doing violence to.
For those interested in learning more, I recommend a crash course on the issue through renowned Israeli scholar Ilan Pappe’s excellent “Ten Myths About Israel.”
Joe Hogle
Troy Hill