Israel has been at the center of American media the last few days, as it has been retaliating to attacks from Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Earlier this week, Hamas fired a barrage of about 200 rockets into Israel, prompting the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to launch air strikes into the Gaza Strip. A top-ranking Palestinian military leader was killed in one attack, pushing the Egyptian government to withdraw its ambassador from Israel. The rising tensions surrounding this conflict beg the question, "who's the aggressor?" Is it right for Israel to respond to the rocket strikes with air power, even if civilians are killed in the attacks? Although this may be the influence of the Western, generally pro-Israeli media, it seems to me that the Israeli counter attack is justified. The Palestinians launched a large number of missiles into their nation- if any country attacked the United States in this manner, war would be declared immediately. While the collateral damage is regrettable, Hamas intentionally places its rocket launchers nearby residencies, hospitals, and schools, which takes some of the blame off of the Israelis. The blood of the Palestinian civilians is on the hands of Hamas, not the IDF.
Fears of a full scale ground war have begun stirring, and the last hopes for the "two state solution" (creating a sovereign Palestinian state) to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are fading. This conflict, which has been raging since the creation of Israel, is ideological in nature. Therefore, diplomatic solutions are unlikely to begin with. Add the recent exchange of rockets and bombs, and war seems inevitable. But what would be the consequences of such a conflict? The world has seen the efficiency and power of the IDF before, and given the continued support of the United States, it will be as strong as ever. However, an invasion of the Gaza Strip would ignite tensions in the Middle East, isolating Israel and, by association, the United States. This would be a disaster for the future of American foreign policy. Now is the time to be building alliances with post-revolutionary governments, but instead the United States is at odds with new governments like that of Egypt because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If war breaks out, those relationships will sour entirely. War benefits no nation in this scenario: Israel would easily win but would face fresh hostility from an enraged and already unstable Middle East (with a possibly soon-to-be nuclear Iran), Hamas would be seriously weakened if not destroyed by the conflict, and the United States would suffer massive diplomatic losses. This is an example of a conflict without a possibility for a positive outcome, and thus it must be avoided at all costs. This will likely require serious effort and cooperation by Israel and Hamas, with the United States, Egypt, and the United Nations working between the two governments to try and achieve a ceasefire.