SOUTH BRUNSWICK: EDITORIAL

Deadly choices

For the moment, there is an uneasy peace in the Middle East.
As of Wednesday afternoon, a cease-fire between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, located in Gaza, has temporarily ended almost a month of bloodshed that saw more than 1,800 Palestinians and about 70 Israelis killed, with thousands more wounded.
Residents from throughout the Central New Jersey region boarded a bus last weekend to attend a march in Washington, D.C., to show support for the Palestinians and call for an end to the violence.
Several of the attendees had lost family members and friends in the fighting.
From our vantage point, many safe miles from the flare of thousands of Hamas rockets in the skies over Israel, or from the devastating air strikes and ground operations of the Israeli military in Gaza, it is hard to relate to the daily fears and dangers those living in the area feel every waking moment.
For many of us, the situation "over there" is a political question with a solution based on our individual biases.
An unscientific poll on the centraljersey.com website during the last week and a half show the people in our area almost evenly split on whom they sympathize with more.
According to the poll, answered by slightly more than 100 people as of Wednesday, 38 percent of those responding sympathized with the Israelis and 24 percent with the Palestinians.
About 15 percent do not sympathize with either side, while 13 percent feel for both sides in the conflict. Around 8 percent said they did not care about the conflict.
Although the survey is not scientific by any stretch of the imagination, it does seem to mirror other polls that show how split this nation is on the issue.
The bottom line, no matter which side you lean toward, is that both sides need to choose to live in peace before any agreement can be made.
Up until now, the choices made by both sides have been deadly.
Hamas chose to continuously bombard the Jewish state even though the majority of its rockets were destroyed or deflected by Israel’s "Iron Dome" defense system.
Israel chose to strike enemy targets inside Gaza with a relentless determination that has killed almost 2,000 and injured an estimated 12,000 more Palestinians.
In addition to the human toll, thousands of homes in Gaza now lie in rubble, displacing almost 500,000 residents, almost 25 percent of the already crowded population.
Both sides can, and have, made compelling arguments for doing what they have done.
Israel, rightly, points to the charter of Hamas from 1988, which calls for the obliteration of Israel and all of its Jewish citizens.
Hamas points to the obvious overkill deployed by Israel against targets in Gaza that have caused so much loss of life and destruction.
A true peace in this region will not come until both sides recognize each other’s humanity and make the conscious choice to lay down their arms and simply fight no more.
Both sides should make better, less deadly choices.