The long anticipated IDF ground operation in Gaza has commenced. At this point there is little hard fact news about what they have done or are doing. It is unlikely that there will be any such data for a while. We can only hope that they are able to locate and release all the hostages while carrying out their mission to destroy the military capability of Hamas.
But there is another subject that can be discussed. What will Gaza look like after this is all over? Israel has been quite clear that there will be NO permanent IDF presence in Gaza. If Hamas is gone, there will be a vacuum. Someone will fill it. History has few examples of what happens when a ruling government is completely removed. None are very promising. The aftermath of the American Civil War doesn’t make a good role-model. Neither does the occupation of Nazi Germany. In neither case was there a full, or nearly full, withdrawal of the occupying forces. In both, there was an extended period of rebuilding and re-educating the population.
On the subject of education, it’s worth remembering that Hamas has controlled it for almost a generation. The textbooks (and teachers) were mostly paid for by the UN, The curriculum focused on teaching hate. The object of that hate was not just Israel. It mostly aimed against Jews. The UN was fully complicit in this arrangement. The content that was being taught was presented to the members on more than one occasion. They did nothing. Every vote to continue funding UNRWA meant funds were available to HAMAS to arm terrorists. Possibly the worst indictment of the UN funded education for young Gazans is the vest camera forage taken from the body of one of those terrorist murderers showing how he tried to chop off the head of one of his victims with a sort of shortened garden hoe. And just to add fuel to this fire let me note that the victim in question wasn’t an Israeli Jew. He was a citizen of Thailand that had come on contract to work in agriculture in Israel.
Wetherhorn 