The key lesson is the same one that allowed 9/11 to happen. If you allow chaos to function, radical armed groups will fill the void and create their own sense of order in the disorder.
Let us start with Central America. Honduras suffered dearly from a hurricane in the late 1990's. The economy contracted severely and the 1st rush of undocumented immigrants from Central America began. A coup followed and exacerbated the economic collapse. Gangs developed in this void. Gangs, doing what gangs do, figured out how to use racketeering and drug smuggling to provide their money to pay for their life style. Without any hope from legitimate economic activity, the power of the gangs grew as the traditional sources of personal security collapsed. This has now led to the onslaught of children trying to get into the United States under the guise of the anti-child trafficking legislation. The new story focused on Honduras, but I am sure if a reported dug into the details of El Salvador (which used to be one of the star economies of this region) and Nicaragua, the details would end with a similar cause and effect.
This is where foreign aid, one of the original targets for reduction by Tea Party types, can help. If the U.S. had used foreign aid more aggressively to help Honduras in the aftermath of the hurricane, perhaps the economy would not have collapsed and then we would not have the flood of immigrant children that has the Tea Party types so upset.
Now the U.S. does provide plenty of foreign aid to Israel, Jordan and Egypt. That has not stopped chaos from developing on the ground in-between them, but I am not sure more foreign aid would have made a difference there unless it somehow could have been used to improve the Palestine economy and hope for a better life in the future.
This is Israel's challenge. Over 50% of the population of Gaza is under age 18. They have no hope as Gaza is essentially an open aired concentration camp with an economy that keeps getting ruined by the actions of Hamas and Israel's justified response to Hamas. When the Egyptians and Saudi's are rooting Israel on, you know that Hamas has no basis for Israel to be friends with it. Not that Hamas wants to be friend with Israel.
However, Israel must find a way to create hope for the young Palestinians or they will be open to radicalization by Hamas and their kind. And that will only happen if Israel can reward the moderate PLO with a state on the West Bank and provide assistance in developing the economy there. Otherwise, Israel will have chaos on its border and hope will be forever extinguished for young Palestinians.
Without an economy, chaos develops, hope is nonexistent and young people do what young people do, they look for a way to improve their circumstances or they become so angry they become militants.
Successful economies must do what they can to provide hope for young people, not only in their own country, but in countries where the young people can have an effect on the citizens of the successful economy. There is no alternative to this because chaos will fill any void in hope.
That is the common lesson from Central America to Gaza.
Now I know that neither the PLO nor Hamas have been great negotiating entities for Israel, but they represent the Palestinians and Israel has to deal with what they've got. The chaos must end and fostering a Palestine state on the West Bank boosting the moderate PLO is the only way to get the radicalized masses in Gaza to abandon Hamas.
Boosting the PLO means ending and shrinking the West Bank settlements and helping the Palestine economy. Israel can have all the security they want, but if Israel has a never ending source of radicalized young people without hope in Palestine, all there will be is chaos on the border and a declining level of intentional support because the successful nation state always bears the responsibility for being the grown up and creating/maintaining an economy that is successful enough to not foster chaos.
The following articles stimulated this thought.
Thomas Friedman on How This War Ends
Roger Cohen on Global Reaction to Gaza
News Article on Honduras
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