Happy (C)hannukah! On a lighter note...

-Professor: "Has anyone been keeping up with what's going on with Gaza these days?"
-general nods all around and a few feeble "yah"s
-Professor: "Well, there's going to be a war; you might as well know why and what's going on."

This is how this evening's From Che Guevara to Osama bin Laden: The International Maze of Terrorism and Guerilla Warfare (got all that?) seminar started off tonight.

Coincidentally, my friend e-mailed me this article this morning about Mubarak's lack of action against the Israeli siege on Gaza.

My professor explained that Hamas has been shooting rockets from Gaza into neighboring Israeli neighborhoods like Sderot even during the so-called truce. He said that everyone was just waiting for that "strategic missile" that will end up killing 10 or more Israelis (he's quite blunt-he said "we're just waiting for one to hit a nursery school.") Then, the process of gradual escalation will have begun, and soon, there will be a full-scale attack by the IDF into Gaza. According to him, this will (finally) be the elimination of Hamas leadership in Gaza.

Maybe you can eliminate the leaders, but the ideas will remain. If not Hamas, won't it be someone else?

He told us that 45 rockets had been launched into southern Israel in the last 48 hours.

"We are living in an insane reality. Enough is enough."

He angrily asked us, "What other country would tolerate missiles aimed at its cities?". He likened the scenario to Mexico shooting rockets to American border cities. He asked, "What would America do if this happened to you?" The answer is obvious.

He lamented that the Israeli government had let Hamas get as powerful as it is in Gaza right now, and compared the situation in Gaza to the one in Afghanistan.

However, he said he would never support an attack on Gaza without a solid and clear exit policy. No more Iraqs or Vietnams. He proposed that the Saudis invest in Gaza or that there be an international economic aid plan, though this will be difficult especially with the world economy slowly crumbling right now.

While he was saying all this, I was furiously writing away in my planner with little quotes of his with plans to write about it later, and he told me that he felt like he was being watched by Human Rights Watch-I wondered how he knew what my politics were anyway? I guess he realized this because he tempered this later by calling me the C.I.A.

His spiel reminded me of something else that is quite interesting: my Palestinian history professor has been telling us for quite some time that this coming January elections for the Palestinian Authority are going to be an extremely tense and volatile period; Mahmoud Abbas (current President of the PA) was/will be re-elected by Fatah, but Hamas in Gaza does not recognize his re-election. Hamas is threatening to elect separate leadership for Gaza thereby splitting the Palestinian people both physically and ideologically.

This professor has also been telling us all along that the time is ripe for a third Intifada-if not a civil war, and , and these January elections will act as the catalyst. This Intifada won't be against Israelis in actuality, but against them in practicality just to unite the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank together against a common cause.

But now, in the light of recent events, I wonder how this will affect the January elections?