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Refugee camps are temporary solutions that quickly and almost inevitably become huge long-term problems unless those displaced people find permanent homes and can get on with their lives.

Gaza has essentially been a refugee camp since 1948  — which is a problem the Palestinians’ supposed allies in the region have not done much to help solve.

Palestinian terrorists attacked Israel and kidnapped some its citizens with the clear intention of provoking a violent response, of starting war. But, waging a conventional war (e.g. bombing suspected “military” targets) against terrorists tends to be a bad idea. Terrorists want lots of civilian casualties and don’t much care whether those casualties are Palestinian or Israeli.

Unless it can be conclusively shown that Palestinian terrorists were culpable for that specific incident, almost every Palestinian civilian casualty generates sympathy for the Palestinians and recruits for the terrorists.

Because publicity given the horrors of the war in Gaza tends to generate sympathy for the Palestinians and seems to hurt Israel, the Israelis have been tempted to try to control the press. But that’s almost certainly a mistake. The truth is one of the greatest weapons democracies have against tyranny and terrorism.

Many seem to think the solution to the present crisis must include the creation of a Palestinian state — bordering on the Jewish state of Israel, surrounded by various Islamic states. And that may indeed be part of the least bad solution.  

But the idea that each and every religious sect, each linguistic and/or ethnic group should have its own country is extremely problematic.  Few countries are religiously and/or ethnically homogenous .And, frankly, no state should be. Ethnic cleansing is an abomination that should be discouraged, not encouraged. 

For one thing, some Palestinians are Christian. Sunni and Shia are the best known antagonistic factions in the Muslim world, but there are many others. Differences between various Jewish sects are a source of tension in Israel.  The Troubles was a war between Irish Catholics and Protestants. 

One of Putin’s excuses for invading Ukraine was that there are ethnic Russians living there.  Wars and refugee crises in Africa and southeast Asia usually have an ethnic or tribal component. And many of the illegal and legal immigrants so resented here in the U.S. fled conflicts, drug cartels and/or rampant crime in their native lands.

All too often, preserving one’s cultural heritage or the minutia of a sect’s religious beliefs is used as an excuse to kill one’s neighbors.

So I repeat, there’s no such thing as good racism.  Everyone’s cultural heritage is a choice. And for example, you don’t have to be Indian to identify with the teachings of yoga.

Mark Holmboe,  Rockford