The Gaza pier shows America's approach to the war is tone-deaf - opinion

The United States has differentiated itself from past empires by having no intention of colonizing other countries and people. Remarkably, it has helped billions of people with aid programs meant to feed, clothe, and heal the suffering nations of the world. While every country works out of self-interest, America has uniquely helped tens of other nations in all areas, including their national defense. 

Without American aid, Germany could never have recovered from its World War II losses. Even though Germany had been an enemy, the US Marshall Plan helped it rebuild and turn into the healthy and functioning nation it is today. When the horrific AIDS plague rampaged through Africa, killing millions every year, the US generously donated billions resulting. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel was dangerously close to running out of ammunition and supplies. Disaster was averted by an emergency airlift that the US conducted for weeks. 

America has changed the world through its innovation and creativity. Former president Barack Obama remarked, “The key to our success – as it has always been – will be to compete by developing new products, by generating new industries, by maintaining our role as the world’s engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation. It’s absolutely essential to our future.” 

His White House released a strategy on innovation that declared, “The social gains from innovations typically greatly exceed the private return. For example, the inventions of the telephone, transistor, light bulb, dishwasher, laser, CT scan, web browser, and antibiotics have all had enormous, broad, and ongoing social benefits far in excess of any commercial profits enjoyed by the original creators. General estimates suggest that the private profits from an innovation typically account for a tiny fraction – a few percent – of the social value.”

The United States has been able to change the world with innovations researched and developed by its military. The best known of these world-changing inventions has been the Internet. Not far behind is the Global Positioning System (PS)  which has saved countless lives by helping deliver aid in more efficient ways and assists the average person in reaching their destinations without getting lost or asking for directions. 

Inventor Eli Whitney (18th-19th century) created interchangeable parts and was financed by the American Congress to build muskets. Although the average person isn’t as aware of the difference interchangeable parts made to the world as much as the Internet or GPS, it had as much of an influence on world events. 

The United States has not used its military solely for defensive purposes. It was one of the first nations to repurpose its army as a social engine to help improve the world. American presidents have sent troops around the world to solve global problems. Many solutions require hundreds and even thousands of highly skilled people working in tandem and the military is perfect for these kinds of tasks. Another problem soldiers are perfect at solving is those that require a war to rid the world of a dictator who is terrorizing their people. 

In both World War I and WWII, Europe faced a menacing threat from Germany. With fanatical leaders set on conquering all of Europe, Germany seemed on its way to victory and could even have become a world-dominating power. It was only US military intervention that stopped Germany. The same was true of Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian dictator who ruined his people’s lives and spread drugs around the world. American troops invaded Panama and arrested Noriega, and today it is a flourishing country. South Korea also owes its freedom and prosperity to tens of thousands of American soldiers.

Although until recently, America had never used its military to solve the Israel-Arab-Palestinian conflict, it has spent over seven decades trying to intervene and solve the conflicts that plague Israel and its neighbors. Even before declaring independence, Israel faced pressure from president Harry Truman not to declare their state as he tried to work out a peace deal with the Arab countries. Since Truman, every administration has intervened through pressure, incentives, and even begging for the improvement of relations between Israel and the Palestinians. 

To date, all of these efforts have failed. Israel is grateful for America’s military aid, its past economic aid, and its diplomatic shield at the United Nations. However, the Israelis are less appreciative of the US’s constant pressure to give concessions to Arabs and Palestinians  – who are clearly not interested in peace with Israel – in failed peace process after failed peace process. 

A steep cost for little gain

In its most recent intervention in the region to improve the situation, the US has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to construct and repeatedly repair a pier its military built off the coast of Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Recently, the Pentagon announced the floating pier was being dismantled due to weather. Evidently, a pier built for the sea can’t handle rain, wind, and waves. Due to the security situation in Gaza – Hamas keeps stealing humanitarian aid and shooting Palestinians who want to eat – aid groups have stopped their work and might not return. This would make the pier pointless and American officials have said they wouldn’t rebuild it. 

From the outset, when President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken started floating the idea (pun intended) of building a floating pier off the coast of Gaza, Israelis scoffed at the idea. The US vowed not to put any “boots on the ground,” which doomed the project before it even got underway. Israelis saw the pier as yet another bound-to-fail American intervention in the Middle East. 

Whether or not the floating pier was waterproof was beside the point. Palestinians in Gaza have consistently demonstrated that they will resist attempts to help themselves. After years of watching Hamas siphoning off aid in Gaza to build terror tunnels and Palestinian Authority (PA)  resident Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies embezzling foreign aid to enrich themselves, it was predictable that building a floating pier to bring aid into Gaza was going to fail.

The current and all future American administrations should learn a lesson from the failure of the floating pier. Successfully changing circumstances, whether to feed people or end a violent conflict, can only come by studying the issue from a local perspective. Projecting a Western mindset, based on Western values onto a people with a different perspective and values is doomed to fail. 

Successful mediation of an end to the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian conflict will require US officials to understand the perspective of the players in the conflict and construct a strategy around the values of the people involved, not their own.

The writer is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and the mayor of Mitzpe Yeriho, Israel. She lives with her husband and six children.