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This is a nice point by Daniel Levy:
We also frequently hear the claim - what would America do if it came under rocket fire from Canada or Mexico? Again, there can be no justification for rockets targeting Israel's south, and of course America would respond if it were under fire from Canada or Mexico. But let's at least complete the analogy and here is that bigger picture. Gaza constitutes under 6 percent of the '67 territory in which a Palestinian state is supposed to be created (Gaza, West Bank, Palestinian East Jerusalem), about 94 percent remains under occupation so under our scenario 94 percent of Canada or Mexico would have remained under a 40 plus year American occupation with settlements and roadblocks, and with the "liberated" 6 percent still under siege. Now I like the Mexicans and Canadians as much as the next person but is it totally inconceivable that under such circumstances some of them would have formed hardline armed groups that would even become very popular and use that 6 percent of territory to launch attacks against America? I will leave it to your imagination.No analogy, of course, can quite convey they texture of the fear and anger and grievance that inhabits the Israel/Palestine conflict. This metaphor, for instance, doesn't have room for the Six Day War, or the Yom Kippur War, or all the rest. But we have a tendency to be exquisitely sensitive to Israeli grievance and aggressively unaware of the Palestinian narrative. The comparison to Mexico or Canada is part of that. And you very rarely hear converse analogy: If the United States was under occupation and economic blockade, would Americans not violently resist? In these conversations, I always end up back at Aaron David Miller's insight: It is very hard to reconcile the interests of a threatened nation and an occupied one. But it is impossible if you only understand the interests of the threatened and refuse to admit the grievances of the occupied. As Levy concludes, "American politicians need to find a language that at the same time is both staunchly supportive of Israel and its security but also able to convincingly empathize with the Palestinians and their predicament." Without that, you can't broker peace. All you can do is take sides.
