Deroy Murdock: What if Gaza were San Diego instead?

TO UNDERSTAND why Israel fights in the Gaza Strip, try this thought experiment:

Imagine that Mexicans loudly and violently demand that America vacate the territory that Mexico previously controlled in the U.S. Southwest. To make their case, Mexican revanchists brutally attack American diplomatic posts, assassinate U.S. officials, and even kidnap and kill American athletes at the summer Olympics. Despite such bloodshed, these Mexicans gain supporters among anti-American governments and elites worldwide.

Caving into this pressure, America gives the Mexicans San Diego. Dubbed “Land for Peace,” Washington’s concession would let Mexicans manage that city and show how they might govern if granted a “right of return” on even larger, previously Mexican lands.

While most Americans leave San Diego quietly, the U.S. military ejects holdouts from their property and removes them just before the Mexicans move in.

San Diego’s Mexican citizens soon reject the comparatively tame Institutional Revolutionary Party and elect leaders from the radical Zapatista Army of National Liberation. As its recent communiqué declares: “The anti-capitalist struggle below and to the left continues.”

Before long, the Zapatistas start firing rockets into surrounding areas. 

More