Politics and control

The situation is worse around Israel; it pretty bad in other parts of the world, too. North, south and east of Israel are Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank (of the Jordan River). Lebanon experienced a lengthy civil war during which American, Iranian, Israeli, Syrian, United Nations and various Lebanese factions had militias, spies and troops operated on Lebanese soil. Most foreign troops have left and home grown Hizbullah (Party of God) of Shiite militias and politicians are now dominant, more dominant than Lebanon's Army. Israel occupied and evacuated from Gaza and various parts of the West Bank. The evacuated parts are "governed" by the Palestinian Authority. Yet the Palestinian police is just one force among many which carry and have access to guns and other weapons; Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) is so strong it garnered the most votes in the last election, formed the majority in the Palestinian parliament and paid its own militias. All the rest of the world, where the governing party governs with a minority of seats in parliament or where the president of the governing party has to live with a parliament headed by a speaker or a prime minister belonging to an opposition party can rest easy, can rest easy--at least the governing party controls the military. Imagine in Gaza or in Lebanon, neither the Palestinian President nor the Lebanese President controls all the police and soldiers in his country. Even so, they are the people who has to face the Israeli Defense Force when Hizbullah or Hamas attacked Israel. Sigh.