There’s one fundamental fact on the ground that answers the question: if
Israel doesn’t go this far, if Israel doesn’t wipe out Hamas— not just defeat it, but destroy it— then the
terrorists live to massacre more Israelis another day. That’s not just reckless
speculation. A member of the Hamas leadership told Lebanese television two
weeks into the war, “There will be a second, a third, a fourth” attack.
The bitterness, the hate—
worse with every day— will take generations to die.
I can’t watch what’s happening in Gaza without heartache.
Without sympathy. Without pity. The message of every photograph from the war
zone is, even if they’ve survived the bombs and the bullets, these people are
left with nothing. It’s not their
fault. Hamas is not their fault. Reliable polls suggest that the
mass of the two million Palestinians in Gaza never embraced the ideology of
the terrorists who’ve ruled them for a decade-and-a-half. Yet everyone— every
man, woman, and child, the young and the elderly, the healthy and the infirm—
is suffering at every level. These poor souls have
been caught in the crossfire of the war Hamas started. That’s why I also
can’t watch without asking, is it necessary? It’s not a matter of equating
death tolls— Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis on October 7th while the toll in
Gaza moves toward 12,000— but I can’t watch without wondering, does it have
to be this bad? It would be easy to
conclude from the catastrophic consequences of Israel’s attacks— albeit under
the banner of self-defense— that Israel has gone too far. The Israelis
themselves have to be wrestling with this because on top of its human toll,
their response to October 7th is costing them years of hard-won goodwill that
is now, at least for the foreseeable future, evaporating. But is it necessary, or has it gone too far? There’s one fundamental fact on the ground that answers the question: if Israel doesn’t go this far, if Israel doesn’t wipe out Hamas— not just defeat it, but destroy it— then the terrorists live to massacre more Israelis another day. That’s not just reckless speculation. A member of the Hamas leadership told Lebanese television two weeks into the war, “There will be a second, a third, a fourth” attack. In an email dialogue a
couple of days ago, a Jewish friend in California wrote this: “There can be
no peace when extermination of, dehumanization of, or violence towards any
group… remains an operating principle on the part of any group.” He could be
speaking of Hamas, he could be speaking of Israel. After decades of violence
between Palestinians and Jews, Israel has been harsh with Palestinians in
both Gaza and the West Bank in the interests of its own citizens’ security.
But the byproduct of its policies is, they have dehumanized those Palestinian
populations. Fair-minded people won’t dispute this. But fair-minded people also won’t dispute the cause of this current war: the terrorist organization Hamas. Hamas didn’t just start the war, they wanted it. After examining materials captured or intercepted from Hamas, both The Washington Post and The New York Times this weekend reported that it was the terror group’s aim “to strike a blow of historic proportions, in the expectation that their actions would compel an overwhelming Israeli response.” Evidently what Hamas hoped for was a rupture in the developing relationships between Israel and several Arab nations, and a rupture in any plans to create an independent Palestinian state that would live in harmony with Israel. For now, they’ve attained their wish. When Israel struck back with fury, they got what they wanted. “We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table,” one Hamas leader told The Times. Another, the one who spoke with Lebanese TV, said, “Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.” Proud, to be perfectly clear, to sacrifice their own people. Arguably, that’s where the blame lies. It also lies in the
terrorists’ tactics. They hide themselves behind schools and hospitals and in
the bowels of residential blocks of apartments. CNN just obtained video of a
man holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher right in front of the Al-Quds
hospital in Gaza City. It’s a tragic equation to compute but Hamas can’t be destroyed without collateral cost. Calamitous collateral cost. It hurts to say it but the reality is, if Israel is fighting what it considers an existential war against an enemy like this, there is no way to spare the innocent. But Hamas is making the same kind of calculation: people
have to die if they are to beat the enemy in this war. In this case though,
it’s their own people. Indisputably, reports from hospitals are
horrific. The Palestinian Health Ministry said that as of Sunday, two heart
patients and three babies had died because fuel at Gaza’s main hospital
finally had run out. U.S. National Security spokesman John Kirby brought up
the innocent babies when he said yesterday, “They have no voice, have no
stake in this and just want to survive.” But who’s to blame? Hamas blames
Israel, but that ignores the obvious: it still has plenty enough fuel to
power its tunnels and fire its rockets and all the rest. Arguably, that’s where the blame lies. We should never speak
of the suffering in the Gaza Strip without also speaking of the October 7th
massacre in Israel. Atrocities like a fetus cut out of the belly of a
pregnant woman. Other women raped in their homes. Parents shot point-blank in
front of their children, children killed in front of their parents. 1,200
murdered. 245 kidnapped. More than 20 still held hostage are kids. One is
just three years old. His parents died in the massacre. This is why Israel is
doing what it’s doing. It’s not as if it has no choice, but the choice is
agonizing: either alleviate its attacks and let Hamas live to murder again,
or heed the words of Holocaust author Elie Wiesel in his memoir about his
horrors in Auschwitz: “Never again.” Hamas has a different
plan. Another terrorist leader told a newspaper, “I hope that the state of
war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders.” His goal is not
implausible because Israel’s invasion is not inviolate. As a journalist who
has covered wars myself, I’m mindful that between the ugly and unwelcome
surprises of urban warfare and the "spider webs" of tunnels under
Gaza, there are no guarantees of success. As a military sage once said, every
military plan is sound until your army meets the enemy. The best outcome will
be an end to the fighting, and the end of Hamas. But even if that comes to
pass, the bitterness, the hate— worse with every day— will take generations
to die. On both sides. Nobody really wins. |
