Some offer a simplistic solution. There are too many dead in Gaza, so Israel should just stop. That would certainly have an impact on the number of Gazans killed, but then what? The hostages remain in captivity. Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel, until it’s next barbaric rampage across the border. And Israel just takes it because the alternative is terrible for Gazans?
.@chrislhayes: “There is no terrorist attack, no matter how horrific—and truly Oct. 7 was horrific—that can wash clean what we are seeing in Gaza and what we as Americans and our government are abetting. It must end. We must stop it.” pic.twitter.com/2nKYlWoaGl
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) December 20, 2023
It’s not that some Israeli officials have made some reprehensible statements. It’s not that Hayes doesn’t make some fair points. It’s that walking away from October 7th, from the hostages, leaves terrorist in control. And if it worked there, it will work anywhere. If they can rape, behead, burn, kidnap and murder in Israel, they can do so in New York. If there is nothing to be done about it, well, that’s that. And for all the cries that there has to be a better way, no one has ever come up with it.
But now, Thomas Friedman has offered a proposal and argument in support.
It’s time for the U.S. to tell Israel to put the following offer on the table to Hamas: total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, in return for all the Israeli hostages and a permanent cease-fire under international supervision, including U.S., NATO and Arab observers. And no exchange of Palestinians in Israeli jails.
In support of this proposal, Friedman argues that while Hamas will look like the winner on Day 1, things will change on Day 2.
On the first day, Sinwar will strut around the rubble of Gaza like a peacock, declaring how he and his men inflicted terrible damage on the Jews, and supporters will carry him on their shoulders, shouting “Allahu akbar.”
On Day 2, with the Israelis gone, they will scream at Sinwar publicly and privately: What were you thinking? Who gave you permission to launch this war? Who is going to repair my home? Who is going to bring back my loved ones? How are you going to get any help rebuilding Gaza if you keep on lobbing missiles at Tel Aviv? You thought Hezbollah, the West Bankers, Israeli Arabs and Iran would all jump full-scale into this war and rise up against the Jews. It didn’t happen — except at some American colleges — and now all we have are ruins and the dead.
In support of this view, Friedman points to other “wars,” notably with Lebanon in 2006, where the people blamed Hassan Nasrallah for the destruction his unprovoked and losing war caused. Friedman says this is already happening in Gaza.
How do I know that will happen? Because it is already happening. Consider this Bloomberg report from Dec. 11:
Since the war, life in Gaza — which never was easy — has become unbearable. And while most Palestinians are furious at Israel, some are also expressing anger at Hamas, which has ruled the strip since 2007, when it threw out the Palestinian Authority through a brief and violent civil war. “Hand over the hostages and stop the war,” Rahaf Hneideq, a Gaza-based professor of Islamic studies, wrote to Hamas on Facebook. “Enough death, enough destruction. Stop the displacement. Don’t your people deserve that?”
How do I know that will happen? Because while polls conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research show support for Hamas growing in the West Bank since Oct. 7 — which are really signs of contempt for the Palestinian Authority and antipathy to the violent Jewish settlers — support for Hamas in Gaza, which usually rises during wars, has not significantly increased.
Does this proposal have merit? The initial proposal, that Hamas releases the hostages without any exchange, would seem to be a hurdle too high to take seriously. Hamas won’t agree to a truce that requires release of 40 hostages, so what would make this idea seem remotely possible?
Second, why would the US want to puts its boots on the ground in Gaza to be responsible for stopping the next terrorist attack by Hamas? How many American bodies in bags would be good with Friedman. The UN certainly can’t be trusted, as it’s been in bed with the Palestinians for years. Other Arab countries are far too smart to engage with herding terrorists. That’s why Egypt won’t allow Gazans into Sinai, bringing their terrorists and death to a country that wants nothing to do with them.
But even if Hamas would agree and then actually perform under the proposal, and even if there could be a coalition willing to police terrorism in Gaza, would the Gazan people turn on Hamas and blame Sinwar more than they hate Israel and blame Netanyahu? What Friedman fails to appreciate is that Gazans can do both, but in the grand scheme of their belief system, that their misery is the result of Israel’s existence and their ultimate salvation will come from a Palestine from the river to the sea, who offers them the future they believe they deserve?
It would be wonderful if there was some way to avoid the deaths of innocent Gazans. But neither magic bullets nor unicorns prancing on rainbows is going to deal with the fiasco of Gaza. It might be true that Israel has no viable plan for what to do about Gaza after the bombing stops, but then it’s too much to expect that Israel had a plan in place just in case Hamas managed to cross the border and rape, behead, burn, murder and kidnap civilians. Maybe they should have, but they can’t be blamed for seizing the only option available to them under the circumstances.
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Hamas has already said it won’t release the hostages without an exchange of all jailed Palestinians. Hamas has also refused any permanent ceasefire on its part, and has announced its intention to keep attacking Israel whenever it is able. Accordingly, a proposed solution contrary to these stated Hamas war aims would be a clear loss for Hamas. It would basically reset the board to October 6, but with Gaza in ruins. Hamas could claim any victory only in the sense that it and its leaders would not be destroyed, defeating a main Israeli war aim. Hamas likely believes it can achieve this result anyway, so long as the IDF is unwilling to fight in the tunnels. So, Hamas will never take this proposed deal. It is just another version of the unworkable ceasefire that pundits in the peanut gallery keep suggesting.
There will be no negotiations until Israel can make good on its threat and kill a portion of Hamas leadership outside Gaza.
As long as they can live with no consequences there is zero pressure.
We all know how that worked in the past. Supporting such an approach is to assert that it’s acceptable that another waiter gets gunned down in front of his girlfriend by MOSSAD on a quiet street in Norway. Or whatever the future equivalent may be. There’s a reason assassinations and extra-judicial state killings are banned. Neither Israel nor any other state has the right to drag any bystander into their conflict. They can sort out their circus on their own. The rest of us have the absolute right to have no part of it.
If only the leaders of terrorist organizations wouldn’t hide themselves far from the destruction they cause when suicide bombers blow up busses. But if they live elsewhere, they should be immune from responsibility for murdering people. Unless, of course, you’re fine with suicide bombers blowing up busses of innocent people on the orders of people who dine in restaurants in Norway.
You are very smart.
Dude you’re either uninformed or very ill. The Norway case had nothing to do with a suicide bomber – that’s the whole point. MOSSAD misidentified a waiter as a terrorist and murdered him. He hadn’t no connection any kind of crime whatsoever other than a resemblance to a MOSSAD mugshot. I sincerely hope your comment reflected I ignorance and wasn’t a defence of gunning down random civilians because of how they look.
You missed his point.
Odds that he’s going to keep arguing as if this is about a waiter in Norway and not going after terrorist leaders wherever they’re hiding? Over/under at 80%.
You’re an optimist.
I regret not trashing the comment in the first place, and have no interest in wasting any more of my bandwidth on this idiocy.
These are all unserious people, microcephalics with microphones. They perpetually assume that under the keffiyehs there actually are enlightened Western liberals just waiting to emerge. Go back and look at a fairly recent version of this cognitive dissonance, the so-called “Arab Spring”, for just how badly our so-called “elites” misunderstood the Arab street. The likes of Friedman and Hayes have learned nothing and forgotten everything that conflicts with their misguided beliefs.
There is an answer, but Israel has neither the blood nor resources to do it.
They need to kill every Hamas leader, no matter where in the world they are. They need to conduct total war in Gaza until it looks like Dresden after the firebombing. Root out every Hamas member and their supporters. Have Nuernberg style trials and execute the ones that committed war crimes.
Then Israel has to go in and rebuilt Gaza, providing governance, education, and infrastructure like the U.S. did for Germany and Japan after WWII. It will take two generations to get Gaza straightened out.
However, like I said, there is neither blood nor money available to do that. The rest of the world made do something, but it will not be enough and all through this time period there will be terrorist coming in to cause trouble so it will have to be a police state.
Alternatively, Israel could bomb back Gaza back to the stone age, fence it off and let it live or die. But we know that would never happen.
Hamas pulled the trigger on this, and it can’t be un-pulled.
They started it, but Israel must get as much of that camel’s nose back outside the tent as possible. The extensive Hamas infrastructure that’s been discovered mandates that, and the worst part is that Hamas is engaged in getting people killed as military-political theater. Meanwhile, Iran sits back and smiles, knowing that their mercenaries have gained ground in that arena.