It may be impossible to overstate the savagery committed by Hamas on October 7. Yet, that cannot justify the massacre of far greater numbers in Gaza since. The world is witnessing a “mighty vengeance”, in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own words.
Israel’s goal of eradicating Hamas is unachievable at any human cost a Jewish state, or any state, could justify. And the history of the region demonstrates that pursuing that goal is sure to produce something worse than Hamas.
That was the experience of the United States in Iraq, with the emergence of ISIS, which has surpassed the brutality of Al Qaeda. And it was the experience of Israel in the 1980’s when it waged war in Lebanon against the PLO, only to produce Hezbollah (see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/03/israel-hamas-terrorism-war-response-history/).
The only way Hamas could be the existential threat to Israel that it aspires to be, and so many people imagine it is, would be if Israeli leaders keep doing what they are doing.
Extremists need each other, as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote recently. Hamas, heedless of Palestinian lives, needs an Israeli government that is also heedless of those lives in order harvest Palestinian rage and despair. For Prime Minister Netanyahu, Hamas has been the ticket to keeping the illegal settlement project going in the West Bank, and keeping the two-state process frozen.
American lawmakers need to be clear that the Israeli government’s war on Gaza is definitely not in our interest, nor in the interest of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians.
Preponderant power does not check itself, as the United States demonstrated in its monstrous “war on terror”. Likewise, Israel, enjoying a considerable power advantage over Hamas, is not capable of a proportionate response. And yes, even the viciousness of the Hamas attack requires a proportionate response. Israeli power must be checked by its principal backer and supplier, the United States.
The United States must demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and an end to settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. And if the price of releasing the hostages is the release of all Palestinian prisoners by Israel, that will have to be. Every day, the deaths of innocent Palestinians in Gaza exceeds the number of innocent Israelis taken as hostages by Hamas on October 7.
The dysfunction of the House of Representatives saved Congress from rushing a huge package of additional military aid to Israel, which was conceived of before the Israeli government demonstrated just how reckless with offensive weaponry it can be.
Given that the package the House did recently approve will not get a hearing in the Senate, Congress has the opportunity to reconfigure that aid package. Israel does not need the means to continue the collective punishment of Palestinians. It needs the resources and above all the change of heart to address the despair and to meet the aspirations of the Palestinians.
Allowing for some defensive weaponry for Iron Dome, the lion’s share of any aid package should be earmarked for rebuilding Gaza, dismantling the entire unjust order Israel has imposed over decades, and getting on with the long-conceived two state resolution.
As President Biden put it soon after October 7, there can be no return to the status quo. Israelis will not know peace and security until Palestinians know the same.
Get Real with Israel 