War – Israel versus Hamas: Sydney Williams
http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com
War is messy. It is cruel. It cannot be refined. It cannot be sanitized. Wars were once fought on battle fields. No longer. Civil War historian James McPherson has estimated that about 50,000 civilians died during that conflict, still less than 10% of all military deaths. That changed in the 20th Century. About half of all deaths in World War I were civilians. In World War II, twice as many civilians died as military personnel. Innocent people get hurt in modern wars, as residents of London, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Naples learned during World War II, and as residents of My Lai and Hué learned during the Vietnam War. And as people today in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, in Gaza City, Jabalia, and Rafah understand, and in the border villages of Israel’s north where residents have evacuated due to threats from Iran’s other proxy, Hezbollah.
When the fight is between good and evil, a “proportional” response, as attractive as the concept sounds, is not an alternative. “The moral thing to do,” the columnist Moshe Phillips wrote recently in Israel National News, “is to destroy evil when it poses a ‘clear and present danger’ or likely will again.” Hamas presents to Israel such a threat. In September 1864, on the cusp of taking Atlanta, General William Tecumseh Sherman sent a telegram to President Lincoln: “War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple remedies were within their choice. You know it and they know it, but they wanted war, and I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let up, no cave in until we are whipped or they are.” When Hamas attacked the Kibbutz Nir Oz, during the Tribe of Nova music festival, on October 7, raping women, slaughtering babies and children, mutilating those they had killed and kidnapping those they had not, war was the choice they made. Now, the only way to end the war is for Israel to totally destroy Hamas.
The battle in Gaza, like the American Civil War and World War II, is a fight between forces of good and evil. (In one sense, this is a civil war, as both Israelis and Palestinians descend from Abraham.) This is not to suggest that all Israelis are paragons of virtue and that all Palestinians are devils incarnate. But Israel, according to the Economist Groups Democracy Index, is the only democracy in the Middle East, while Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Britain. The people of Gaza bear some responsibility, as Hamas was elected in 2006 with 75% of the vote. Citizens of Gaza know that terrorists hide and store arms in tunnels beneath schools and hospitals. On September 11, 2001 there was dancing in the streets of Gaza. Ismail Haniyeh, former Gaza Prime Minister and Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau (and who now lives in Qatar), explained in 2020 why Hamas rejects ceasefire agreements: “We cannot, in exchange for money or projects, give up Palestine and our weapons. We will not give up the resistance. We will not recognize Israel. Palestine must stretch from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.” Commenting on the loss of civilian deaths in Gaza on October 26, 2023, Mr. Haniyeh said: The blood of the women, children and elderly […] we are the ones who need this blood, so it awakens within us the revolutionary spirit.”
Anti-Israeli demonstrations and pro-Palestinian marches are pressuring the Biden Administration to introduce more daylight between Israel and the United States. As Saturday’s Wall Street Journal editorialized: last week’s final draft to the United Nations’ Security Council called for an immediate and sustained cease fire, “to protect civilians and facilitate more aid, but not necessarily to free Israeli hostages. That direct linkage was dropped from a prior draft.” Civilian deaths in Gaza – an Orwellian number provided by Hamas that the press accepts without reservation – are being used to call for a ceasefire or truce. But history offers lessons. In 1918, an armistice ended World War I. After two decades, which included hyper-inflation and a world-wide depression, a second – and more deadly – war broke out, a World War that cost 80 million lives. In contrast to the First World War, World War II ended with the Allies demanding – and getting – unconditional surrender. The consequence: almost eighty years of economic prosperity, with the Allies main antagonists, Germany and Japan, in the forefront of that growth. Wars must be won decisively, or they will reignite, as the world learned in 1938, and as Israel knows full well.
Ironically, the massacre in Israel led to an increase in antisemitism in the U.S. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported that in the two months following the October 7 attack 2,031 incidents of antisemitism were reported in the U.S., versus 465 in the corresponding period a year earlier. Pro-Palestinian rallies showcased a surge in antisemitism. On December 5, 2023, the presidents of Harvard, M.I.T., and the University of Pennsylvania testified before Congress that calling for the genocide of the Jewish people – as pro-Hamas college demonstrators were then doing – would not necessarily violate their schools’ codes of conduct. At the same time, Palestinian propagandizing – the war they are winning – has influenced a gullible media and infested politicians from both Parties, reminding one of George Orwell’s 1984: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.” It was refreshing, therefore, to read Elizabeth Dwoskin’s piece in The Washington Post, from which I borrowed the epigraph that heads this essay.
War is never pretty, and the best way to prevent one is to maintain a strong defense, something we and Europe have neglected since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Wars erupt because evil exists. It stems from ideological differences and disputes over land. Evil resides within some cultures, religions, and individuals, which many in the West find difficult to accept. Accusations of evil, therefore, make evil seem banal and thus less immediate and less harmful. Israel, in contrast, having existed under such threats for three-quarters of a century, understands the prevalence of evil, and, as her enemies know, are ready for it…except when restrained by her allies.
Because of its unique position as a democracy in an otherwise autocratic Middle East, and because its people pray to a different God, Israel is singled out for destruction. She is a nation of 9.4 million, bordered by four countries with combined populations of 147 million, plus 5 million Palestinians, many of whom see her as an interloper, and some of whom vow to destroy her. She must rely on her allies, especially the United States. As a democracy, her leaders change with elections and so are not always the ones her friends and allies prefer. But it is the Country and the concept of liberty, not a political party or leader, we defend. The United States, as freedom’s and democracy’s most fervent advocate, must not equivocate in its defense of justice, democracy, and individual freedom. Israel must totally destroy Hamas and bring its leaders to justice, and the West must support her. As long as those terrorists exist and govern Gaza, there can be no talk of a two-state solution.
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