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| Gaza, October 2023. What did you think “Never Again” meant? |
I hear there is uncertainty about Israel’s approach to toppling Hamas and “the day after.”
It seems to me our mission is to remove Hamas as a military threat from alongside our border with Gaza, Palestine.
A multitude of strategies are available to us. We can continue our bombing campaign, send in commandoes, launch a broader operation to flush out the Hamas leadership or give them the option of surrendering to be summarily executed. We might even think about allowing them to retreat behind a white flag via Egypt and then – in the fullness of time – hunt them down and kill them one by one, as we did the PLO men who attacked our Olympic team in Munich.
Once the Hamas leaders are gone, Gaza is the problem of the UN (time to turn on the lights at the Trusteeship Council?), the Arab League, and the Palestinian Authority. Israel should have no trade or economic relations with the strip until the Palestinian Authority recognizes the Jewish people’s right to a national homeland. Electricity, water, and employment are problems the Gazans must solve with the help of their stakeholders.
The responsibility for the population of Gaza (which has strongly supported Hamas at the ballot – President Biden is wrong that the “Palestinians are not Hamas”) falls foremost to the Gazans and their partners.
Humanitarian concerns are a two-way street – when Gaza shows humanitarian concern for Israeli civilians (releases Israeli hostages and the remains of our dead, stops airborne attacks and cross-border incursions), we should show reciprocal (but no more) humanitarian concern for them.
Once our military deterrence is reestablished and our Persian, Arab, and Turkish neighbors understand we are the strong horse in this region, it will be time to try diplomacy again -- based on reciprocity.
Assuming a willingness by the Palestinian Authority to accept a demilitarized state, an abandonment of the “right of return” to Israel proper, a spirit of genuine magnanimity for how to share the Holy Basin, and explicit recognition of the Jewish people’s right to a national homeland, Israel should make a clear commitment to seek a two-state solution and dismantle settlements that have no strategic value.
But, first things first: the Hamas leaders must be killed and their physical manifestations pulverized.
