A Commentary
By J. F. Kelly, Jr.
What a difference half a year makes. The October 7 massacre of 1,200 Jews by Hamus terrorists who crossed into Israel from Gaza, the worst massacre since the Holocaust, shocked the civilized world. America pledged to help Israel respond to this outrage by defeating Hamus and rendering it incapable of attacking Israel again. We pledged to support our closest ally in the Middle East however long it took, knowing that it could take months or even years and involved tracking down all those responsible wherever they hid.
Alas, we failed to take into account the short attention span and patience of Americans as memories of the unspeakable atrocities committed against women and children which included the torture and rape of women and the beheading of babies and other war crimes faded. Perhaps they also forgot the Palestinians, 70% of them by some estimates, celebrated the massacre. Some danced in the streets. This time, the Israeli’s response was different. “Never again”, they said, would they just turn the other cheek or allow another hostile state that was dedicated to the destruction of Jews and the Jewish homeland to exist adjacent to Israel.
There are those, including some of our own leaders, who now say that Israel wasted an opportunity to gain world-wide sympathy by executing more restraint. This is nonsense. Restraint would instead demonstrate to their few friends and numerous enemies that they accepted permanent victimhood stature and ensure that more attacks would follow. Ask yourself if we would exercise similar restraint and accept permanent victim status if we were in their shoes? Didn’t the bloody outrages of October 7 elicit enough sympathy?
It didn’t take long for President Joe Biden to go wobbly. Pressure from the progressive wing of his party and the widespread antisemitism here at home and abroad was more that he could handle and caused him to cave and to put pressure for a cease fire on an ally, fighting for its very existence, to provide for the safety of Palestinian civilians. Presumably that included those who celebrated the massacre of October 7.
Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, took it upon himself to call for the resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the middle of Israel’s fight for survival. President Biden warned Israel that its planned attack on the remaining Hamas brigades in Rafah would be crossing a red line in the absence of a credible plan to keep civilians there safe. The Hamas strategy, of course, is to intermingle their fighters among civilians and to use civilians as human shields, which is a war crime.
The Geneva Convention permits attacks against military targets which may involve civilian casualties. It’s called collateral damage and we inflicted plenty of it in World War II by firebombing German and Japanese cities and obliterating Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The Israelis attempt to avoid civilian casualties, Hamas does not.
Israel is a sovereign state fighting for its very existence. It’s the only democracy in the region surrounded by Muslim nations, some of whom will not accept its right to exist. What gives us the right to dictate its war-time strategies or to call for elections?
Even more than sympathy, the Israelis need to live in peace and safety. Now President Biden demands that the operation to eliminate the last Hamas strong-hold, by attacking Rafah be placed on hold which will allow Hamas to regenerate and undoubtedly prolong the war and the human suffering.
How can Biden and Blinken call, with straight-faces, for a 2-state solution when it has already been offered repeatedly and met with rejection by the Palestinians? And who anointed us with the power to make that decision and to serve as a broker? Israel is a tiny nation the size of New Jersey. The Gaza Strip is a sliver of land the size of Chicago. Given the choice of governing Gaza, its people selected Hamas. The Palestinians, most of whom detest the Jews, are clearly not ready to govern anything.
Meanwhile, Gaza is in ruins with more destruction likely to follow. Over 33.000 Palestinians and about 1,500 Israelis have died. Their deaths and the cost of this war must not have been in vain by allowing Hamas to attack again. The Palestinians were offered a 2-state solution several times but it was never enough. It never will be.
April 19, 2024
Commentaries by J. F. Kelly, Jr. 