Forget ceasefires: The only path to peace is Hamas’s complete destruction
Michael Rubin
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken caused an uproar in Israel when he warned Israelis that they “don’t have credit” to fight Hamas. Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, continued the pivot away from President Joe Biden’s initial moral clarity when she implied that Israel’s counterterror offensive violated international law.
“The United States is unequivocal; international humanitarian law must be respected. Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” she said. “Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.”
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Both Blinken’s and Harris’s implication was that the mob mentality of the international community mattered more than counterterror reality and that the patience of the United States with Israel was wearing thin.
Blinken and Harris are wrong on three counts. First, the notion that Israel must base its survival against an enemy bent on sexual violence and genocide upon the whims of effete American and European elites would be national suicide.
Second, Blinken and Harris are hypocrites. I have walked the streets of both Mosul, Iraq, and the former Islamic State capital of Raqqa, Syria, after their U.S.-led liberation from a group that is every bit as bad as Hamas. To drive into Raqqa meant passing miles of destroyed apartment blocks. Houses, schools, and medical clinics in Mosul lay in ruins. In both cases, it was not ISIS that destroyed the cities during its tenure but rather the urban warfare that accompanied their liberation. Yet, today, few in Washington and no one in Mosul and Raqqa question the decision to eradicate ISIS.
Third, the goal should not be a transitory ceasefire. It is likely no coincidence that Hamas ended the most recent ceasefire with a rocket barrage into Tel Aviv, a city with twice the density of the Gaza Strip. The same activists who demand an immediate ceasefire do not question if humanitarian deliveries provided the fuel to enable that barrage.
Rather, if Blinken, Harris, and the rest of the Biden team want a lasting peace and the possibility of a two- (or three)-state solution, they must defy progressive opinion, discourage ceasefires, and instead support the annihilation of Hamas.
Across the partisan spectrum, historians, diplomats, and journalists cheer late Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat. Video of Sadat’s arrival in Israel and his subsequent speech before the Knesset are still chill-inducing. Sadat was the leader of the largest Arab country, and, at the time, Egypt represented the greatest military threat to Israel. Sadat shattered stigma and demonstrated peace was possible. He paid for his decision with his life.
What many pundits forget, however, is that prior to suing for peace, Sadat tried war. The 1973 Yom Kippur War was his attempt to eradicate the Jewish state. In the first hours of the Egyptian surprise attack, Egyptian forces made great gains, but Israel rallied and defeated them. Today, Egyptian war memorials stop at their breaching the Suez Canal, ignoring subsequent battles. It was Sadat’s defeat, and his realization that he could not achieve his goals through military force, that convinced him to try peace instead.
Herein lies the lesson. For peace to be possible, one side must lose, not be rescued from the consequences of its defeat by well-meaning but naive diplomats, professional peace processors, or U.N. emergency funds. Middle East Forum founder Daniel Pipes is correct to say that the best thing for peace and for Palestinian aspirations would be their unequivocal military defeat.
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Emergency aid for Gaza and endless quests for ceasefires may seem like the humane and wise thing to do, but they would only cause more suffering. Iran, Qatar, and Turkey encourage Palestinians to continue their fights. The United Nations, European Union, and United States, meanwhile, convince Palestinians they need not pay the price for their militancy.
Each is wrong. Only when every single Palestinian understands war and terrorism will never fulfill Palestinian aspirations but instead will only bring further misery to them will they, as Sadat once did, recognize peace requires putting terrorism and military solutions behind them.
Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.