In my recent blogs, I keep restating that after Hamas’s brutal massacre against Israel on October 7, 2023 where over 1,200 peoples were killed with 240 being kidnapped and held in Gaza, the US has been fully supportive of Israel’s goals, the destruction of the Hamas’s ability to govern the Gaza Strip or to pose a future military threat from the Gaza Strip to Israeli civilians.
After all, this has been a decades’ old saga where the IDF Israel Defense Forces finds itself engaging in military actions with Hamas due to its frequent attacks on Israel, only to have the international community pressure Israel into a cease fire, as in 2021, 2014, 2009, etc., just to have the above cycle repeated over and over again.
But now President Joe Biden’s administration is recalibrating its outright support of Israel’s attack on Hamas, in part because of what appears to be its scorched earth military tactics resulting in a high civilian death toll of about 19,000 Palestinians in Gaza, of whom about 70% has been women and children, 2 million citizens displaced and homeless with about 18% of Gaza’s infrastructure demolished, etc. These Israeli tactics are not only turning off even its ardent supporters abroad, but also its Arab neighbors.
As per General Austin, the high level of civilian killing and destruction in Gaza, and the rage it generates, guarantees militant recruitment and support for resistance among future generations for militant groups like Hamas. In short, if the Israeli military drives the civilian population in Gaza into the arms of the enemy, Israel ends up replacing a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.
During a December 18, 2023 press conference, General Austin with Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant present, he reaffirmed US hard rock support for Israel, and he added that the US will not set a timeline or dictate terms to Israelis military officials about its war operation in Gaza. He shared how US policy is firm in its intent to take steps to prevent the Iranian backed terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon from doing anything to escalate tensions in this region. General Austin reiterated the importance of Israel’s military to transition war tactics from its current high intensity assaults to more surgical maneuvers to minimize the deaths of civilians and to allow for more humanitarian aid routes and deliveries.
He took time to comment about the US commitment to its policy for the creation of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine and how attacks by extremist settlers against the Palestinians in the West Bank must stop and those committing the violence must be held accountable,
The below 2 articles report on what General Austin had to say to his Israeli counterparts and the 2nd is a question about Israel’s ability to topple Hamas without a political solution?
As per the December 18, 2023 NY Times article, “Austin Returns to Israel With a Tougher Message and Lessons” by Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt:
Excerpts:
“It was (Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin’s) second visit to the region since Israel launched a war in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7. During meetings and conversations with Israeli officials, Mr. Austin has stressed both the Biden administration’s support for Israel and concerns about the rising Palestinian death toll.”
“But his message has become more blunt: Israel, Mr. Austin recently predicted, could face “strategic defeat” that would leave the country less secure if it does not do more to protect civilians.”
“The warning is one that Mr. Austin is well equipped to deliver. The retired four-star general brings a wealth of military experience in combat, including urban warfare. Early U.S. efforts to target the Taliban and insurgents in Afghanistan in 2004. The troop “surge” in Iraq in 2007. The planning to pry Mosul, Iraq, from the hands of the Islamic State in 2016. Mr. Austin was involved in all of that.”
“You know, I learned a thing or two about urban warfare from my time fighting in Iraq and leading the campaign to defeat ISIS,” he said in a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum earlier this month. “The lesson isn’t that you can win in urban warfare by protecting civilians. The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians.”
“Republicans criticized the defense secretary for not sounding supportive enough of Israel.”
“But critics of Israel’s bombing campaign say the message is long overdue, as the death toll in Gaza nears 20,000, according to health officials there.”
“This level of civilian killing and destruction, and the rage it generates, guarantees militant recruitment and support for resistance among future generations, both in Palestine and beyond,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who is now the president of the U.S./Middle East Project. “That’s a problem for both Israel and the U.S.”
“Criticism of how Israel is conducting the war has grown in recent days after its military said that soldiers on Friday accidentally killed three Israeli hostages held in Gaza. The men were holding a makeshift white flag when they were shot, the military said.”
“During his earlier trip to Israel, six days after the Hamas attack, Mr. Austin warned his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, and the country’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, that the large number of troops they had assembled at the border of Gaza, combined with the air campaign, was excessive.”
“Israel needed to establish humanitarian corridors and a defined set of rules to protect Palestinian civilians, he told them. The Israel Defense Forces, he said, should carry out a targeted precision air campaign, with limited numbers of special operations troops on the ground to act quickly on intelligence leads about the location of senior Hamas leaders.”
“One day later, on Oct. 14, he took his warning public. In a Pentagon statement describing his phone call with Mr. Gallant, and in other statements about their calls since then, Mr. Austin raised the issue of civilian casualties.”
“He has also urged Israeli leaders to prioritize efforts to recover hostages taken by the group and others on Oct. 7, sending scores of U.S. Special Operations forces to advise Israeli planners and dispatching MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drones to fly over Gaza to search for clues about the captives’ locations.
“Since the war in Gaza began, Israel has insisted that it is trying to limit civilian casualties in a battle against a terrorist group that embeds itself among the population.”
“Israeli military officials scaled back their ground campaign somewhat. But they did not follow Mr. Austin’s guidance on using mostly precision munitions accompanied by targeted special operations raids, instead continuing to bombard Gaza with unguided “dumb bombs.”
“On Dec. 2, Mr. Austin turned up the pressure.”
“In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population,” he said at the defense forum. “And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.”
See: Netanyahu fires defense chief who urged halt to overhaul of Israel’s judiciary/ NPR …
In a December 12, 2023 CNBC report, “Israel-Gaza war: Can Hamas actually be eliminated? by Natasha Turek, CNBC interviewed several war experts regarding Israel being able to topple Hamas.
Here are two out of ten analyses regarding the question: Can Hamas be, in fact, eliminated?…
Natan Sachs, director, Brookings Institution Center for Middle East Policy
“Hamas cannot be totally eliminated as an organization or an ideology, but that’s not the Israeli goal, precisely. Its ideology is well-rooted in Palestinian society and draws from the broader Muslim Brotherhood family of organizations.
“But Israel’s goal is actually more limited, it aims to destroy Hamas’s ability to govern the Gaza Strip or to pose a military threat from the Gaza Strip to Israeli civilians as in the October 7th massacre. This is a very difficult task, but one that can be achieved at great cost to the civilian population in Gaza and to Israel. The unresolved question is what or who will govern the Gaza Strip if and when Hamas is toppled completely from power.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe:
“To ‘eliminate’ or destroy Hamas, Israel will have to destroy the root cause of Hamas, its reason for existence. That means Israel will have to accept progress towards a two-state solution and Palestinian statehood for Gaza and the West Bank.
“Hamas cannot have a leading role in governing Gaza but Israel’s refusal to accept the two-state solution only guarantees continued efforts by Hamas to destroy Israel.”
“At the end of the day, IDF will kill a lot of Hamas and destroy much of their current network and infrastructure. But using lethal kinetic force only, without a political non-kinetic component to the strategy, is unlikely to lead to the ‘elimination’ of Hamas.”
Gronda Morin 