Back to the subject of Israel-Hamas struggle…

After Hamas’s brutal massacre against Israelis on October 7, 2023 where over 1,200 peoples were killed with 240 being kidnapped and held in Gaza, most of the international world leaders were backing 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.

Jen Kirby in the November 11,, 2023 VOX report, “The Israel-Hamas war is exposing Europe’s divisions” confirms that in late October, “as the war in Gaza intensified, all 27 European Union leaders reiterated their condemnation of Hamas’s attack on Israel and reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself, (as) they also expressed “gravest concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.’’

My opinion is that while it’s obvious that Hamas cannot continue to have a role in governing Gaza as it has committed to repeat the October 7th massacre against Israel, over and over again, it is the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his extreme right coalition members’ refusal to accept the two-state solution or any peaceful resolution between Israel and Palestine, that only guarantees continued efforts by Hamas to destroy Israel. Since the goals of both factions are diametrically opposed, coming up with a solution is an exercise in futility, which means that neither ought to remain in power.

To date, despite tremendous efforts by the US and its many envoys to Israel to discuss how a military scorched-earth tactical win against Hamas in Gaza could end up being a long term major strategic loss as Israel loses the support of its Arab neighbors and the international community along with the inevitable creation of 1000s of more young militant Palestinians full of hate against Israel, Israel hasn’t been listening.

In less than three months, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed more than 19,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children and babies, according to Palestinian health officials; flattened apartment buildings and vital infrastructure; and delayed or blocked Palestinians’ access to food, water, medicine and other critical supplies resulting in a humanitarian crisis.

It has been looking more and more like Israel’s military is intent on wiping out all of Gaza, instead of targeting strategically and politically, the demise of Hamas’s ability to govern the Gaza Strip and/ or to pose a future military threat from the Gaza Strip to Israeli civilians.

A NY Times investigation has used aerial imagery and artificial intelligence to detect bomb craters that showed that one of Israel’s biggest bombs (2,000 lbs.) was used routinely in south Gaza and in places where Gaza’s civilians were instructed to move.

See: Under Rules of War, ‘Proportionality’ in Gaza Is Not About Evening the Score”/ NYT…

In short, Israel has decided to give the finger to the rest of the world including its best friend, the U.S., while the US has been putting its own reputation on the international stage and its national security interests at risk.

Thus, the US has to do more to restrain Israel’s short-sighted, self-destructive and counter-productive high intensity war tactics in Gaza against Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist governing body in Gaza. It isn’t enough for the U.S. to have recently supported a weakened United Nations resolution regarding Israel and Hamas. Resolution 678 did pass with 12 member states voting in favor while Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom abstained.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, in the early stages of the Israel-Hamas war, around October 11, 2023, the US President Joe Biden was able to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to launch a pre-emptive strike in the north against the Iranian backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

On December 21, 2023, Julian Borger of the Guardian reported, “US says it is ready to support amended UN resolution aimed at boosting aid to Gaza:”

Excerpts:

“The US has declared it is ready to support a UN security council resolution intended to boost the flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza after a week of negotiations and substantial amendments, including the removal of a call for an “urgent suspension of hostilities”.

“A vote on the resolution was postponed for a fourth day in a row until Friday, after negotiations late into the evening, but the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said the US and Arab states had come up with an amended version Washington could support.”

“In a draft of the amended resolution seen by the Guardian, a call for an “urgent suspension of hostilities” to allow humanitarian relief, has been removed, and replaced with an appeal for “urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and also for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”

The following articles focus on why it’s way past time for US President Joe Biden’s administration, as a friend to the Israeli peoples, to take a much tougher stance regarding Israel’s execution of the war on Hamas…

Thomas L. Friedman in a December 22, 2023 New York Times opinion piece, “It’s Time for the U.S. to Give Israel Some Tough Love “argues the following:

Excerpts:

It’s time for the U.S. to stop wasting time searching for the perfect U.N. cease-fire resolution on Gaza.

“It’s time for the U.S. to tell Israel that its war’s aim of wiping Hamas off the face of the earth is not going to be achieved — at least not at a cost that the U.S. or the world will tolerate, or that Israel should want.”

“It’s time for the U.S. to tell Israel how to declare victory in Gaza and go home, because right now the Israeli prime minister is utterly useless as a leader: He is — unbelievably — prioritizing his own electoral needs over the interests of Israelis, not to mention the interests of Israel’s best friend, President Biden.”

“It’s time for the U.S. to tell Israel to put the following offer on the table to Hamas: total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, in return for all the Israeli hostages and a permanent cease-fire under international supervision, including U.S., NATO and Arab observers. And no exchange of Palestinians in Israeli jails.”

“What would the advantages of this approach be for Israel?”

“First, if I am reading the mood in Israel correctly these days, the overwhelming majority of the country today wants their 120-plus hostages returned — over and above any other war aims.”

“The hostage issue is making Israelis crazy, for good reason, and it’s making rational military decision-making there impossible — especially as many experts believe the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has now surrounded himself with Israeli hostages as human shields and it will be impossible to kill him without also killing many of them. Any Israeli government that does that would sow the wind and reap the whirlwind of wrath from the Israeli public.”

“Second, Israel has inflicted vast damage on Gaza’s main urban areas and on Hamas’s tunnel network and killed thousands of Hamas fighters, along with, tragically, thousands of the Gazan civilians among whom Hamas embedded itself. Hamas as a military organization deserved to be punished and pummeled, and it has been considerably degraded. But that huge toll of killed, wounded and displaced Gazan civilians has produced a humanitarian disaster. And Israel has no plan — indeed, has not had a plan since the start of the war — for how this humanitarian crisis will be managed and remediated, and how to induce non-Hamas Palestinians and Arabs to come forward and partner with Israel to repair and run a postwar Gaza.”

“There is also increasing discomfort in the Israel Defense Forces leadership over the fact that it is being asked by the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu to fight a war in Gaza without a clearly defined political objective, timetable or mechanism to win and hold the peace.”

 

“The best way to discredit and destroy (Hamas leader) Sinwar is for Israel to leave Gaza and make him come out of his tunnel, face his people and the world and own Gaza’s rebuilding on his own.”

“Israel has a choice: It can own Gaza’s future forever, with Israel’s completely dysfunctional relationship between the army and the far-right cabinet, which will never agree on collaborating with any Palestinian Authority, leading to Israel inheriting one of the worst humanitarian disasters on the planet. Or it can get out now, get back its hostages and let Sinwar and his friends own that problem — as they should. Let Hamas have to tell Gazans that there will be no rebuilding, just more of its endless war to destroy the Jews. Let’s see how long that lasts.”

“From the start of this war, there has been an asymmetry: Israel, a democracy, has to answer every day for its actions and mistakes and excesses. Sinwar has never had to for a minute. Time to turn the tables.”

As per the December 10, 2023 Politico report, “Former US ambassador to Israel says Netanyahu is a ‘clear and present danger’ to Israel” by Kelly Garrity:

“Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk slammed Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu as a “clear and present danger” to the country and called on him to resign “before he does even more damage to Israel.”

“[Netanyahu’s] determination to stay in power no matter the cost is a clear and present danger to Israel. He needs to resign…yesterday!” Indyk wrote in a post on X.”

“His comments came following a New York Times report that Netanyahu not only was aware that Qatar was shuttling millions of dollars a month to Gaza, where it helped prop up the Hamas government, but that he encouraged the payments.”

“According to the Times report, Netanyahu and other Israeli officials allowed the money to flow into Gaza in the hope that it would help maintain peace and stability in the region, and in the belief that Hamas had neither the desire nor the capacity to launch a large-scale attack. The Times previously reported that Israeli officials had blueprints of the Hamas’ plans more than a year before the Oct. 7 attack but chose to regard an actual attack as unlikely.”

“Indyk’s comments come as calls for Israel to scale back or end its violent campaign in Gaza have accelerated.”

As per a December 20, 2023 Washington Post article, Democratic lawmakers demand oversight on US assistance to Israel“ by Abigail Hauslohner:

Excerpts:

“In recent weeks, rights groups, including the Israeli human rights watchdog B’Tselem, have highlighted the forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, alleged extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests by Israeli ground forces, and documented Israel’s use of massive bombs in high-density areas — including the targeting of hospitals, schools and refugee camps where civilians are known to be sheltering.”

“Throughout its offensive, launched in the aftermath of the devastating Oct. 7 attack inside Israel by Hamas, Israel has drawn heavily on the support of the U.S., which has long supplied Israel with sophisticated weaponry and security cooperation.”

“But the mounting allegations of human rights violations — coupled with statements from top Israeli officials about wiping Gaza “from the face of the Earth” and calling for Gazans’ “emigration” to other countries — have unnerved U.S. lawmakers and even Biden, who recently remarked that some of Israel’s bombing in the territory has been “indiscriminate.”

“A group of Democratic senators this month sent a letter to Biden asking to know what, if any, measures the administration was taking to mitigate civilian harm in its provision of weapons to Israel and whether Israel was employing any measures to avoid killing civilians.”

“Under the Geneva Conventions, indiscriminate attacks — such as those “which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective” — are violations of international law.”