Hamas Got What They Wanted
If Netanyahu commits genocide Hamas will use it as justification for the annihilation of Jews everywhere
It's already happening. As people worldwide denounce Hamas as "animals" for their crimes against innocent Jewish civilians, Netanyahu does precisely what Hamas wants him to do — he perpetuates the violence.
There is no justification for what Hamas has done. None. The horror of their actions demonstrates how little they value human life, and nothing I write today is meant to excuse their vile acts. But at what point do we stop believing the appropriate response to horrific acts of violence is to commit more appalling acts of violence?
While Hamas is vilified for attacking civilians, Israel has cut off water, electricity, food, and medical supplies to 2.2 million people while continuously bombing civilian neighborhoods in Gaza. This is how Israel chooses to retaliate for the actions of Hamas. This is not a surprise. If Hamas kills 200 people, Israel kills 400. This is how it's always been.
But if it is wrong for Hamas to attack Jewish civilians, how is it right for Israel to commit genocide against the Palestinian people in response to what Hamas has done?
Parallels to 9/11
Many pundits and analysts have been loudly proclaiming the similarities between 9/11 and the attacks by Hamas. They want us to believe that in both cases, the violence that caused the deaths of so many innocent people was unprovoked and unforeseen. But that’s not true. The United States and Israel have a history of using their economic and military power to unfairly benefit themselves at the expense of others. To believe the attacks were unprovoked is to belie history.
However, there is one way in which the attacks perpetrated by Hamas mirror 9/11 —the Israeli government and the Bush administration both deny having had any warning.
The Bush administration looked the other way when warned of a potential terrorist attack before the Twin Towers were brought down by terrorists. As the PNAC report made clear, the administration's goal was to invade the Middle East and use the land and natural resources to spread their version of crony capitalism disguised as democracy. But they needed a rationale to do it. Short of a violent attack on U.S. soil, they could conceive of no acceptable reason to invade Iraq and push their economic agenda. The American public would never have agreed to the plan so carefully outlined in the PNAC report.
So when reports of potential terrorist attacks in the U.S. were received, they were dismissed. As a result, the horrific events of 9/11 provided the Bush administration, propelled by the hubris, greed, and elitism of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney et al., the justification they needed to sell their chickenhawk invasion of Iraq to the public.
The current government in Israel is not so different. Unwilling to abide by treaties limiting their expansion of settlements in Gaza, Netanyahu and his minions have been attempting to nullify the power of the Israeli Supreme Court to avoid accountability for their actions. Like 9/11, the tragedy unfolding in Israel and the Gaza Strip has played very nicely into the right-wing leadership's hands.
For months, Netanyahu has been struggling to get his right-wing agenda solidified by taking away the independence of the Supreme Court. It's been an uphill battle. The people of Israel have been protesting in the streets in opposition to Netanyahu's unprecedented power grab. Unable to convince the public to agree to a permanent distortion of the balance of power in Israel and allow Netanyahu a virtual dictatorship, the country has been at a standstill. And then shazam! War breaks out, a new government is formed, and Israel is united.
What else could have united a divided Israel more surely than war?
The Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal during the Bush administration and the Netanyahu-led government in Israel are made from the same cloth: they want the power to control the world but don't want the responsibility for solving the world's problems. They want glory, but they don't want to be the ones to do the fighting. These are people who sacrifice others for their ends. We should know this by now.
How could Israelis have been so unprepared?
Israel is the home of Pegasus, the most sophisticated (and evasive) anti-terrorist technology that exists. If Israel didn't see this coming, it's because they chose not to.
The technology developed in Israel that has been sold to MBS and the government of Mexico can take data from cell phones without the users' knowledge. It can turn on a phone's mic, listen to conversations, and access texts, photos, emails, etc.
The discovery of Pegasus and the far-reaching consequences of its use has been well-documented in a book titled "Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy." There is no way the people who developed this in Israel and sold it to governments like Mexico and Saudi Arabia did not also sell it to the Israeli government.
While the media continues to portray the Israelis as too distracted by internal politics to have been capable of catching Hamas in the act of planning these attacks, given the state-of-the-art technological resources at its disposal, it is difficult to believe they failed to notice at least some indications of the intricate and extensive planning necessary to execute such a devastating attack on the Israeli public.
War is proof of failed leadership and Israel is no exception
Hamas will not help the Palestinians by their cruel actions towards the people of Israel. But we must understand something: They aren't trying to help — they are destroyers.
The goal of Hamas is not to solve problems; it's to exact vengeance. And it's to set up Israel for complete annihilation. The only way to avoid the worst-case scenario, in which Israel and Palestine are destroyed — with potential involvement by other countries taking sides — is for the Israeli leadership to hold Hamas accountable for their crimes without sacrificing more innocent people. And so far, they are failing spectacularly.
Israel's defense minister, Yoav Gallant, has called for a "complete siege" of the Gaza Strip. Never mind that Israeli and American hostages are being held there. Never mind that millions of innocent Palestinians will be affected.
"There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed," he said. "We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly."
But the "human animals" are not the Palestinian people. Just as the Jewish people murdered or kidnapped are not the Israeli government, who has systematically ignored Palestinian requests for autonomy and equal rights.
Netanyahu and his cabinet are doing precisely what Hamas does — they are punishing innocent people because they have failed to deal with the problems of government. When leaders fail, innocent people suffer. This has always been true.
The price we pay when extremists make the decisions
Some Israelis believe the Palestinians have no right to statehood and should be eradicated. Some Palestinians believe Israelis have no right to exist and should be annihilated. These are not the Israelis and Palestinians who should be in government.
Government requires the participation of moderates to be successful. Only moderates are capable of compromise. Democracies require compromise. An old joke says compromise is when nobody gets what they want. And in some ways, that's true. But I'd say compromise is an excellent thing when what they want is the death of an entire population.
In the book "The Civic Bargain," the authors discuss the importance of laws (and the procedures used to uphold the laws) as the necessary infrastructure of democracy. They recognize that government is not about putting opposing sides face-to-face to force a conflict; it is about letting them stay on their sides while utilizing moderators to reach agreements that benefit the whole without destroying the parts.
This is put succinctly by book reviewer Adam Gopnik, who covers “The Civic Bargain” for The New Yorker.
“The civic bargain between hipsters and Hassidim in Brooklyn takes place precisely because they don’t have to sit together and misunderstand each other.”
We must stop listening to the extremists on both sides of every issue and search out the moderates who are capable of solving problems peacefully.
The way to stop a war is to stop fighting
If Israel wants to end this war with Hamas, they should stop fighting. Find the criminals and subject them to the appropriate punishment, but do not use this as an excuse to destroy the entire Gaza Strip and all the people who live there.
There is nothing to be gained by more violence — at least nothing for anyone other than Netanyahu, who will use this war as an excuse to further consolidate his power.
We should remember that if we believe in "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," we will all end up blind and toothless — or dead.
Is that what we want?