Hamas is not "an idea," but it has an idea that must be thwarted.
And Israel must not farm out the thwarting.
I keep reading that Hamas cannot be destroyed because it is an idea. IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari is the latest to say this.
But the premise of the statement is wrong. Hamas is not an idea.
Hamas is a terrorist group that until recently controlled an area of land. It’s like the ISIS caliphate, except that ISIS conquered its area of land and wasn’t popular there. Hamas came to power through an election and remains popular.
Although Hamas isn’t an idea, it has an idea. Its idea is to kill as many Jews as possible and to destroy the state of Israel.
Unfortunately, this idea isn’t unique to Hamas. It’s shared by a majority of Gazans, by Hezbollah, by the Palestinian Authority, and by Iran. It’s shared by many in other parts of the Middle East and by some in Europe, where the killing of Jews has a long history.
This idea cannot be destroyed. It can only be thwarted. And that’s what Israel’s war against Hamas is all about — to make sure Hamas cannot destroy Israel or kill more Jews.
Ironically, it’s Benjamin Netanyahu and those who see the world as he does who understand that Hamas’ idea can’t be killed. And it’s liberal like Joe Biden who believe (or pretend to) that the idea of destroying Israel and the Jews who live there can, in effect, be killed. This can be accomplished, they say, by granting the Palestinians a state.
No intelligent person can believe in such a fantasy.
In fact, creating a Palestinian state would make it far more difficult to thwart Hamas’ widely-shared dream of killing Jews and destroying Israel. The creation of something like a de facto Palestinian state in Gaza led to the fairly constant bombardment of Israel and now to the October 7 massacre.
By contrast, Israel isn’t bombarded or invaded from the West Bank because it retained military control of that territory. Giving up this control would risk creating another Gaza.
Because the idea of killing Jews and destroying Israel is so widely shared, Israel must not cede responsibility for thwarting this idea to others. Indeed, that’s part of the idea behind Israel.
Jews couldn’t rely on non-Jewish states to protect us. Our full protection was thought to require self-protection in a Jewish state. By the same token, it must be Jews who protect the Jewish state.
The various “day after” plans being floated by the U.S. and others ignore this reality. All of these plans rely on outsiders to protect Israel from Palestinians dedicated to destroying it.
Consider this piece by Dennis Ross and David Makovsky. Their “endgame” in Gaza recognizes, as it must, the vital importance of preventing materials and arms being smuggled into Gaza from Egypt. To accomplish this, they propose that the U.S “provide a significant financial incentive to Egypt to stop the smuggling.” In other words, we should bribe Egypt so it will do what it has never had any interest in doing.
In my view, Israel cannot rely on Egypt to stop the smuggling. Rather, Israel can expect Egypt to take the bribe and allow the smuggling.
Nor can Israel rely on the U.S. to balk when Egypt does this. Whether the president is Joe Biden or Donald Trump (but especially if it’s Biden), the U.S. can’t be depended on to jeopardize relations with Egypt just to protect Israel from a threat it will be easy enough to dismiss as abstract.
In addition to smuggling, Hamas or its successor can obtain material by stealing legally imported reconstruction materials. To address this, Ross and Makovsky propose that the U.S. put in place “a mechanism to track materials from their point of entry, to storage, to end use.” “Any diversion,” they add, ““would need to immediately halt reconstruction.”
This is fantasy. It’s hard to imagine the U.S. being able to track materials through the maze of players in Gaza, or even to know which players are on Hamas’ team.
It’s even harder to imagine ending reconstruction in response to “any diversion.” The momentum behind the reconstruction effort, bolstered by the perceived imperative of easing an alleged humanitarian crisis, would preclude this.
As for keeping the peace as Hamas tries to regroup, Ross and Makovsky want to rely on a security force consisting of Egyptians, Emiratis, and Palestinians “untainted by association with Hamas or any other faction.” The notion of Israel relying on Arabs to keep it secure is laughable.
Dennis Ross and those like him can come up with Gaza “endgames” until they’re blue in the face. The only endgames that will thwart the idea of killing Jews and destroying Israel are ones in which Israel maintains a presence in Gaza, as it has on the West Bank.
With that presence, Israel can prevent Hamas from regrouping as an effective fighting force. It can also detect and stymie the smuggling and/or diversion of arms and/or materials to Hamas.
Without a serious presence, Israel must rely on those who are either hostile to the Jewish state or largely indifferent about its fate. That would be folly.
I have spent a good deal of time trying to understand what can possibly be going on inside of the minds of people like Dennis Ross Thomas Friedman Martin Idyk Anthony Blinken etc. They are all Jews. All profess to care about Israel. All have spent entire careers immersed in the realities of the world and the middle east. All appear to be certifiably insane. An enormous amount of damage, death and destruction has been committed by those most committed to "peace." Like Tallyrand said of the Bourbons, the learn nothing and forget nothing. And those who think like them make policy for the Western superpower. God save all of us.
Your column is a clear and brutally honest assessment of the situation that Israel in particular, and Jews in general, face. There was a time in the not too distant past that I was somewhat more optimistic. But after October 7th and the subsequent reaction by disturbingly large numbers, I now realize some ancient hatreds don’t die but for far too many remain simmering just below the surface. Very sad. I think Blinken is a moron veering to and fro like a rudderless ship, while the others are just grasping for a hopeful fantasy, partly posturing and partly sincere. I appreciate that you, Douglas Murray, and others are unflinchingly willing to articulate reality.