A common refrain about the war in Gaza is that Israel's campaign to destroy Hamas is counterproductive. It only creates more terrorists It will further radicalize Palestinians.
But if the world is truly concerned about peace in the Middle East, it should be concerned about how Israel, and Jews around the world, come out of this war.
When Hamas leader Saleh al-Louri outlined the group's strategy in 2007, we ignored it. “Our job is to continue to radicalize Palestinians.“Most of them will quickly settle for peace or some kind of deal that will allow them to get on with their lives. You need to keep pissing them off,” he told a reporter from The Times of London.
But what Hamas has accomplished is radicalizing Israelis. Two-thirds of Israelis oppose a Palestinian stateNearly three-quarters believe that if terrorist organizations existed, terrorist attacks on Israel would only increase. 6 hostagesthose feelings have likely intensified.
This has been a pattern of Israeli public opinion for decades, but when it comes to Gaza, we may have passed the point of no return.
The collapse of Israel's once-dominant Labor Party is a case in point. Yasser Arafat, 2000Walked awayThe best chance for a two-state solution to end the conflict. The Camp David summit was the culmination of the Oslo Accords and a long-running process to broker peace.
The deal proposed by Labor Prime Minister Ehud Barak called for Palestinian recognition of Israel and lasting peace in exchange for Israel returning 96 percent of the West Bank and Gaza, compensating for the rest in land swaps and sharing sovereignty over Jerusalem. Arafat's rejection of peace was one of the greatest leadership blunders of the past century. The consequences were tragic.
The Israeli people were shocked by Arafat's refusal to make peace, but even more shocked were Second Intifada For the next five years, Palestinian suicide bombers deliberately targeted Israeli civilians, nearly paralyzing daily life. After Arafat's abrupt withdrawal from Camp David, about 1,000 Israelis were killed.
As a result, Barak's left-wing Labor party, and the Israeli peace movement, all but disappeared in 2000. How can Israeli peace activists explain why the Palestinians rejected such a generous deal after years of good-faith negotiations, and instead responded with incessant suicide bombings?
The Israeli political centre had already shifted to the right with Benjamin Netanyahu’s first electoral victory. 1996There were a few brief interludes, but the situation remained the same.
And despite corruption and other scandals, Netanyahu not only became Israel's longest-serving prime minister, he also led the Israeli leadership in beating such figures as Bezalel Smotrich and even Convicted terrorist People like Itamar Ben Gvir.
Despite the rightward shift in Israeli politics and the Second Intifada, creative attempts to achieve peace continued. Likud Prime Minister Ehud Olmert 2008 Peace Plan This proposal was even more generous than the one proposed at Camp David, but it too was ultimately rejected by the Palestinian leadership.
Israel's unilateral Withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 It was another attempt, under hardline leader Ariel Sharon, to find a way to coexist with its Palestinian neighbors. In return, the people of Gaza Elect Hamas And a new reign of missile and rocket terror plagued Israel.
Today, breaking points are being reached both in Israel and abroad. Israel is torn apart by the tensions of war and the desperate desire to bring home the hostages who remain in Gaza. Judaism is a humanistic religion that attaches unique value to each human life, in stark contrast to Hamas' cult of martyrdom and brutal worship of death.
Israeli leader Yahya Sinwar watches with satisfaction as terrorism achieves its ultimate objective: to undermine confidence in the country's democratically elected leaders and sow even deeper divisions and friction in Israeli society.
What should Israel do? Israel has repeatedly attempted peace talks but has been rejected. It has unilaterally withdrawn from the occupied territories, which has resulted in the emergence of worse and more serious forms of terrorism.
Israel prides itself on defending itself against a formidable enemy, but the world is blasting it with accusations that are reminiscent of the blood libel the Jewish people have been fighting for centuries. Meanwhile, Israel is losing patience and tolerance for outside orders. What if Israeli security forces decide that the country has no future without the elimination of the Arab inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank? Gaza and the West Bank must be annexed. And so must southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is poised to attack like a coiled serpent.
Already something of a pariah state, Israel may decide that prioritizing its security in this way is its strategic choice for survival. While two states remain the only rational option, Israel is increasingly cornered.
The situation for Jews elsewhere is strikingly similar. How long will they tolerate people taking to the streets with enemy flags and vowing to carry out genocidal plans veiled in clever colloquialisms like “from the river to the sea”?
Will we continue to shrug our shoulders when bigoted graffiti appears in our neighborhoods, when our religious institutions are threatened, when our young people are threatened in their pursuit of an education?
The time may soon come when Israelis and Jews around the world will tire of empty pleas for forced compromise and moderation, which could profoundly change the political and geostrategic dynamics and completely shatter hopes for peace.
Bruce Hoffman is a senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations, a professor at Georgetown University, and author of Inside Terrorism.Interfor AcademyJeremy Hulewitz isHead of Interfor AcademyAnd the author of this book:Selling like a spy.“
