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Dear editor:
Bruce Ticker’s suggestion has already been tried. It failed. (“Column: Too High a Human Cost: Controlling the West Bank” boulderjewishnews.org January 10, 2024)
In 2005, after the signing of the Oslo Accords, Israel removed all security personnel and Israeli civilians from Gaza, even disinterring Jewish corpses from their graves for reburial in Israel. Gaza was to be under full control of Palestinian leaders, the first step toward the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state. Modern hothouses were left behind by the Israeli evacuees in the hopes that the Palestinians would use them to build their economy. We know what happened.
The hothouses were immediately vandalized and destroyed. In 2007, in a free and fair election, Hamas defeated the Palestinian Authority and proceeded to drive off or kill the PA representatives who’d been elected. When Israel tried to prevent weapons from being imported into Gaza, Hamas called the embargo a “blockade” and claimed it prevented Hamas from developing Gaza’s economy. Somehow, the “blockade” did not prevent Hamas from spending $1,000,000,000 to build an extensive network of tunnels, deeply embedded amidst the Gazan populace, with the deliberate aim of defeating Israel’s exemplary efforts at avoiding civilian casualties in its responses to Hamas attacks.
The Hamas Charter openly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. With no Jews to attack in Gaza, Hamas looked elsewhere for victims. It fired thousands of missiles at Israeli population centers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel
It floated incendiary balloons over the border with Israel, aiming to set crops and nature reserves afire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_airborne_arson_attacks
It abducted Israelis via tunnels that extended from Gaza into Israeli territory. https://www.gov.il/en/pages/bth-six-months-in-terrorist-captivity-11-jan-2007a.
It held “Right of Return” rallies at which Gazans were given maps to Israeli communities and encouraged to kill Jews and “tear out their hearts.”
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/gaza-march-return-what-you-need-know
While the Palestinian Authority is no friend of Israel (saying its most important financial obligation is paying lifelong stipends to Palestinians who answer the call for “Violent Opposition to the ‘Occupation’,” by attacking and killing Israelis), there are Jewish-owned companies in Judea and Samaria which employ Israelis and Palestinians working side-by-side and serving Israeli and Palestinian consumers. This proves that some Palestinians have not succumbed to the anti-Jewish rhetoric that has been spewing from Palestinian mosques, schoolrooms, media outlets, and PA offices for generations. Ending this cooperation would be capitulating to the BDS movement, the founders of which openly admit that they seek the destruction of Israel.
https://ngo-monitor.org/key-issues/bds/bds-and-antisemitism/
So, what must be done to stop the killing? Following the atrocities of October 7, 2023, Israel decided that it needed to achieve a decisive victory over Hamas, to be followed by the demilitarization of Gaza and the deradicalization of the Palestinians. While Israel has made great progress in weakening a number of terrorist groups which joined the fight in support of Hamas, Israel’s efforts were compromised somewhat by several Western leaders’ accepting Palestinian claims that Israel was committing genocide and seeking premature endings to Israel’s efforts to prevent Hamas from keeping its vow to continue inflicting October 7’s on Israelis. Those leaders didn’t understand a simple truth – Islamists and Jihadis (Hamas fits both descriptions) won’t be satisfied with destroying the Nation-State of the Jews. Islamists and Jihadis seek the destruction of Western civilization and a return to the days when Muslims ruled much of the world.
Israel isn’t asking Western nations to send troops to fight Hamas and Iran’s other proxies. But Western leaders should be speaking out about the justness of Israel’s cause and its exemplary efforts to avoid civilian casualties, as well as denouncing UNRWA for its cooperation with Hamas and the ICC for accusing Israel of committing genocide and for issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders and soldiers.
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5077022-war-gaza-hospitals-israel
Toby F. Block
Atlanta, GA
