Finally…with an Asterisk

Israel has resumed the war against Hamas. Early Tuesday morning, the air force began raids on Gaza. According to reports, some significant players have been eliminated.  

Finally.

This break has done nothing to get us closer to freed hostages, or increase our security. What it has done is allowed Hamas to rearm, recruit, and strategize in order to continue their stated plan of killing all of us. 

There are a couple of things that come to mind. One is the possibility that the attacks on Hamas were not only with America’s prior knowledge, but timed to coincide with American attacks on the Houthis in Yemen. The timing is curious, as is the intensity. It took a very long time for America to respond to Iran’s agent. Never mind direct attacks on the US Navy, but shutting off an international waterway  in itself constitutes a blatant act of war. If indeed they were coordinated, it is a message to Iran that they may be next. We will have to see. 

Another issue is a little closer to home. The speculation regarding how  Israel’s attacks will affect the hostages is high. Again, time will tell. What is undeniable is that, as I have said before, Hamas is Evil, and what it does and says is specifically intended to perpetuate its evil. This ceasefire has done what every ceasefire we have ever entered has done – prolonged the conflict and made us more vulnerable. It is my belief that it is not possible to endanger the hostages any more than the danger they are in now. I have been, and I am still, against a negotiated settlement to release the hostages. We will not get them all back, because Hamas will violate the agreement, and we will make ourselves more vulnerable to the terrorists we release in exchange for those Hamas does release. Will pushing Hamas to desperation free our people? Will they simply execute all of our people in a defiant, demented act of a display of power? Entirely possible. 

The thing is, though, that “finally” may not be all that accurate an assessment.  What is also likely the case is that Israel also needed this time to pull things together. The process of choosing a new chief of staff, and the preparation for a stepped up version of the war undoubtedly had a say in how long this all took. We who pretend to understand what is going on would do well to bear in mind that the chances that we do are not really very high. 

I would, in all this, like to express the immense pleasure it gives me that in the face of the debate here regarding our pursuit of our hostages and their kidnappers, the local politics noise of what to do about the attorney-general, or the prime minister’s legal issues, or the international condemnation of our surprise assault on Hamas, the warning issued from Washington was not towards us, but towards Iran.