Netanyahu, Trump and…Hamas: Giving Credit
Many dates and events are important in understanding Jewish and Israeli history, but for the moment October 7, 2023 is the crucial date. On that day an attack was launched by Hamas in Israel with the barbarous and express intent of eradicating the Jews “from the river to the sea.”
Under those circumstances, how would any country respond? How should any country respond? It is the fundamental and primary duty of any government to protect its citizens. On October 7 Israel failed, and at the right time the Israelis will conduct an exhaustive examination, as they have done in the past. Hamas failed its own citizens far more grievously. It knew and welcomed the fact that Israelis would respond in a manner that would result in massive destruction and loss of life. One can only assume that Hamas thought this would result in a massive outpouring of support from its allies and the Western democracies. Hamas lost with respect to support from its allies because of Israeli military successes beyond Gaza, and won in the Western democracies and mainstream media.
In the end — whether one approves of Netanyahu or not — he proved right on the strategy of applying relentless pressure on Hamas, and in ignoring Biden, other morally and politically-confused Western leaders, the reckless pieties of legacy media, and the campus protests. Similarly — whether one approves of Trump or not — it was his unorthodox and bold diplomacy that led to the release of the hostages. In other words, Israeli determination and US pressure were both essential to the release of the hostages.
Hamas could have ended the deaths of its own people and the destruction of its infrastructure on October 8, 2023 — or anytime thereafter — by returning the hostages and surrendering. Hamas chose not to do so, until Israel and the United States prevailed two years later, during which time the death and destruction unavoidably continued.
Given the prolonged refusal of Hamas to return the hostages and to surrender, it is incomprehensible and troubling to contemplate how anybody could seriously believe that Israel should have previously entered into a cease fire and accepted Hamas’s continued rule in Gaza. These same people are unable to articulate what Israel should have done, and there is a reason for that: There was no alternative.
