Time to End the Status Quo

Like clockwork, the summer months are inching ever closer and the Middle East is set aflame. Missiles are fired blindly by the religious fanatics that govern Gaza, and Israelis are forced to hide from the onslaught in bunkers. Israel responds, the peanut gallery of Palestinian apologists wail, and eventually Israel buckles and relents before eradicating the Islamist threat on her doorstep.

This scenario has played out time and again over the last decade. Every few years it repeats itself ad nauseum. It is time for Prime Minister Netanyahu to shatter this cycle of violence and deal a fatal blow to Hamas once and for all.

Establishment pundits, thinkers and politicians muse endlessly about stale and failed policy moves. Textbook answers, bland solutions, and blind optimism combine to ensure that the conflict will reignite eventually. How many times have we heard spokespeople from the UN call for calm? How many times have we been told that both sides must stand down? How many times have we been lectured that Israel must show restraint while her citizens are being assaulted by ruthless terrorists? Enough is enough, and a new strategy must be employed. The old methods have failed miserably, and going back to the tit for tat before standing down play has shown itself to be utterly useless in stemming the tide of Hamas and its arsenal. It is therefore imperative to keep up the fight until Hamas is destroyed beyond recognition.

Such a tactic leaves many unknowns unanswered. Who would fill the power vacuum left by Hamas? Will there be chaos emanating from Gaza? Will militants seize control? While these are valid questions, the current reality is just as bad. Militants already control the Gaza Strip, chaos reigns supreme and the missile stockpiles grow by the year. If the last several years have shown us anything it is that unconventional and unprecedented moves actually bear fruit in the region. President Trump’s ‘off script’ diplomacy eventually led to Israel signing 4 historic peace deals with her Arab neighbors, something that hadn’t occurred for years. Such thinking should likewise be applied to the Gaza situation, as the last decade of political maneuvering has failed to bring peace to the southern border. Slain Hamas members are always replaced, stockpiles of weapons are always replenished, and the technological accuracy of the missiles always sharpen with time. Failure to deal a death blow to Hamas now ensures it will emerge more lethal and powerful in several years’ time.

Iran, of course, is the main regional spoiler in all this. Its tentacles have sown chaos from Baghdad to Gaza for many years. Its sponsorship of Hamas has led to the fire from the skies we are all witnessing now on our television screens. It is time for the Iranian tentacle wrapping around Gaza to be severed. Defeating Hamas, truly and finally, will show the Iranian. regime that it cannot play puppet master in the region. It will not only be a victory for Israel, but the Arab world as a whole, because one of the most contentious terrorist groups in the region will be removed from the chessboard. Hamas offer nothing to the region: It fires missiles from civilian areas, executes Palestinians without much care, and they start conflicts knowing that Palestinians will die in Israeli reprisal attacks. They never come to the peace table, they never disarm, nor do they even make faux gestures of seeking co-existence with Israel. They also show a wanton disregard for the religion they claim to serve, firing missiles towards Jerusalem and her sacred sites. Destroying Hamas will create an environment where advancement in the region is truly possible. However, leaving Hamas barely alive now will all but surely mean it will return with force once it recuperates. Israeli leaders must not let this happen again, and it is time to finish the job that successive Israeli governments have failed to do.

End Hamas now, once and for all, and give the region a new opportunity for peace and security.