Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE Oct 12, 2023
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective                                                                     
America’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932
Barbarity and morality
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
          WASHINGTON — He is a man of many lives, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot retain power after his government was surprised by the barbaric attack that massacred civilians and took dozens of hostages. His was a failure of leadership. For the leaders of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), it was a military failure, seen when terrorist fighters so easily breached the Gaza-Israeli border. So, they, too, will be replaced. But nothing was so fatally flawed as the inaction, inattention, and missed signals of Mossad (Israel’s equivalent of the CIA), Shin Bet (their FBI equivalent), and Aman (military intelligence). So, it is fair to say that Israel’s political, military, and intelligence leaders today will soon be replaced.
          On the other side is Hamas, the Sunni terrorist organization dedicated to killing Jews and eliminating Israel. That organization just committed suicide. It was voted into power in 2006 following Israel’s 2005 departure and has misgoverned ever since. Except for Syria and fractured Lebanon all other Arab nations have either made peace with Israel, accepted the reality of Israel, or ignored Israel. Only Sunni Hamas in Gaza and Shiite Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, terrorist entities supported by Shiite-led Iran, have maintained a state of war with Israel despite the centuries-old animosity between Sunnis and Shiites.
          Whereas Hezbollah has the ability to retreat deeper into Lebanon as it did during the Israel-Hezbollah War of 2006 (when it also had a line of retreat to neighboring Syria), Hamas has no where to go. Gaza is an enclave surrounded by Israel, the Mediterranean Sea, and Egypt a nation at peace with Israel that is unwilling to support Hamas or accept refugees from Gaza. As a result, the decision by Hamas leaders to send fighters into Israel to murder civilians, young and old alike, and take hostages was not anticipated by Israel because it is completely irrational, an act that could only have one outcome: the demise of Hamas.
          Now the war is playing out. Israel has cut off food, fuel, and electricity to Gaza while its jets and artillery pound the enclave. This prompted President Joe Biden to dispatch Secretary of State Antony Blinken to meet with Netanyahu and simultaneously confirm the United States’ unequivocal support while reminding the Israeli leader that any military response must be measured and adhere to the rules of war which means that while civilian collateral damage may occur in the course of a military campaign, there is a red line which must not be crossed: the intentional targeting of population centers.
          We cannot know, but Netanyahu may have in turn reminded Blinken that all belligerents in World War II engaged in strategic bombing — strategic bombing being a euphemism for the wholesale destruction of population centers. The answer, of course, is that rationalizing the past cannot justify its emulation of acts we know today to be wrong. In the modern world the concept of moral high ground rightly reigns supreme in the psyche of world opinion.
          In 2009, Israel devised a solution to the problem with its “knock on the roof” tactics. Israel collected telephone numbers of Gaza residents, and before launching an attack against civilian homes a recorded phone call was placed: “How are you? Is everything okay? This is the Israeli military. We need to bomb your home and we are making every effort to minimize casualties. Make sure no one is nearby since in five minutes we will attack.” After five minutes, Israeli planes or drones would drop a nonexplosive device on the target’s roof as a final warning before launching a destructive attack.
          Clearly, Blinken is signaling the need for Israel to return to this policy because the objective is to eliminate Hamas while causing the fewest casualties possible for both Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians.
 
          Eleanor Clift’s latest book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
          Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
          © 2023 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
          Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND