From many perspectives, Israel is now in a seemingly endless downward spiral. Three EU members, Norway, Ireland and Spain, recently recognized Palestine as a state. Others indicate they will follow suit. It is unclear what this means, but certainly it is a blow to Israel and its people.
We can only wonder: How do these wise members of the “democratic West” envisage the reactions of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran to their decision?
Do they expect that these terror states will evolve to be less violent? Will these tyrants offer freedom of choice and livelihood to the citizens they now rule? Will they build hospitals and schools that save lives and teach tolerance rather than build tunnels and bastions that indiscriminately kill their Jewish neighbors? Will they stop firing rockets, many of which harm their own Palestinian dependents?
Israel's enemies will not give up
The answer is that they will not. In the words of Palestinian spokesman Dr. Ghazi Hamad: “There will a second, a third, and a fourth October 7; we will repeat this act until Israel is annihilated”. By killing indiscriminately; by torturing 125 human beings including women, children and the elderly, in lightless tunnels under the ground; by continuously placing the Palestinians of Gaza in danger; and by being obdurate in the face of Western mediated negotiations, Hamas continues to move toward its goal: the destruction of the Jewish state.
Israel as a country and we as its citizens are more isolated and more hated than we were before October 7, 2023. We are banned from scientific and academic meetings. Our scholarship is scorned. Our produce is boycotted. We are told that we have violated humanitarian laws. Esteemed Western-educated barristers and lawyers attack and criticize us using legalisms inapplicable to the situation on the ground in Gaza.
Daily we are faulted for causing a famine in Gaza. Yet the water is flowing, the Hamas generators are churning, and Hamas terrorists continue to prevent food convoys from reaching distribution centers. This week The Wall Street Journal reported that the UN could not distribute the tons of aid loaded on 1,000 trucks due to the dangerous looting by the Palestinians. These so-called resistance fighters steal food, supplies and hundreds of millions of shekels from the bank accounts of their Palestinian brothers. If there is a famine and poverty in Gaza, it is Hamas that bears the blame.
WE ARE told by our learned colleagues that a two-state solution is the only path to peace in the Middle East. A Jewish State in the pre-1967 borders and a Palestinian state side by side. Left-wing pundits instruct us that there can be no military solution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
I would accept that claim. However, it is disingenuous to forget that in June 1967, Egypt under president Gamal Abdel Nasser blocked the straits of Tiran, kicked out a UN peacekeeping force (UNEF) and was poised to annihilate Israel by coordinated attacks with Syria and Jordan. The pre-1967 borders did not lead to peace!!
Well, you say, the goal of Nasser was pan-Arabism, not a two-state solution. Although secular-nationalist by philosophy, he was willing, for a time, to team up with elements of the Muslim Brotherhood to solidify his rule and attack the Jews returning to their homeland.
Under Egyptian rule, the Palestinians in Gaza were treated harshly from 1948 to 1967. No attempt was made to integrate or absorb them into Egyptian society. They were political pawns educated and indoctrinated to believe that Israel was a temporary aberration that would soon be eliminated. Frequent attacks by fedayeen from Gaza made life in southern Israel turbulent and tenuous in the 1950s.
Given the bleak economic living conditions in Israel and its socialistic bureaucracy, the fledgling state was tolerated, even supported by the Left. This was to change after the 1973 war and Israel’s development of a powerful Western-oriented economy and a state-of-the-art military industry. Seemingly assured of survival, and labeled the Start-Up Nation, Israel stopped being the darling of the Left.
Subsequently, the Left became flag bearers for resistance movements, with the Palestinian refugees as their poster children. This narcissistic utopian portrayal of the Palestinian people and of their leaders is a major contributor to the conflict and to the refusal of the Palestinians to live side by side with a Jewish Israel. Surely, the citizens of Gaza have suffered since the establishment of the State of Israel.
Palestinian suffering is real, but not Israel's fault
EVERY HUMAN should feel their suffering. However, their plight is the result of failure of the Palestinian leadership to develop a government during the last 55 years, to design elective procedures that would create an infrastructure to preside over their people in a just and non-corrupt manner, and to work together with the Israeli government to formulate a stable, peaceful relationship. This is the crux of the problem and remains the major impediment to a future for the Jews of Israel and the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza.
To paraphrase Einat Wilf “There is a path to peace. It is based on the transformation of the Palestinian ethos away from destruction and toward construction. Away from believing Jews are foreigners in this land to the realization of the nearly four-millennia-long connection between the Jew and her/his ancestral home.” I doubt this will be possible while Hamas rules the Palestinian people.
To the pundits and diplomats who criticize Israel and its conduct in Gaza: What is your solution? What is your “day after”? Do you accept Hamas as a legitimate governing body in Gaza? Will you hold them responsible for the crimes of October 7, 2023?
One day the current round in the Israeli/Palestinian War will end. Who is your choice to lead the Palestinians? The PA? I think not – they give terrorists and their families incentive pay for murdering and brutalizing the citizens of Israel! The sheikhs of the dominant families in Gaza or the West Bank? They have exhibited no enthusiasm for accepting this role. The UN peacekeepers? When and where have UN peacekeepers ever kept the peace in a disputed territory?
I have not seen a workable “day after” suggestion that can be implemented while Hamas remains viable. If Israel is forced into a cease fire before destroying the terrorist group, the result will likely be a Hamas-led insurgency that will result in continued hostilities and lead to future October 7, 2023-like massacres and atrocities.
Appeasing Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran increases the possibility of continued chaos in the Middle East and even of a thermonuclear conflagration. Europe and the United States, under President Joe Biden’s leadership, must realize that the “day after” can begin only when Hamas and its jihadist brothers are no longer a threat.
The writer is a distinguished emeritus professor of biochemistry and chemistry at the City University of New York. He lives in Rehovot and has two grandsons in the IDF. The opinions in this article are his own.