Israel at War—Going Forward

As he has done repeated over the last few years, Alex Berenson cuts through the U.S. government's preferred narrative, the Middle East "experts" who know nothing of substance, and the ideologues on the left who espouse viciousness and anti-Israel hatred. He speaks clearly about the challenges Israel faces going forward.

The argument that Gaza is filled with innocents and cannot be touched ignores the reality that most Palestinian civilians in Gaza support Hamas’s rule - and violence against Israel.

A 2021 poll found a majority of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank believed Hamas is “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people” - a rise in support that followed a Hamas campaign of rocket attacks against Israel.

Further, Hamas has entwined its forces with Gaza’s civilians in a way that all-but-ensures that Israel cannot attack them without causing massive casualties. The Washington Post reported matter-of-factly nine years ago that a Gaza hospital had become “a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders.”

Thus any Israeli attacks sharp enough to damage Hamas will surely kill enough civilians in Gaza to inflame the Arab and Muslim world (along with all the leftists who already hate it).

All of that is true. So what to do? 

The world will hate Israel no matter what it does.

As Hamas showed yet again on Saturday, the world is not a friendly place for Jews who can’t defend themselves.

All the peace treaties in the world don’t mean anything unless Israel can guarantee its own security. Its conventional weapons go a long way toward ensuring that countries like Jordan and Egypt won’t attack it. Its deeper security comes in the form of a nuclear arsenal that spells the destruction of Amman and Cairo if Arab armies take Tel Aviv. No one talks about this. No one needs to.

Nor does Saudi Arabia threaten Israel’s existence. Saudi Arabia has not attacked Israel since the initial 1948 Arab League war on Israel.

No, the real threat to Israel these days comes from Hamas - and Iran. For 15 years, Israel has tried to manage Hamas, precisely because it does not want to have to invade Gaza. But Hamas cannot be managed.

Now for some reality talk:

... Israel cannot rely only on distance weapons and advanced technology this time, and not just because doing so will give Hamas the visuals it wants.

It must send Jewish soldiers into Gaza. It must do so knowing that more than a few will die. Maybe its soldiers do not need to kill every Hamas commander. Maybe they do not destroy every building in Gaza where Hamas fighters are based.

But they need to kill and destroy so many that Hamas ceases to exist as a threat. Israel must prove it has not lost its will to fight.

Bitterest of all - I don’t think Israel can make a deal for the hostages either. Weakness begets weakness. Trading for hostages begets hostage-taking.

Losing a peace deal with the Saudis is a bitter pill. But it will be around in five years, or 10, or 20. Israel has survived just fine without it. It can no longer survive with Hamas controlling a territory of more than 2 million people on its border.

Israel officials seem to understand this dynamic.

I hope they do. The price this time will be heavy, but it must be paid—with Israeli lives, with international approprium, with leftist condemnation,  and with blazing hatred from the Arab street.

The loss of lives (including Gazan civilians, when that distinction can be made from Hamas sympathizers) is tragic. As for the rest—leftist and/or Islamist dictators, ignorant campus "social justice warriors, right-wing neo nazis, leftist politicians in the West, and the Arab street—fuck 'em.

UPDATE:

As students on more and more "elite" university campuses (e.g., Harvard, Columbia, Yale, NYU) express solidarity with Gaza over "colonialism", as leftist politicians demand a cease fire after 1000 Israelis have been murdered, as social media is flooded with lies about the history of the region and the overall Arab-Israeli conflict, Greg Price on X (Twitter) offers a brief history lesson (underline emphasis is mine):

1937: Arabs reject the Peel Commission to create a Jewish and Arab state.  

 

1947: Arabs reject the UN partition plan to create a Jewish and Arab state. Wage war against the new nation of Israel. Lose more land than the partition gave them.  

 

1967: Israel wins yet another war against its Arab neighbors, conquering Gaza, the West Bank and Sinai in a defensive war. The Arab League declares the "three no's": No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel. Israel voluntarily hands control of the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism back to the Islamic Waqf, and made it illegal for Jews to pray there.  

 

1979: Israel voluntarily hands the Sinai back to Egypt, returning land conquered in a defensive war.  

 

1993: Israel recognizes the sovereignty of the Palestinian Authority over the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the Oslo Accords. Yasser Arafat uses it to support terrorism. 2000: Israel offers Yasser Arafat recognition of a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 94% of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its Capital. Arafat rejects it and launches the Second Intifada.  

 

2005: Israel pulls out of the Gaza Strip, dismantles all its settlements, and forces Jews to leave their homes. Palestinians respond by electing Hamas who turn it into a terror state. 

 

2008: Israel offers Mahmoud Abbas once again recognition of a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 94% of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its Capital and even offered to dismantle all their settlements. And once again, the Palestinians reject it. 

 

2010-2021: Hamas launches periodic rocket attacks against the state of Israel and builds terror tunnels in order to kidnap and murder Jews while using the people of Gaza as human shields against the IDF. 

 

2023: Hamas commits the worst act of mass murder against Jews since the Holocaust.

Any questions about who wanted peace, who made repeated concessions, who gave up land and security, and who rejected it all, choosing instead to proceed along a path hoping for the annihilation of Israel?