Peace Through Victory

By now, Israel, at the urging and bullying of the world, has tried pretty much every conceivable idea and option for achieving tranquility and reconciliation with the Hamas, except for one.  Israel removed its army and civilian population from the Gaza Strip.  In what amounted to the first ethnic self-cleansing in history, Israel evicted the entire Jewish presence in Gaza.  The entire area was turned over to the Palestinians, lock, stock, barrel, and Jew-free.

The result is of course known.  The Hamas immediately converted all of Gaza into a large rocket launch pad and a base for initiating terrorist attacks against Israel.  It kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit​ and held him incommunicado, refusing medical treatment to him, even though his arm was filled with shrapnel.  Israel in response provided free electricity and water to the Gazans and sent civilian supplies into Gaza.  Israel never made any serious efforts to stop the massive tunnel smuggling into Gaza from Egypt, even when it was clear that the main item being smuggled was weapons.  These smuggled weapons include bomb materials and sophisticated rockets that can now reach Tel Aviv.  Israel responded to the endless rocket attacks against its own civilians by turning the other cheek.  Only after 8000 rocket strikes did it launch the half-hearted symbolic retaliation in the “Cast Lead” campaign, withdrawing quickly after it was launched.

There is only one strategy for dealing with the Hamas that Israel has never attempted.  That untried strategy is victory.  Israel has never seriously attempted to achieve peace and tranquility with the Gaza Palestinians by means of victory.  This is somewhat strange, since it is hard to think of any other war that did not end in peace only after victory.  Instead, the world keeps demanding that Israel respond to Hamas provocation with an endless series of one-sided “goodwill measures.”  Never mind that the only invariable effect of such Israeli “goodwill measures” has been to trigger more Hamas terrorism.  The only “peace settlement” the Hamas is interested in is one in which Israelis volunteer to allow themselves to be placed in Hamas-run extermination camps for Jews.