In the six months since terrorist supporters successfully branded their campaign to save the Hamas terrorist group as a ‘ceasefire’, the term was embraced by state governments, the Biden-Harris administration and now a growing number of American Jewish liberal groups.
Even formerly pro-Israel figures and organizations are trying to sell the idea of saving Hamas and leaving it in control of Gaza as the right thing to do and even a ‘victory’ for Israel.
Depicting an Israeli surrender to Hamas in which the Jewish State retreats from Gaza, trades thousands of terrorists for perhaps a dozen hostages, and billions in international aid pour into the coffers of Hamas while Yahya Sinwar holds a parade as a ‘victory’ takes a lot of chutzpah.
Chutzpah and utterly delusional thinking are sadly not lacking.
Some in Israel are willing to trade anything, including national survival, in exchange for the slim chance of getting some hostages back. American liberal Jewish organizations are focused on electing Kamala Harris and are willing to trade Israel for Dearborn, Michigan’s votes to do it. And the same breed of establishment hacks in Israel responsible for Oct 7 are selling the same security snake oil and making the same false promises that they have for the last 30 years.
Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, retired Israeli Gen. Amos Yadlin, a Labor Party figure who had backed the Iran Deal, and Graham Allison, a Clinton defense official, claimed that, “A Cease-Fire Deal Now Would Be a Victory for Israel”. Yadlin and Allison blamed Netanyahu for failing to accept “a historic strategic victory for Israel” by surrendering to Hamas.
According to the two men, all of “Israel’s 13 previous prime ministers” would have also surrendered to Hamas and Israel’s negotiating team “would have accepted the terms of any of the deals that have emerged from the last three rounds of negotiations.” Why even quibble?
“At this point, what more is Netanyahu waiting for?” Yadlin and Allison demanded, before falsely claiming that the only reason there’s no deal is Netanyahu’s political ambitions.
What is Netanyahu waiting for? The same thing that FDR was waiting for in 1943.
“No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory,” Roosevelt declared after Pearl Harbor.
“Our terms to Italy are still the same as our terms to Germany and Japan – unconditional surrender,” FDR then vowed in 1943. “We have taken the initiative, and we’re not going to let go of it. We shall not settle for less than total victory.”
The D.C. political establishment and chunks of the Israeli one mock the idea of “total victory”.
Echoing the familiar Foggy Bottom meme, the op-ed dismisses that as “an elusive ‘total victory’. But that’s the thing about victory, it’s hard to come by, yet there’s nothing ambiguous about it. Actual victory, not a defeat dressed up in victory drag, is what actually ends wars and secures peace.
The proposal that Israel declare a worthless “mission accomplished” victory and surrender to Hamas is more of the same “mowing the lawn” philosophy that led to Oct 7. Hamas will regroup, rebuild and rearm, and attack again under the shield of whatever worthless deal is signed.
But it’s even worse than that.
Hamas is not looking to make a deal. An entire network of D.C. and Israeli officials, media and activists have taken to lying about it. Instead, Hamas is using the hostages as leverage to tear apart Israel and destroy its will to fight. The leftists rioting in Tel Aviv demanding a deal, any deal, and the op-ed, are all examples that show it’s working. Key security establishment figures like Yadlin have taken to foreign media to argue that the problem is Israel, not Hamas.
Just like Arafat, Hamas has scuttled every deal while directing the blame at Israel. Murdered hostages and selectively released videos are strategically calculated to further divide Israel.
The prospect of a deal has become the best weapon wielded by Hamas,.its Qatari and Iranian backers, and its political allies from D.C. to Dearborn. The reality of any deal is that Hamas is not offering to free all the hostages. All it will propose is the release of some hostages in exchange for thousands of Hamas terrorists, including the perpetrators of Oct 7, and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and then extended negotiations that will twist the knife deeper.
Hamas will celebrate its victory, reclaim control over Gaza, and retain many of the hostages, while Israeli protesters clash with the government demanding complete appeasement in the hopes that Hamas will release the remaining hostages. That’s what a deal with Hamas means.
After turning the Democrat leadership of Michigan, California and Illinois into its personal lobby, followed by the media and the D.C. political class, Hamas has also captured a chunk of the Israeli and American Jewish liberal political establishment which now use its talking points.
Israeli security types offer the same worthless assurances that they did during the Oslo accords (“if a Palestinian autonomous territory engages in terror, the accords give us the right to shut it down”), the withdrawal from Lebanon (“we can go back in anytime”), the destruction of the Jewish communities from Gaza (“this way we’ll able to strike wherever we want to”) and recognizing Hamas autonomy over Gaza (“we have Iron Dome and we’ll build a wall.)
The promises that Israel will be able to go into Gaza once it withdraws after the first stage of a deal are agreed on are equally worthless. Once a deal is underway, it becomes a bear trap that Israel will not be able to escape until the next Hamas attack is underway. Just like Oct 7.
The same D.C. security assurances did not allow Israel to dismantle Arafat’s terror statelet, did not allow Israel to defeat Hamas on any previous rounds, will not allow Israel to go back into Gaza in full force, only an occasional airstrike that takes it back to the same ‘mowing the lawn’ strategy as before Oct 7. Once Israel withdraws from Gaza, there will be no reason not to allow in the billions in foreign aid that will rearm and enrich Hamas even more than before Oct 7.
The remaining hostages will become leverage and may never be released. And without Israeli operational control over Gaza, the odds of finding and rescuing them will drop catastrophically.
Hamas will emerge from Oct 7 victorious. It will have demonstrated that it could carry out a devastating attack, survive a year of fighting, and reclaim control over Gaza. It will win the acclaim of the Arab Muslim colonists in Gaza and the West Bank, and of the Muslim world. Hamas will have demonstrated that just like the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Iraq, it could wear down and defeat a non-Muslim power, and be on a pathway to creating an Islamic state.
And Israel will emerge from Oct 7 defeated. There will be bodies to bury and crushed morale after the recognition that the Islamic terrorists had accomplished their goals and we did not. Israel will be a divided country in the throes of a circular firing squad as Hamas rejoices. Soldiers will ask themselves why their friends and family members died for no reason.
As the election continues, Israel has a window of opportunity to finish off Hamas. Once the election is done, and especially if Kamala wins, Israel will face a partial arms embargo. The new administration will hold out unilateral recognition of a ‘Palestinian state’ that will include Hamas as leverage. By then, Iran may have a nuclear weapon, and Israel will have more worthless security assurances from D.C. which will be limited to providing purely defensive weapons.
And Israel will be in the worst position it has been in since before the Six Day War.
The Iranian coalition is mounting its campaign to shield the race to a nuclear bomb. Israel has few good options to stop the bomb, resettle the north and destroy Hamas, but it has one very bad option and that is a deal with Islamic terrorists.
American Jews and Israelis are being lied to by a corrupt and feckless establishment that is willing to make any promise in exchange for an end to the war. Those promises are all false. They lied when they claimed that previous deals with the terrorists came with U.S. security guarantees and assurances that would allow Israel to deal with them at any time. They’re lying now when they promise that Israel will be allowed to go back into Gaza and attack Hezbollah.
And most of all the same people who did not see Oct 7 coming are lying when they claim that it can never happen again. It can and will until Islamic terrorist groups are driven out of Israel.
Returning to the same twilight zone of deterrence, occasional air strikes, a week or two of fighting after a major attack followed by another ceasefire, is how things got so bad.
Oct 7 showed that Hamas had a bigger vision. Israel’s establishment still does not.
Hamas is fighting to destroy Israel, and kill or drive out all the Jews. What is Israel fighting for?
A few security guarantees, temporary deterrence, a negotiated release of hostages, and then business as usual? If Israel is fighting for business as usual, then it’s setting the stage for the next Oct 7. And that attack will, like all the previous ones, will be worse and more devastating..
Netanyahu’s call for total victory is the closest thing to a vision for something more than management or appeasement any Israeli prime minister has articulated in a generation.
The alternative to total victory is defeat. A deal will mean Israel’s moral and strategic defeat. It will advance the Hamas vision of the end of Israel much closer. And those advocating for a deal at any cost, dividing and undermining Israel in a time of war, are bringing on Israel’s destruction.
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