Things are quiet today. Quiet in Gaza and quiet in Israel. Is there going to be a long term cease fire or not? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
What we can discuss though, is whether we should be attempting to reach a cease fire agreement with Hamas at all. There is a lot of anger from Israelis who want this security situation finished once and for all. Why not insert the special forces and decapitate the leadership already? Anyone that harbors notions that Hamas can be negotiated into any kind of peace that isn’t a temporary truce designed to allow them to get stronger is delusional. There’s nothing to discuss if this is your position, you are simply wrong and history has proven that on many occasions already.
Others believe instead that we’ve bloodied their nose enough and can have relative calm for a while. That we have already lost too many lives (we have, one is too many) and we should just regroup and wait for the next incident. The problem with this train of thought is that we are essentially kicking the can down the road. While that may be fine for some things, when discussing Hamas there are extra costs involved with this strategy. These costs will have to be paid, there is no way around it.
So what are these extra costs we incur by kicking the can down the road? Today we have a situation that is fairly under control. Their weaponry is not very effective, we are doing a good job at sparing the Gazan civilian population (as good as can be expected given the fighting environment that Hamas forces us into) and our citizens in the South are asking us to continue and finish this. Additionally, our enemies surrounding us are busier with other things right now than to deal with us also.
Who honestly thinks that in another two to three years that Hamas will not find a way to import more advanced weaponry? Weapons that will have the capacity to take hundreds of lives at a time, God forbid. Weapons that we will not necessarily have an Iron Dome solution for? If this happens, not only will we lose many more of our lives, we will lose many more of their lives too. We will have no choice but to go into Gaza and begin a true war, not a military operation. The results will be terrible, but we will stop them.
All of this for what reason? Hope? We hope that this will not come to pass? Sorry, the balance in my “hope account” is overdrawn. We need to take care of this now, while the costs will be much smaller.
With ISIS, Syria, Hezbollah, Iran and now Turkey threatening us, do we really need to be leaving loose ends laying around or should we be sending the right message to all players in this tragic arena of hate? I submit that weakness is the last thing we need to show.
Another aspect that most don’t even begin to consider is that 80% of the Gazan population wants to emigrate (according to their own polls). Of course, Hamas doesn’t want to let them. We would be in a good position to relieve the Gazan population of their overlords and help those that want to emigrate to do so.
Unless we capitulate to Hamas’ demands, the current US administration is not going to be happy with us. But so what? It is clear that they are never happy with us when we protect our people and interests. The US is not our God and never will be.
Thank you God for your continuing protection of us. Please give our leadership the wisdom and strength to do the right thing.
