10/7: The cowards of Gaza

The Hamas invasion of Israel directly impacted my family. My wife's cousin, Eli Ginsberg, was called up to reserves in the IDF, three weeks after entering retirement, following 23 years of service where he most recently commanded the LOTAR (counter-terrorism unit) as a Lieutenant Colonel. He was on a mission to free hostages and was killed in action last week.?

I lived in Jerusalem for 6 months in the first half of 2000, shortly before the Second Intifada, working at a tech startup. I worked with a woman who had lost hearing in one ear when she was walking by a restaurant where a terrorist bomb went off. The Head of Engineering wore a pistol on his hip at all times. Military with assault rifles searched people entering the mall.

Israel has one of the most aggressive cultures in the world, for better and for worse. American foreign policy makers talk about the strategy of disproportionate response; Israel puts it into action. This is not so surprising - the country has gone through a kind of accelerated Darwinian evolution. Surviving so many attacks comes with tradeoffs, such as the erosion of civil liberties, and anti-terrorism missions that at times display a disregard for "collateral damage", which has been especially severe for Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. I am pro-Israel in the sense of supporting Israel's right to exist as a state, but I have not been a fan of the Netanyahu government, and believe their policies have made peace harder to attain.?

That said, nothing Israel has done justifies the Hamas atrocities of Oct 7.?Hamas cannot ever again be considered a legitimate government for Palestinians, and I support Israel's right to defend itself in this war.

Just as 9/11 led to the Patriot Act, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, there was a long road to Israel's modern policies in Gaza (e.g. high surveillance, detentions without due process, civilians killed during anti-terrorism IDF strikes). Israel is reacting to countless suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks originated from Gaza after Israel vacated Gaza in 2005, and?tens of thousands of rockets?fired from Gaza into Israel in the last 20 years that have killed innocent Israeli civilians.

To understand this conflict, you have to know a lot of history. Just in the last 30 years we have the Oslo Accords, the First and Second Intifadas, the reasons why Fatah/PA split from Hamas, the reasons why the West Bank?didn't join in this military action,?why Egypt won't take Palestinian refugees in, and the web of relationships between other Arab nations in the region. And it goes back much further.

The media in 2023 is not designed to cover this war. It's especially disturbing to see the word "apartheid" used so freely with respect to Gaza. That word implies?ethnic discrimination?as Israel's motive, and carries with it the idea that the people of Gaza seek merely equal rights and freedom within Israel. Students of history know that those implications are false, and that they are used to support the most stunningly dishonest propaganda of terrorist organizations like Hamas. Hamas, as the governing authority in Gaza since 2007, seeks the destruction of Israel and the reclamation of holy land in their own charter. They have rejected the two party state offers Israel has made in the past.?

The Hamas attacks of October 7 do not represent a victory for pro-Palestinian interests, but rather a massive?setback that may prevent progress for a generation. Yes, Hamas?broke through Israeli defenses in a great surprise, but they squandered their opportunity. Instead of destroying critical infrastructure or military installations, they targeted schools and civilian homes where they could butcher defenseless children, or went to rape women at a concert and then loot their dead bodies. They didn't take hostages in order to make political demands like trading for Hamas prisoners or ending blockades, but instead used them as human shields and retreated back to Gaza. They did not act as martyrs; they acted as cowards.?

My hope is that pro-Palestinian interests will focus their energies now on building a new government in Gaza, convincing neighboring countries to accept some refugees, and seeking disarmament of other terrorist groups in and around Israel in exchange for guarantees of improved civil rights for Palestinians.