Daily Alert Archives

In Gaza, Israel Can Win the War But Not the Peace

(Jerusalem Strategic Tribune) Michael Mandelbaum - The most important task of the IDF operation in Gaza is to destroy the tunnels, a protracted, arduous, perilous activity. To the extent that Israel can destroy these subterranean redoubts, whatever remains of Hamas will have to operate above ground, where it will be vulnerable to Israeli firepower. The Biden administration has made known its preference that the Palestinian Authority (PA), now ensconced in the West Bank, take responsibility for governing Gaza after the main fighting concludes. The PA is unlikely, however, to be either willing or able to stop attacks on Israel. It is weak, corrupt, ineffective, and unpopular with Palestinians. Moreover, the political outlooks of the PA and Hamas have considerable overlap. The PA, too, churns out vile anti-Jewish propaganda. It, too, insists that all those Arabs who left Israel when it was created in 1948 - most of them because of the war that the Arabs instigated in an effort to destroy the new Jewish state - and all of their many descendants must be allowed to return to Israel, a demand that not only has no historical or legal basis but is also a formula for the end of the Jewish state. The PA supports anti-Israel terror, giving money to the families of those who engage in it. Its leaders, first Yasir Arafat and now Abbas, have always refused Israeli offers of a state and have never made any serious counter proposals. In so doing they have been listening to their constituents. Polls of Palestinian opinion have shown an overwhelming rejection of having two states, Israel and Palestine, living peacefully next to each other. Most Palestinians do not accept the legitimacy or the permanence of Israel. All this makes Palestinian nationalism the only one that has as its aim not the creation of its own nation-state but rather the destruction of the state of another people. Nor will the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza change the Palestinians' attitudes toward the Jews and their state. To the contrary, it is all too likely to be regarded as a sign of Israeli weakness, thereby fortifying those attitudes. Palestinian rejection of Israel is the essential, animating cause of the conflict between the two peoples. Israelis do not have the power to change it; they can only respond to its consequences. The writer is Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
2024-01-12 00:00:00
Full Article