The World Is Rewarding Hamas’s Barbarism and Incentivizing the Next October 7

Calls for a cease fire will only embolden Hamas, weaken Israel, and hasten the next atrocity.

The worldwide demonstrators for an Israeli ceasefire are little more than excuses for demanding the end of Israel. The signs and chants disclose the real goals of the organizers and most of the demonstrators. “From the river to the sea, Palestinian must be free,” does not mean two states. It means one Muslim caliphate with no Jews. So do most of the other demands. 

These anti-Israel demonstrations do not include demands to Hamas to free the Israeli hostages, or to stop using Palestinian civilians as human shields. They are not humanitarian calls to protect all civilian lives. Instead, they are one-sided battle cries directed only against Israel. They are designed to strengthen Hamas and weaken Israel. 

The calls for Israel’s demise would persist even if Israel were to agree to a halt in hostilities. The demonstrations might be somewhat smaller, but they would be no less bigoted. 

Most American politicians who have expressed anti-Israel sentiments, such as President Obama, Senator Sanders, the so-called “Squad,” and several Democratic senators, do not explicitly  call for the end of Israel. Their demands for an unconditional ceasefire, though, with no return of hostages, would strengthen Hamas to attack Israel and to reprise their barbaric terrorism against Israeli civilians. Hamas leaders have boasted that October 7 was only the beginning.

The best proof of the real goals of many anti-Israel protesters is that the anti-Israel and pro-Hamas rhetoric began before Israel even attacked Gaza. The recent calls for Palestine to replace Israel were stimulated by the barbarism of October 7, which were seen as a manifestation of Israeli weakness by its enemies, including the Hamas supporters who organized the anti-Israel demonstrations.

These calls, coupled with condemnations of Israel by so many of the international community, sends dangerous messages to Hamas and its supporters: You are winning in the court of public opinion. This sentiment validates Hamas’s plan to murder Israelis, provoke a reaction by the Jewish state, and then place terrorist assets among civilians who will in turn die.

Hamas uses these deaths to demonize Israel and demand surrender. It is working, as it has repeatedly in the past. If you do it again, it will work in the future. So why not plan more massacres like October 7? They are a win-win strategy for Hamas. 

 Israel must not give in to the ill-intentioned pressure of those who are calling for an unconditional ceasefire that would allow Hamas to rearm and regroup.  If it does, more Israeli and Palestinian civilians will be killed by the entirely predictable repetitions of Hamas’ cynical  “dead baby” strategy.

One would expect that rational people would see through this recurring strategy and apply Albert Einstein’s purported definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  Whether or not Einstein actually spoke these words, they aptly describe the world’s repeated reactions to the Hamas strategy —  reward Hamas for its attacks on Israeli civilians; and punish Israel for defending its civilians.

Put more colloquially: wash, rinse, repeat, etc., or, as the song by the Wiggles has it, “Michael Finegan, begin again, begin again”  —  albeit ad infinitum with increasing deaths.

It may seem counterintuitive and insensitive, but the reality is that allowing Israel to persist in its just goal of eliminating Hamas, even if that requires extensive collateral damage, will almost certainly result in far fewer civilian deaths in the medium and longer term. The destruction of Hamas will save not only Israeli lives, but also Palestinian lives. It will also improve the quality of life at the Gaza Strip. 

Recall that the best thing that ever happened to the German and Japanese people was the total defeat and unconditional surrender of their armies, which came about only after hundreds of thousands of their civilians were killed by bombings of densely populated cities. Following these deaths and surrenders, Germany and Japan became America’s allies.  

The Middle East is, of course, different from Europe or the Far East, but one lesson from the latter may be relevant to the former. Inadvertent deaths of civilians, when tragically necessary to assure defeat of an evil aggressor, may end up doing far more good than a premature capitulation.

This doesn’t mean that noble ends always justify any means. What it does mean is that achieving total victory over an evil regime that kills both its own and enemy civilians with impunity sometimes requires risking the lives of those enemy civilians. 

Israel should do everything reasonable to minimize civilian deaths, but it should not unreasonably risk its legitimate, and indeed honorable, goals by valuing the lives of enemy civilians— many of whom are complicit in Hamas’ crimes—over the lives of its own citizens. So, Israel should categorically reject demands for an unconditional ceasefire designed to strengthen Hamas at the expense of the Jewish state.