The Fate of Hamas in the War of Gaza. A Memorandum of an Israeli Soldier During the Occupation of Gaza
I left his funeral last week feeling like he had lost a righteous soul. It is clear to me. My friend not only fought against Hamas during his final moments to protect his friends and family; he also fought against Hamas during years of activism against the occupation.
They told us that the threat of Hamas could be eliminated with a military operation. Today they are repeating the lie, that we can eliminate the threat through a military operation. In the years since, Hamas has only grown stronger, despite our sacrifices and despite the death and destruction we had wrought on Gaza.
The periodic killings and destruction which have been described as a price Israel was willing to pay to not be pushed into a two-state solution have been called mowing the lawn by commentators. We chose to “manage” the conflict through a combination of brute force and economic incentives, instead of working to solve it by ending our perpetual occupation of Palestinian territory.
At one point, I scribbled some thoughts on a piece of paper. I wrote that some of my team members were considering the worth of the operation after accounting for the number of soldiers killed. “I think it could be worth it,” I wrote, “as long as we decisively eliminate the threat.”
As we withdrew from Beit Hanoun, we heard the roar of Air Force fighter jets overhead, followed by deafening explosions and towering plumes of debris and smoke rising from Al-Burrah. Eight members of the Wahdan family, including women and children, were killed when the airstrikes took place, and some of their home soldiers who had been near them had been forced to leave.
Like the invasion that the Israeli military has said is imminent, that campaign was precipitated by atrocities carried out by Hamas terrorists. In that year, Hamas killed three Israeli teenagers and a Palestinian teenager; shortly after, Israelis killed a Palestinian teenager. The horrific exchange escalated into a larger conflict; ultimately some 70 Israelis and 2,250 Palestinians were killed over seven weeks. Then, as now, Israelis were told that we were going in to deal a decisive blow to Hamas.
In order to avoid ambush and booby traps, my Israeli infantry unit blew open doors and sent grenades through windows to clear the houses at the first village in Gaza. We were told Palestinian civilians had fled.
Even today, I remember how the ground shook from the constant explosions as we moved into Gaza at dusk at the start of the ground invasion on July 17. The sound and lightshow we jokingly called the sound-and-light show, was caused by our Merkava tanks plowing through fields next to us and the bombardments that created thunder and lightning.
As I stood over the corpse of an elderly woman, I realized that this wasn’t true. She had been in a pool of blood on the floor of the shack.
In examining Mr. Biden’s history with Israel, there is no Eddie Jacobson to his Harry Truman, no Jewish best friend who sensitized him to the issues of the Jewish state. But Mr. Biden traces his interest to childhood conversations with his father, who described the horrors of the Holocaust over dinner.
Waleed Shahid, a former leader of Justice Democrats, predicted that the current environment, in which leaders of both parties, including President Biden, are aligned with Israeli leadership and the Palestinian cause is represented by protesters in the streets and on college campuses, would yield a trove of fund-raising for pro-Israel groups ahead of 2024. He suggested that there may be an “asymmetrical” fight during the primaries.
Aides said Mr. Biden’s public embrace of Mr. Netanyahu gives him the ability to influence him in private. The president spoke to the prime minister 10 times since the attack on Gaza and he also flew to hug Mr. Netanyahu and survivors.
Mr. Biden asked pointed questions in those private sessions. Why do you plan to do it this way? What is next, have you thought about it? What have you done to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza?
According to the man that advised Mr. Biden on the Middle East, it was not his place to tell another leader how to handle their own politics. “He’ll offer advice, but he’s not going to do it like Tony Soprano.”
The Holocaust and its Tragic Implications for Democrats and the Dialogue Between Israel and the Palestinians: A Conversation with J. Blinken
“The world was wrong — failing to respond to Hitler’s atrocities against the Jews — and we should be ashamed,” he quoted his father saying in one of his memoirs.
“This is something, as I’ve seen it and experienced it, that goes in a sense from his gut to his heart to his head,” Mr. Blinken said of the president in a phone interview. Other presidents may process the situation through an “intellectual policy prism,” he added. “But there’s something, as I’ve been able to witness it, that seems more visceral for him.”
Ten percent of the district is made up of Jews, but also have Muslim, Arab, Palestinian people afraid for their families and their lives.
In the northern suburbs of New York, George Latimer, the Westchester County executive, is contemplating a challenge to Representative Jamaal Bowman, who defeated the staunchly pro-Israel chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, in 2020.
And progressive organizations are girding for possible challenges to Representatives Cori Bush of Missouri, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and others, funded from the deep pockets of AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups.
“They spent a historic amount of money to intervene, and try and buy primaries in 2022,” said Usamah Andrabi, spokesman for Justice Democrats, the liberal insurgent group that helped elect many of the progressives now on the primary target list. I think we will see a doubling and tripling down because no one in the leadership of the Democratic party is trying to stop them.
There will be time for politics, but right now is when the most important thing is to build and sustain support for the fight against Hamas.
The jabs have begun. Responding to a post by Mr. Bowman extolling his “Ceasefire Now” resolution, the lobbying group called it “a transparent ploy to paint Israel as the aggressor and allow Hamas to control Gaza.” Hitting Ms. Lee, AIPAC wrote on X, “Emboldening a group that massacres Israelis and uses Palestinians as human shields will never achieve peace.”
“I think we’re in a post-9/11 environment where there’s a lot of fear to speak out against war, and there could be political electoral consequences for not lining up for the cause of war, the way there was in 2002,” he said.