Why Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza, and why Israeli forces should go after Hamas: Commentary on Cotton’s “Fox News Sunday”
The bloodthirsty atmosphere is being intensified by influential voices in America. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” the Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas dismissed worries that mass civilian casualties in Gaza will work to Hamas’s advantage on the world stage. He believes that Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza. That phrase, “bounce the rubble,” is a reference to a Winston Churchill quote about apocalyptic military overkill. Cotton thinks that the language is even more provocative. “If it comes to ethnic cleansing, I will cleanse my own people first,” said a senior editor at Breitbart News on the web of the leading young conservative.
Israeli forces have attacked Gaza six times from 2006 until the recent siege, killing well over 4,000 people. The number includes 202 in 2015, 856 in 2006 and 1,385 in 2008 and 2009, according to the B.Tselem. Each time, casualties for Palestinian civilians have outnumbered combatants.
How Hamas Decided to Attack Israel: What Happened When Israel Was Indicated, and Why Israel Has The Right To Do It
It took the United States a long time to come to grips with the fact that the decision to invade Iraq was an original sin, something so bad that it could never have come out better. That mentality is damaging because it cuts off any serious effort to understand what went wrong and why.
Poor planning and limited resources will always fail to get postwar peace because the label of forever wars that has been attached to America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan doesn’t acknowledge that. It’s shocking that anyone could be surprised by this. Washington misapplied the lessons of postwar Germany and Japan that led to their prosperous democracies today, including well-resourced physical and political reconstruction and the time to succeed. Israel has faced its own forever war since 1948. Your enemy is poor planning and lack of resources.
Finally, remember that military victory is an asset whose power decreases over time. If and when Israel succeeds in defeating Hamas, use that limited time wisely. What you decide to prioritize may be all you get done, so it has to lay the groundwork for constructive steps, not chaos, to follow. Recovery from bad decisions at the beginning is almost impossible, like the US’s decision to fire tens of thousands of people from their government jobs in Iraq.
I bet some people will say that while this is awful, it is also the fault of Hamas. I do agree in many ways. Hamas’s terror is clearly the immediate cause of the hell raining down on Gaza; most countries attacked as Israel was attacked would respond with war. That does not, however, license Israeli indifference, or worse, to the lives of civilians. Israelis have a right to their rage; I imagine that if I were Israeli, I would share it. There’s a reason the majority of people who spread the misinformation against Palestinians have nothing to do with Hamas terrorism.
Areas of the dehumanization of Palestinians can already be seen. In Illinois a boy was stabbed to death by the landlord who is also accused of injuring the boy’s mother. The victims were targets due to their Muslimness and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.