The grim horror in Israel and Gaza is about to get worse. The terrorist attacks by Hamas that killed a reported 1,400 Israelis, wounded over 3,500 more, and kidnapped nearly 200. The victims were largely civilians, including many children. The Netanyahu government has responded with a “complete siege” of Gaza, plus massive bombing that has killed a reported 2,778 Palestinians and wounded 9,700, overwhelmingly civilians, including many women and children. Now, the Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, promises that the horror has only just begun.
Israel has demanded that more than a million Gaza residents in northern Gaza evacuate while it amasses forces for a land invasion. Israel cut off food, water, and electricity to Gaza, though they have since restored the water supply to southern Gaza.
The Gaza residents who flee in panic have no place to go. Israel is one border. Egypt refuses to take them. The sea is a third border. If Israel launches the promised invasion, many of its soldiers and Hamas fighters will be killed or wounded. But far more civilians – the elderly, women, and children who have nothing to do with Hamas – will lose lives and limbs under the rain of bombs and bullets unleashed. The laws of war – already ignored – will be trampled.
Just as the Hamas terrorism that targeted civilians violates the laws of war, so too does the siege and expulsion in Gaza. Israel demands that those who live in northern Gaza evacuate. Those who are left will too easily be categorized as Hamas members or sympathizers that Israel has promised to erase. Then Israel will likely tell the Gazans huddled in the south to return north, and the south will be “cleansed.” The fighting will be fierce – and civilians will suffer the most.
Terrorism terrorizes. It triggers an irrational response. Americans felt that when we were suddenly attacked on 9/11. The Bush administration responded in fear and rage. The administration invaded Afghanistan to dislodge the Taliban and hunt down Bin Laden.US forces invaded Iraq, even though its brutal leader had no connection to the ter-rorist attack. The administration launched a “war on terror,” sponsoring violent regime change, dispatching drones and soldiers to countries across the Middle East and Africa, bombing villages, torturing prisoners, and jailing suspects. Two decades and $8 trillion dollars later, that war goes on. Yet the US has ended weaker now and less secure.
Pleading for the protection of civilians, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres noted that “Even wars have rules.” In the face of terrorist attacks, however, the laws of war seem almost quaint, remnants of another time. Horrible crimes demand retribution. Frightened people demand a fierce response. Pundits goad governments to take the wraps off, to do more terror than the terrorists. Beleaguered governments like Israel’s before the attacks tend to strike back with the greatest recklessness. Armchair warriors say any civilian deaths – “collateral damage” – are the fault of the terrorists, suggesting falsely that the avenging army is not responsible for its own actions.
Joe Biden has forcefully condemned Hamas terrorism and announced that America would have Israel’s back, stationing aircraft carriers closer to the war zone and warning others – particularly Iran and Hezbollah – not to expand the conflict.
If we do have Israel’s back, then the president should also be forcefully calling for restraint – and mobilizing to help limit civilian casualties and to limit the growing humanitarian crisis.
Israel has the military capacity to lay waste to Gaza, at a cost of many casualties. The US may help keep the war from expanding into a regional conflict. But then what? What will happen to the Gaza survivors? How will the global and regional outrage find expression? How will Israelis – particularly the young – live with the horrors inflicted? What hatred and desire for revenge will be carried out by the children of Gaza – with about half its population under 18 according to the World Health Organization?
In the end, Israel’s survival depends on finding a way to live in peace with its neighbors. Its long-term security depends upon an arrangement in which Palestinians also find security. Hamas struck seeking, no doubt, to goad Israel into a self-destructive fury and retribution. Their hope is to rally support among the Arab states, to isolate Israel internationally, to sow internal dissent in Israel’s allies, and to raise its own stature among Israel’s enemies. The danger of a land invasion of Gaza is that it will – even if successful – also serve many of Hamas’ goals.
Violence slakes the thirst to strike back, and it suggests a seductive but illusory solution. Netanyahu says that Israel’s goal now is to eliminate Hamas. We have learned that the violence aimed at eliminating terrorists too often generates more terrorists than it kills. If Israel does go through with what will be a long, bloody invasion of Gaza to eliminate Hamas, it is likely to find itself even more isolated, and amid even more hostile people and more alienated neighbors.
The call for Israel to practice restraint, to adhere to the laws of war is scorned as naïve, wrongheaded, or even antisemitic. It is not advice that the Israeli government nor the understandably terrified Israeli people will want to hear. But it just might be the most sensible step in a terrible time.
You can write to the Rev. Jesse Jackson in care of this newspaper or by email at jjackson@rainbowpush. org.
Follow him on Twitter @RevJJackson. ©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
