By Chris Powell
Residents of densely populated Gaza, governed by the terrorist organization Hamas, are asking where they can go to escape the Israeli bombardment that was launched in response to this week’s devastating and barbaric missile and ground attack by Hamas on Israel.
The question is pathetic, for its answer is obvious, even if international journalism misses it too.
Gaza has been governed by Hamas for 17 years — that is, since the territory’s first and last election, when the people installed Hamas. They have done nothing to remove it.
If Gazans don’t like the war their government long has been waging against Israel, if they don’t like the partial blockade that Israel imposed in response, and if they are looking for somewhere to go, they should head for the seat of their gangster government and make a change — carrying whatever weapons are available to them.
The cheering in Gaza that greeted Hamas fighters as they returned from Israel with their hostages showed that many Gazans support the war even as it has brought them still another catastrophe. Since Hamas is sworn to Israel’s destruction, peace can come only with the destruction of one side or the other. As with Palestinians generally, many if not most Gazans prefer hate, war, and death forever over any peace shared with Jews.
Yet some people in the United States and Europe who consider themselves enlightened maintain that Israel should continue to supply Gaza with food, water, fuel, and electricity even as Gaza wages war on Israel. Indeed, Israel has provided those necessities to Gaza ever since evacuating the territory in 2005 in the hope that Gazans would choose peace, and continued to provide the necessities throughout Gaza’s frequent missile attacks. So Israel rather deserves the mendacity of its critics.
Israel’s critics lament that Israel has made Gaza “an open-air prison,” as if that isn’t explained by Gaza’s persistence in war.
Of course if the United States was attacked by missiles from Mexico, it would nuke everything all the way down to Guadalajara. Any self-respecting nation with military might would respond similarly to missile attacks by a neighbor. But Israel’s critics maintain that the country must not defend itself, or must defend itself only “proportionately” — this is, not enough to win.
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Since the Hamas government of Gaza stages its missile attacks from densely populated areas, and since Gazans don’t object, nearly everything in Gaza is a fair target. Even so Israel should be explicit about its policy: that there will be no end to the destruction and no food, fuel, water, electricity, and medicine until Gaza surrenders, installs a new government that makes peace, releases its hostages, delivers its criminal leaders, and accepts a long occupation and reformation as the defeated totalitarian powers of World War II had to do.
Israel will lose if it again makes release of hostages its primary objective. To win, Israel must acknowledge that the hostages probably will be murdered — and ensure that they are avenged.
Of course without the complete destruction of their territory many Gazans will oppose surrender. Like the Palestinians on the other side of Israel, those in Gaza first must have their civil war, just as the Jews had their civil war in the years prior to Israel’s re-establishment in 1948 — a civil war to decide whether to settle with the neighbors or press on with a war for their extermination.
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There are irreconcilables on both sides, but they are much stronger on the Palestinian side. Any Palestinian leader and almost any Arab leader who pursues peace with Israel risks assassination by the irreconcilables, just as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were assassinated for pursuing peace.
But no Israeli invasion of Gaza is necessary — no horrific house-to-house fighting. Without food, water, fuel, electricity, and medicine, Gaza soon enough will collapse into mass misery, starvation, disease, and death. This best can be prevented by the Gazans themselves. They cannot escape responsibility for their government any more than the people of any other country can escape responsibility for theirs.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics — and sometimes other things — for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 
Has there been any public discussion about Israel’s taking hostages of its own in order to swap for those take by Hamas?
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This is the clearest, most realistic assessment I’ve seen. It’s the only plausible path to a real, lasting peace. Of course most of the world would loudly condemn Israel for following such a policy. Whether Israel could or would persist in the face of such condemnation, I can’t say. It’s brutal but might lead to a real solution.
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