By Chris Powell
Respectable people are calling for an unconditional ceasefire in the long war between Gaza and Israel, but their calls came only after Israel began retaliating for Gaza’s most barbaric attack and kidnappings. While respectable people may have been appalled by the attack, they aren’t appalled enough to suggest that anything should be done about it beyond deploring it.
For many years Israel had been indulging attacks from Gaza, relying mainly on anti-missile systems, occasionally responding with punitive fire aimed at the leaders and military facilities of Gaza’s Hamas regime. But these retaliations were not severe enough to solve the problem. Indeed, the so-called blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza has just been shown to be completely ineffective against the import of armaments.
A blockade against food, water, and medicine might be effective against armaments as well, but respectable people insist that Israel feed and heal its enemies, a first in the history of warfare.
Remarkably, there are no calls from within Gaza itself for an unconditional ceasefire, only hints that some hostages might be released if Israel stops fighting back.
Respectable people say that the conflict can be ended only by “a two-state solution,” one state for Jews and another for Palestinians. But there already are and for 18 years have been two states, Gaza having been a Palestinian state since Israel evacuated the territory in 2005 and Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization drove in waving automatic rifles to the cheers of Gaza residents. Soon Gazans elected Hamas to run their government, attacks on Israel began, and Israel responded with its ineffective blockade.
Even now Gaza is recognized as independent by many countries, including Russia, which last week received Gazan diplomats.
So the “two-state solution” did not stop the conflict. Israel accepted two states but the Palestinians did not. The conflict can end only when Palestinian leaders forthrightly accept Israel, whereupon many of them will be murdered by their own people, or when one side destroys the other.
Respectable people and even President Biden assert that the people of Gaza are not Hamas. But the people of Gaza installed Hamas in their only election, held in 2006, and they sustain their government, and no one in Gaza seems to be beseeching it to end the war against Israel in exchange for peace. No, the Hamas charter demands Israel’s destruction, Hamas acts as if it wants the destruction of all Jews as well, and most Palestinians concur.
Maybe with enough leveling of Gaza by Israeli bombs and enough misery the people of Gaza will change their mind about war against Israel. But for the moment Gaza is Hamas and Hamas is Gaza. There is no difference.
What exactly should Israel do to end the constant attacks from Gaza? Respectable people don’t say. They imply that Israel should just live with the attacks. Meanwhile Hamas’ position, and Gaza’s, is that Israel should disappear.
So there is nothing to negotiate. Israel can survive only by making Gaza disappear.
Respectable people at least may admire the searing integrity of the Gazan position, which is the Palestinian position generally: that misery and death are preferable to letting Jews have peace. Indeed, those who insist on death for others invite it to come for them too.
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Connecticut’s five members of the U.S. House of Representatives, all Democrats, along with all other Democrats in the House, might want to reflect on the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy. For while McCarthy’s ouster was superficially a Republican matter, nearly all the votes to remove him came from Democrats.
By the standards of the House Republican caucus McCarthy was a moderate. Indeed, he was assailed by the extreme conservatives in his caucus because he had compromised with the Democrats to avert a federal government shutdown. A few Democratic votes would have kept McCarthy as speaker.
But last week the Republicans united and elected Louisiana’s Mike Johnson as the new speaker. Johnson’s positions are even more contrary to Democratic positions than McCarthy’s were, so the Democrats have turned out to be the great enablers of the Republicans they consider the most dangerous. What brilliant strategy!
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Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 
Good points, Chris!
Ernie Pitti
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“While respectable people may have been appalled by the attack, they aren’t appalled enough to suggest that anything should be done about it beyond deploring it.” From this opening salvo to the bitter end this essay is a gem: it is clear, logical and undeniably true.
“A few Democratic votes would have kept McCarthy as speaker.” Ditto,.
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Supposedly Napoleon said, “Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.” The House Republicans are destroying themselves — not just with their own inward-facing firing squad but also by elevating yet another politician whose views on social issues are radically out of step with those of most Americans. In our two-party system, which isn’t going anywhere any time soon, one party’s loss is the other party’s gain. There is no reason that the House Democrats would have or should have done anything to save McCarthy, and to suggest otherwise is an obvious attempt at trying to deflect blame. And anyone who thinks that House Republicans would have done anything different than what House Democrats are currently doing is blind.
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