Reason No. 1, from Jeffrey Goldberg's piece in today's NYT:
Periodically, advocates of negotiation suggest that the hostility toward Jews expressed by Hamas is somehow mutable. But in years of listening, I haven't heard much to suggest that its anti-Semitism is insincere. Like Hezbollah, Hamas believes that God is opposed to a Jewish state in Palestine. Both groups are rhetorically pitiless, though, again, Hamas sometimes appears to follow the lead of Hezbollah.I once asked Abdel Aziz Rantisi where he learned what he called "the truth" of the Holocaust -- that it didn't happen -- and he referred me to books published by Hezbollah. Hamas and Hezbollah also share the view that the solution for Palestine lies in Europe. A spokesman for Hezbollah, Hassan Izzedine, once told me that the Jews who survive the Muslim "liberation" of Palestine "can go back to Germany, or wherever they came from." He went on to argue that the Jews are a "curse to anyone who lives near them."
Nizar Rayyan expressed much the same sentiment the night we spoke in 2006. We had been discussing a passage of the Koran that suggests that God turns a group of impious Jews into apes and pigs. The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, among others, has deployed this passage in his speeches. Once, at a rally in Beirut, he said: "We shout in the face of the killers of prophets and the descendants of the apes and pigs: We hope we will not see you next year. The shout remains, 'Death to Israel!'"
Mr. Rayyan said that, technically, Mr. Nasrallah was mistaken. "Allah changed disobedient Jews into apes and pigs, it is true, but he specifically said these apes and pigs did not have the ability to reproduce," Mr. Rayyan said. "So it is not literally true that Jews today are descended from pigs and apes, but it is true that some of the ancestors of Jews were transformed into pigs and apes, and it is true that Allah continually makes the Jews pay for their crimes in many different ways. They are a cursed people."
I asked him the question I always ask of Hamas leaders: Could you agree to anything more than a tactical cease-fire with Israel? I felt slightly ridiculous asking: A man who believes that God every now and again transforms Jews into pigs and apes might not be the most obvious candidate for peace talks at Camp David. Mr. Rayyan answered the question as I thought he would, saying that a long-term cease-fire would be unnecessary, because it will not take long for the forces of Islam to eradicate Israel.
There is a fixed idea among some Israeli leaders that Hamas can be bombed into moderation. This is a false and dangerous notion. It is true that Hamas can be deterred militarily for a time, but tanks cannot defeat deeply felt belief.
The reverse is also true: Hamas cannot be cajoled into moderation. Neither position credits Hamas with sincerity, or seriousness.
It comes back, I believe, to well-meaning people not understanding the power of religious belief. But didn't Catholics and Protestants compromise in Northern Ireland? Yes, but in neither case did either side believe the others were subhumans whom God commanded them to murder or drive into the sea. Besides, pure religion was not really the driving factor of the extremists' ideology on either side; it was rather a cultural marker that masked more conventional nationalistic and ideological goals. Hamas, though, really does believe that [expletive]. We keep making the mistake of thinking that they don't, that they're amenable to compromise. No, they really are fanatically evil anti-Semites.
Which brings us to Reason 2 why Israel can't make peace with Hamas, from a NYT report from Gaza:
In a different part of town, another young fighter and his wife were getting ready to go see her brother, 20, who had been wounded in southwest Gaza City two nights ago while bringing food to fighters. The fighter, 27, in dark jeans and Timberland-style boots, swaggered with words about Islam and duty to his people. Hamas is doctrinally opposed to Israel's right to exist."It's either victory while alive, or martyrdom," he said. "Both ways are victory."
His wife, in a white head scarf, agreed.
"Two days ago, he was very tired and he didn't want to leave the house," she said. "I told him you have to leave, you have a responsibility."
But the sight of her brother unconscious in the hospital bed seemed to jolt the couple into an alternate reality, one where they were vulnerable and afraid. The man's eyes glistened with tears as he asked the doctor question after question.
Back outside, the woman regained her composure.
"I prefer you as a martyr," she said to her husband.
"What if I am injured?" he asked.
She repeated her preference for death.
The woman would rather see her husband dead than compromise with the Israelis. You cannot reason with that.
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Zach Treed
If Hamas will not accept Israel's right to exist, and will never stop seeking to kill Israelis or die trying -- which is obviously the case, as Rod's post puts in bold relief -- then it is well within Israel's rights to neutralize or liquidate Hamas's human-resources assets.
Hamas did stop sending such people. There was a ceasefire.
No Israeli died at the hands of Hamas rockets for months. No Hamas rockets were launched for months. It was a six month ceasefire, and they were four months in.
Israel broke the ceasefire. They attacked and killed some Hamas members they assert were 'digging a tunnel' inside Gaza. (Which is not a violation of the ceasefire.)
Have anyone found it interesting that Rod has not once commented on the action that lead up to where we are now? Plenty of justifications for Israel responding to Hamas rocket attacks, but not a single word on why the rocket attacks suddenly restarted, or why they weren't happening for months?
This war restarted because it screws up hard-right Israeli politics when Hamas isn't attacking Israel. Which it wasn't.
If militant Islam laid down its arms there would be no fighting in the Middle East. If Israel laid down its arms there would be no Israel.
Zach Treed
If militant Islam laid down its arms there would be no fighting in the Middle East. If Israel laid down its arms there would be no Israel.
Ah, argument by pithy saying. Well, you've certainly convinced all the 10 year olds out there.
That one will go down in history right next to 'He who smelt it, dealt it.'.
I guess the only thing I have to add here, is to reiterate the point I've made at length on other threads:
Hamas is a pathological reaction to the desperate plight of the Palestinian people. To reduce what is happening in Gaza to simply a struggle between Israel and Hamas, while ignoring the consequences of all the violence upon the thousands of "normal" (associated with the PA or more or less politically neutral) Palestinians (many of whom are Christians, btw) caught, wounded and killed in the crossfire, simply serves the agenda of the extremists on both sides.
Hamas and the Israeli right need each other. The violence only perpetuates hatred and intolerance, which of course strengthens Hamas (and the Israeli right) in turn ensuring even further future radicalization and violence.
The extremists on both sides see the endgame as being massive ethnic cleansing. One side or the other has to be expelled.
This why the United States should cease supporting Israel. I personally want nothing to do with either side in this conflict. I know and love too many Arabs and Muslims to continuing buying into the oversimplifications and crude racial & religious stereotypes that pervade our media.
What happened in 1948 and 1967 was simply unconscionable. If I were an Palestinian Arab, I would almost certainly take up arms, too.
But I'm not. Nor am I a Jew. The violence and bigotry of the extremists on both sides of this disgrace disgust me. And it wearies and saddens me to see so many Americans (even people I like and respect and share so much else in common with like our generous host here, Rod Dreher) simply accept the knee jerk pro- Israeli line in situations like this Gaza conflict, as well as that travesty last summer in Lebanon.
We, as Christians, should not be so complaisant of Israel, Rod.
What the Israeli right has in mind for the Palestinians is not in any way in keeping with the Beatitudes.
Just a word from those forgotten Palestinian Christrians in Gaza, because they deserve to be remembered, and heard. And then succored. As do the vast majority of their Muslim compatriots.
This from Commonweal:
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=2671
“Life and death for people in Gaza is the same…”
January 14, 2009, 9:17 am - Posted by David Gibson
Those are the words of Fr. Manuel Musallam, a parish priest in Gaza, in an interview with Caritas Internationalis following the destruction of a Caritas health clinic by an Israeli F-16 fighter jet. According to a Caritas release, which also appeals for funds to replenish medical and other supplies, the clinic in the Al Maghazi district of Central Gaza was completely destroyed in the bombing along with a number of buildings. No one was injured as all the families had already fled the area. But the situation remains dire, according to Fr. Musallam:
“There is extreme fear everywhere here. The bombs the Israelis are dropping are literally cutting through people and through homes. Night and day the sound of children crying is everywhere. The people here don’t sleep. They have lost everything.
“70,000 people are living in schools and they are very cold. The ones who haven’t gone to schools are living in their bathrooms or stairwells because they are afraid of being injured by shattering glass from bombs. There is no water here. We are almost out of diesel for our generator that we have allowed people to come and cook from. When the diesel runs out we will have nothing.
“The Israeli aggression has made these people live like animals and our school is the zoo.
“There are dead bodies lying on the streets. The clinics are carrying out operations on the floor. Women have no place to give birth. One pregnant woman was shot on her way to a clinic to give birth. They tried to save the baby but it too was dead.
“Life and death for people in Gaza is the same.”
Meanwhile, the fighting continues, Israel concedes it will likely not defeat Hamas, and Osama bin Laden (Bush is gone and he’s still here–nice job, W.) is calling for a holy war against Israel. And all eyes are turning to the confirmation hearings and Inauguration preparations.
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