No. of Recommendations: 8
This is Israel's 9/11 and Iran Hostage Crisis, rolled up into one big traumatic ball. There will be domestic support for Israel to go in and kill everyone even remotely connected to Hamas, root and branch, and not stop attacking until every one of them is dead or fled. Whether they can do that, they will certainly try. If they succeed, that might end up being one good thing to come out of this for the Palestinians - Hamas was always a canker on their lives - but it will be one of the only good things to come from what promises to be a long period of war and death.
Does anyone think the leaders in Israel learned ANYTHING from America's experience after September 11, 2001? We launched a war in Afghanistan to (supposedly) kill Osama bin Laden and topple a tyrannical Islamic regime anchored in the 7th century as punishment for supporting bin Laden and giving him sanctuary. Only we found it incredibly difficult to find bin Laden and literally gave up on that task after being distracted by other bright shiny objects. And after toppling the Taliban government in weeks, we spent twenty plus years trying to root out extremists throughout the country that prevented any stability for the replacement government we installed, finally giving up and losing the country in a day (literally). The resulting destabilization led to ISIS which further worsed America's second misadventure by choice in Iraq and led to war in Syria as well, allowing Russia to advance its sphere of influence via Assad.
Gaza is one of the most densely populated regions in the world. I have no idea what proportion of residents might be active supporters of Hamas -- one percent? five percent? ten percent? But how does Israel expect to root out the bad seeds? What's the test they'll apply when going door to door over 140 square miles to find the bad guys? Israel will never be able to "root them all out" because the brutality of attempting to do so is only going to create more supporters who will come back in another wave in ten years as they reach adulthood. Attempting to control a territory by erecting a concrete wall around the entire perimiter and operating it like a prison won't work either - that's what Israel has been doing for decades. It is impossible to impose "order" upon milions of people who believe they are being oppressed while constraining their economy to impoverish them to the point that many feel they have nothing to lose by adopting violence to address their complaints.
I don't know what the right response should be in the immediate sense or the longer term but it seems absolutely clear no one in a leadership position of any of the groups involved has any ideas that will produce anything but more death for Israelis, Palestinians and potentially a whole lot more.
WTH
