Proponents of a French-Egyptian plan for a cease-fire in Gaza say it might stop the fighting. But for any chance at peace, Hamas must be defeated decisively
The idea behind French President Nicholas Sarkozy's plan was to call an immediate cease-fire to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza — which Israel did — then to hold urgent talks to stop the violence. Israel, with reservations, agreed; Hamas, however, rejected the idea.
Don't worry. Israel will get blamed.
Watching the world's reaction as a small nation surrounded by enemies defends itself from attack is a sickening thing. Along with celebrity Israel-haters such as singer Annie Lennox and former model and rock-star wife Bianca Jagger, the far left in the U.S. a large swath of European intelligentsia and the United Nations have cast Israel as villain and Hamas as victim.
But they've got it backwards. Israel has taken extraordinary care to avoid civilian casualties, going so far as to warn those in buildings it is preparing to strike. Hamas has no such compunction. It uses civilians as human shields, hoping to raise the death toll so the so-called "international community" will blame Israel even more.
In talks, Israel has shown repeatedly through concessions as well as words that it wants a deal and will accept a Palestinian state.
But each time Israel has made concessions, it's been met with the implacable fury of its foe. The world Islamist movement, as embodied by Hamas, seeks Israel's annihilation and nothing else.
It happened after talks at Camp David in July 2000 with President Clinton, when Israel offered PLO chief Yasser Arafat literally 98% of the land he requested, and the possibility of getting most of the remaining 2% down the road. The response? Arafat stormed out, and the violent Second Intifada began.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, an act of good will and a major strategic concession to its enemies. But there was no reciprocity. Islamist terrorists attacked Israel, and in 2006 the Palestinians themselves voted Hamas into power — knowing full well that Hamas' explicit goal is the destruction of the Jewish state.
More recently, Hamas spent a six-month cease-fire with Israel rearming and restocking its weapons. When that cease-fire ended on Dec. 19, 2008, Hamas began lobbing deadly Iranian-built Qassam and Russian-designed Grad rockets at Israeli civilian populations.
Fortunately for Israel, a network of bomb shelters built over 60 years of unyielding conflict has kept casualties to a minimum.
Sadly, the same can't be said in Gaza. Hamas has used children's schools, hospitals and mosques as staging grounds for attacks and to store munitions. When civilian human shields are inevitably harmed — and injuries to children and innocents are always regrettable — Hamas doesn't get blamed. Israel does.
Those who think Israel should stop fighting miss the point: Hamas' 1988 charter explicitly calls for the murder of Jews in the name of Islam and the destruction of Israel. It must be repudiated.
The Gaza war could end tomorrow, and the promise of a Palestinian state redeemed, if Hamas and its terrorist allies in the Mideast, including Iran, ended their war of extermination against Israel.
Sadly, this won't happen. No country can negotiate away its very existence. If Israel doesn't destroy Hamas, it will never have peace.
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