How exactly do you negotiate with someone who repeatedly and stubbornly sticks to his intention of exterminating you?
There are some moments and events in which only the very naive or the morally bankrupt seek to find grey areas or make attempts to discover “context” to justify unspeakable evil. Sometimes, it is simply black and white. For the United States, such a moment came on 9/11 when Al Qaeda terrorists rammed airplanes full of passengers to the twin towers of World Trade Center and destroyed them. For India, such a moment came during 26/11 when Pakistan sponsored terrorists literally invaded Mumbai and killed about 170 people. For Israel, such a moment came on 7 October 2023, when Hamas terrorists infiltrated into the country, killed about 1,200 Israelis and took another 260-odd as hostages back to Gaza. Since then, Israel has been at war with the terrorist organisations Hamas that controls Gaza and Hezbollah that controls vast swathes of a supposedly sovereign country called Lebanon. At the moment, Israel is perilously close to going to war with Iran whose theocratic regime bankrolls and supports organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah.
For many months, there has been widespread criticism of Israel. The liberals and the progressives have always been openly critical of Israel and sympathetic towards the cause of Palestinians who have become the eternal underdogs and victims in this decades-long conflict that never seems to end. But so severe have been the casualties that even those who support the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign state and protect its citizens have started criticising it. In the 365 days since 7 October 2023, Palestinians, Lebanese and Israelis have suffered death, destruction and misery. Till now, about 45,000 people have been killed in these wars. A large number of them are Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, perhaps thousands of them. But there can be no doubt whatsoever that thousands of innocents have been killed as collateral damage. This war is not being fought in some remote terrain surrounded by forests and mountains. It is in the heart of urban areas that are densely populated. No matter how precise your technology and weapons are, urban warfare of this kind is bound to lead to the death of innocents, including women and children. It is for this reason that Israel is drawing flak; perhaps for the “disproportionate” manner in which it is responding to 7 October 2023. The authors think Israel finds itself in a hopeless situation. It will be accused of being a cruel state that brazenly kills innocents if it responds robustly to terror attacks. On the other hand, if it decides to adopt a peaceful posture, it might be annihilated as a nation state. It is easy to forget that the official mission statement of Hamas is to destroy the state of Israel and “eliminate” every single Jew from so called “Palestine”.
Details fade from memory as time passes by. But some details will be impossible for Israelis to forget. Shani Louk was a 21-year-old Jewish girl with dual citizenship who lived in Germany. During the early hours of 7 October 2023, she, along with thousands of other youngsters, was dancing at the Nova Music Festival dedicated to peace. The venue was near Gaza. Hamas terrorists armed with sophisticated weapons and Go Pro cameras attacked the venue and launched a savage campaign of rape and slaughter. About 300 were killed at the venue, scores of young women were gang raped and many taken back to Gaza as war trophy. Shani was one of them. A few days later, a Hamas recorded video emerged of Shani laying seemingly lifeless on the bed of a small truck with her limbs twisted grotesquely. Hamas terrorists were stomping on her body as hundreds of people cheered and applauded. Remains of her dead body were found much later. Hamas terrorists coldly executed a 70-year-old woman and live-streamed the whole thing to her horrified family members on her Facebook account. In another video, a young Hamas terrorist makes a video call to his parents and announces triumphantly that he alone has killed ten of “them”. His parents shower him with blessings on the video call. There are hundreds of such videos.
Let’s assume that Israel has overreacted. The civilised solution is for Israelis and Palestinians to have two sovereign states of their own and learn to live in peace, if not in harmony. Currently, Palestinians do have an internationally recognised sovereign state called Palestine that comprises the Gaza and West Bank. There is no space here for details and complexities of all this conflict since Israel was created as a sovereign state in 1948 by the United Nations. Just a few points. Till 1967, Gaza was a province of Egypt and West Bank a province of Jordan. In 1967, all the Arab nations near Israel invaded the country with the stated intention of throwing out every Jew from the region. They lost the war and lost Gaza along with West Bank. After decades of terrorism, conflict and diplomacy, the Israelis finally gave up Gaza completely, withdrew all its armed forces and even forcibly shifted Israelis who had settled there. Gaza became a sovereign state in 2005. In the elections that followed, extremists seized power. Soon after, the Hamas killed all rival group members and took control of Gaza. There have been no elections in Gaza since then. And as stated earlier, the official mission statement of Hamas is the extermination of Jews. That is also the stated position of Hezbollah that controls vast swathes of Lebanon. And that is also the stated position of the religious clergy that rules Iran with an iron fist. Well-meaning folks obviously want a solution that stops the bloodshed. But how exactly do you negotiate with someone who repeatedly and stubbornly sticks to his intention of exterminating you?
In a recent interview to a television channel in India, the Iranian ambassador to India described Hamas as a resistance group, Hezbollah as a political party and 7 October 2023 as a military operation.
You can all draw your own conclusions.