Commencing almost immediately after the first reports of the unthinkable torture, slaughter and kidnapping of Jews and others from southern Israel, we began to hear pundits speculating about the “ticking clock” that would limit the amount of time that world opinion would remain with the victims and instead shift to the side affiliated, voluntarily or otherwise, with the perpetrators. And while many of these so-called experts on the Middle East might have spoken in terms of days or even weeks, reality seems to be that one could have just as easily employed a stopwatch as a clock to measure the amount of time before public sentiment began to shift. Sadly, this comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed Israel for any length of time whatsoever.
As a predictable outgrowth of this wind-sprint to get past any compassion and concern for the Israelis, we are now hearing a growing chorus for a cease fire. There is, understandably, a concern for Palestinians caught in the conflict and who are in no way combatants nor, in perhaps many (maybe even most) instances, supporters of the killers known as Hamas. Nonetheless, Israel should not heed these demands for such a cessation of hostilities.
As an initial touchstone with reality, let us not forget that Hamas – who of course initiated the events on October 7 and that have resulted in the current collective suffering of the people they purport to fight for – has not ceased to fire rockets into Israel. As many have rather dryly noted, the Palestinians seem to be running out of water and bandages but seem to have no similar shortage of deadly armaments that they are eagerly lobbing into Israel. Was this just poor planning, undertaken by someone who miscalculated the amount of life-sustaining – as opposed to life-taking – items that would be needed in such an ultimately self-destructive endeavor? Or, perhaps, someone who actively dismantled infrastructure such as pipes designed to carry a mixture of two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen thought that other elemental combinations would be better transported through these conduits? Regardless of whether it was a task assigned to one weak in math or just brazen indifference, somehow the world seems to think this should be Israel’s concern. Fortunately, Israel is not so easily bullied.
More fundamentally – even if Hamas does exhaust its supply of rockets (and can’t borrow any of the more defective models that their brethren in Islamic Jihad seem to prefer) – Israel stands to gain little by a cease fire. The purported aim of a cease fire would be, from the Israeli, American and other nations’ standpoint, to get their citizens back who are being held captive in Gaza. I am not an expert on war crimes, but I am relatively confident that taking hostages is frowned upon by whatever conventions allegedly govern the conduct of military conflict. Thus, the hostages must be returned regardless of any cessation or continuation of anything by Israel. Where is the outcry for that?
Even if the terrorists were to return all of the hostages – unharmed – Israel would have accomplished virtually nothing. This would simply be a return to the status quo ante, but minus 1,300 plus Israeli (and other innocents’) lives. The perpetrators of the barbaric acts against these individuals would not have been brought to justice nor would their ability to merely repeat these heinous acts have been eliminated. Hamas and its fellow murderers would still be free to rule Gaza and use the other Palestinians whom they are fighting for as human shields and from whom they can continue to misappropriate their rations of vital supplies.
Let’s be clear: The Israelis cannot possibly relish the idea of continuing the assault on Gaza and having to send in its own most precious resource – its sons and daughters – to put an end to this threat. Jews value life. Yes, one can undoubtedly find examples of instances where the preservation of life was callously or even maliciously ignored, but the inescapable fact remains that it is not in Israel’s interest to prolong this war an instant longer than necessary. Tragically, however, necessary it continues to be. And until the time that it no longer is, Israel must resist these hollow calls for cease fires.
Comments