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What If the U.S. Helps Hamas Win?
(Wall Street Journal) Bernard-Henri Levy - Let's imagine that Israel yields to the pressure, refrains from entering Rafah to finish off Hamas' four surviving battalions, and agrees to the general cease-fire of indeterminate duration that the U.S. administration seems to push. If that came to pass, Hamas would declare victory - on the verge of defeat, then the next minute revived. These criminals against humanity would emerge from their tunnels triumphant. The Arab street would view Hamas terrorists as resistance fighters. In the West Bank, Hamas would quickly eclipse the corrupt and ineffective Palestinian Authority, whose image would pale next to the aura of martyrdom and endurance in which Hamas would cloak itself. After that, none of the experts' extravagant plans for an international stabilization force, an interim Arab authority, or a technocratic government presiding over the reconstruction of Gaza would stand long against the return of this group of criminals adorned with the most heroic of virtues. Hamas would set the ideological and political agenda, and hope for peace harbored by moderates on both sides will be dead. The writer is a philosopher and author of more than 30 books.