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How Not to Let Hamas Win

(The Hill) Steve Israel - We hear and are heartened by statements that Israel has the "right" to defend itself. But a right confers optionality: One can choose whether or not to exercise it. Israel has not the right but the paramount responsibility to defend its citizens from invasion, abduction, annihilation, and beheadings. Any nation that abdicates that responsibility might as well not exist. The fundamental issue that drives today's conflict in Israel and Gaza is Israel's existence. It's not about the so-called occupation (after Israel unilaterally and unconditionally left the Gaza Strip in 2005). It's about a hateful worldview that Jews have no right to govern their historic lands. Hamas is counting on Israel's responsibility to retaliate. Hamas is betting that the resulting images on social media and television will incite the Arab street, weakening the Abraham Accords and triggering Hamas' allies in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere to join the conflagration. Have we not been here before? The world expresses its revulsion when terrorists strike Israel, then turns against Israel when it responds. It will take strength, imagination and the gritty tolerance of risk to deny Hamas that victory. First, America must continue to support Israel as it dismantles Hamas once and for all. Let Israel do the world, including the Arab world, a favor. Second, rather than allowing Hamas to undermine the Abraham Accords, we must double down on them. The time will come for a new coalition of Middle East nations to rebuild Gaza. Gaza must be rebuilt not as a terrorist training base, but as a fit place for innocent Palestinians to live. The writer, a former U.S. Congressman (2001-2017), is director of the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University.
2023-10-13 00:00:00
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