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Lessons Israelis Learn from the Hamas Attack

(New York Times) Bret Stephens - Not the least of Hamas' aims was to kill Jews for its own sake, to instill a sense of terror so visceral and vivid that it would imprint itself on Israel's psyche for generations. In that, it has succeeded. Israelis are under no illusions that had the Hamas terrorists been able to kill 100 or 1,000 times as many of them as they did on Oct. 7, they would have done so without hesitation. Hamas' goal is fundamentally homicidal: to end Israel as a state by slaughtering every Jew within it. How can critics of Israeli policy insist on a unilateral ceasefire if they can't offer a credible answer to a reasonable Israeli question: How can we go on like this? The issue of Israel's internally displaced people gets short shrift in most news accounts. But it's central to the way in which Israelis perceive the war. There are now more than 150,000 Israelis - proportionately the equivalent of 5.3 million Americans - who were forced out of their homes by the attacks of Oct. 7. Small cities like Sderot, near Gaza, and Kiryat Shmona, near Lebanon, are now mostly ghost towns. Israeli military planners have been war-gaming an invasion of Gaza for decades and have tools and tactics that can flush Hamas fighters out of their maze of tunnels. The Israeli public is not likely to be swayed by civilian casualties into supporting any kind of ceasefire in the military campaign until Hamas is defeated and the hostages are returned. Israelis spent 18 years watching Hamas turn to its military advantage every Israeli concession - including free electricity, cash transfers of Qatari funds, work permits for Gazans, thousands of truckloads of humanitarian goods. Israelis won't get fooled again. I went to see Amir Tibon, a correspondent for the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. Tibon became internationally famous last month after his family's rescue by his 62-year-old father, Noam (a retired general), when his kibbutz was overrun by Hamas terrorists. I asked Amir what needed to change going forward. His first answer: More people would need permits to carry personal sidearms.
2023-11-10 00:00:00
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