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No Ceasefire until Hamas Is Destroyed

(Jerusalem Post) Maj. (ret.) John Spencer - The goal for Hamas has never been a two-state solution or co-existence. Its charter calls for the annihilation of Israel. Hamas is now fighting to survive politically. If the war ends before Hamas is clearly and decisively defeated, it will be a Hamas victory. Calls for a ceasefire may sound moral. They are not. A ceasefire without victory rewards war crimes such as mass hostage-taking, torture, mutilation, rape, the deliberate use of human shields, and the slaughter of civilians. A Hamas victory would establish a new, horrific standard: that if you violate every rule of war with enough strategic cruelty, then international outrage will fall not on you, but on the state trying to stop you. It would teach regimes and terror groups everywhere that civilian deaths are not just tragic but useful, even essential, to political victory. In every prior round of fighting since 2008, Hamas used international pressure for ceasefires to regroup, rearm, and dig deeper into Gaza's civilian infrastructure. Each ceasefire became a strategic pause, not a step toward peace. Oct. 7 was the result. Now Hamas is betting once again that international pressure will save it. No nation can allow hostage-taking to become an accepted currency of warfare. To do so would invite it everywhere. The idea that a genocidal terror group can survive a war it started by choice, from a position of unprovoked aggression, is another dangerous precedent. It would send a clear signal to Iranian proxies across the region and radical groups worldwide that terrorism works. War is always tragic. But some wars are necessary. Peace is not possible with an armed, fanatical regime in Gaza that seeks your destruction and views the murder of civilians as a divine duty. Ending this war without defeating Hamas means condemning Israelis - and Palestinians - to unending conflict. It means Oct. 7 becomes a case study in successful terrorism, lawfare, hostage-taking, and wars of aggression. Those calling for an immediate ceasefire either do not understand war, or do not want Hamas to lose. The writer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point.
2025-06-03 00:00:00
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