Here’s the thing. War is no longer primarily about nation states. It obviously still involves nation states but its about the power of people groups. It used to be that if you wanted political power you had to control a nation state in order to do anything. That is no longer the case. The proliferation of arms throughout the world and the increased communication capacities has changed the dynamics of the monopoly on organizational advantage that nation states used to have. If you look closely at the military history of the 20th century you will notice that most of the conflicts the US was involved with at least started as people movements before the controlled the state. Not only is referring to Vietnam, Central America in the 70′s and 80′s, or the current Iranian Regime, but also the Soviets and Nazis. Once we realize that it is no longer states that we have to deal with but people groups who can easily gain the power to overtake states then we gain a much for accurate and sophisticated look at the nature of modern warfare. Even if Israel completely destroys Hamas as we know it, something will take its place, whether they come from internal sources or external sources. The end goal is to then create a situation where the populations of those countries no longer want to support the insurgent groups. Obviously not all Muslims are militant extremists, correct? I’m you understand that there are many normal peaceful Muslims all around the world but I ask you why are some of them militant extremists? Are they just naturally born that way or do you think that some of them might be tempted to become more militant? What makes a person cross that line? Do you think that the blockade of Gaza forcing the people there into a position of dependency on Hamas helped Israel win over the Gazans? How about the first Israeli attacks on Gaza back in November that spurred an increase in rocket attacks? Do you think that helped either. I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t just take it laying down if a drop bombed on my house or my loved ones were killed by an invading army. How do you think the people of Gaza will react even with out Hamas? Will they just say oops, I’m sorry, we’ll submit now? Then, when a militant group like Hamas comes in and talks about how bad Israel is, I don’t blame them for believing them.
The problem is that Israel has never wanted Hamas to exist and their actions prove that and so Israel isn’t willing to take in form of negotiation seriously. Yes, I understand that Hamas’ charter doesn’t acknowledge Israel’s right to exist but if that was a condition for a treaty to be signed then we would have never signed such important things as the Nonproliferation Treaty with the Soviets. We didn’t acknowledge their control over eastern Europe but we still talked with them all the time so that things wouldn’t get out of hand.
Constructive engagement and cautious disentanglement. I’m sure you would argue that it has been tried and hasn’t worked but you have to really read all sides of the story, because both are obviously biased, and see that Israel’s goal has been to destroy Hamas before the ceasefire ever began. If they really cared about constructively resolving the conflict then they would have put as much money and manpower into it as they are doing so with the invasion.
On a side note, where are you getting all your information from about radical Islam? Is it from them or outsider that paint their own biased picture of them? Also, when you say radical Islam do you mean specifically Hamas or the Taliban, or Al Qaeda, or the Islamic Salvation Front or any other of the diverse groups that fall under the general umbrella term of radical Islam?
Finally, I use the word insurgent instead of terrorist because terrorist is too broad of a word. There are harsh dictators that are the head of sovereign terrorist states and are thus terrorist. Hamas was the government of Gaza but it was by no means sovereign considering that Israel controlled everything that entered or left their boarders. Israel has a fully industrialized Air Force, Army and Navy whereas Hamas has some rocket launchers and assault rifles. If Israel then works to suck the motivations for popular support away from Hamas, then they will be removing any power that the group has left. This will lead to the people of Gaza realizing how violent Hamas is and that they would be safer supporting Israel. Historically speaking, most insurgent movements are actually ended through treaty. Rarely is it through pure military defeat.
