Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the IDF would be responsible for security in Gaza after the war. He told ABC News on Monday that Gaza should be governed by “those who don’t want to continue the way of Hamas” before adding, “I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it.”
Indeed, the goal of the current offensive in Gaza is the elimination of the Hamas threat to the Israeli people. There will be no repeat of October 7 and to see to that, the IDF will be stationed in Gaza to make sure Hamas will never rise again.
Admittedly, this kind of talk makes Israel's Western allies and many Arab states in the Middle East nervous. And it drew a sharp warning from U.S. President Joe Biden, who knows that an Israeli occupation of Gaza would complicate peace with nations like Saudi Arabia.
“The president still believes that a reoccupation of Gaza by Israeli forces is not good. It’s not good for Israel; not good for the Israeli people,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on “CNN This Morning.”
“One of the conversations that Secretary (Antony) Blinken has been having in the region is what does post-conflict Gaza look like? What does governance look like in Gaza? Because whatever it is it can’t be what it was on October 6. It can’t be Hamas,” he added.
Even states that don't like Israel have to be realistic and understand that Blinken is right. Just like the world couldn't go back to the way things were on September 10, 2001, so too, the world can never return to a state that tolerates or even accepts Hamas.
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In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” last month, Biden said it would be a “big mistake” for Israel to occupy Gaza. At the time, Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Israel does not intend to occupy Gaza after the conflict ends.
There have been other sharp gaps between the US and Israel emerging in recent weeks as the war continues. Blinken last week pushed the Israelis for a “humanitarian pause” to allow hostages and civilians to leave Gaza and for aid for Palestinians to enter, but was rebuked by Netanyahu.
And despite Blinken’s forceful public missive that “civilians should not suffer the consequences for (Hamas’) inhumanity and its brutality,” Israeli forces continued to strike civilian sites in the wake of the top US diplomat’s visit. The forces claimed that the sites were being used by Hamas.
Israel's Catch-22 is not hard to understand — unless you're Antony Blinken or Joe Biden. Israel must destroy Hamas. Even Biden agrees with that. But to destroy Hamas, Israel must attack the hiding places of Hamas. History has shown that Hamas hide in hospitals, they hide in mosques, and they hide weapons in schools. They do this to create the conditions that Israel must either kill civilians to get at Hamas or allow Hamas to survive.
The entire world pretends not to understand this simple statement of fact: The only way that Israel doesn't kill any civilians is if they give up and allow Hamas to destroy Israel and murder the Jews. Yes, but at least no civilians will die.
Put aside the moral posturing from moral pygmies and what you're left with is Israel doing what is necessary to survive. It doesn't get any more fundamental than that.
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