The Only Path to Peace Is Through the Destruction of Hamas

The people of Gaza had been driven past the point where their fanaticism and hatred of the Jews could sustain them in a war they were obviously losing.

Hamas never hesitated. They found the ringleaders of the protests and murdered them, along with many family members. The protests petered out.

As Hamas went underground during the war, the clans in Gaza moved in to try to keep order and basic services going. With the war over, Hamas is reasserting its authority. It is brutally eliminating the weak and poorly armed clan militias that oppose them.

The Washington Post reports, "Whether by carrying out armed raids in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip or holding public executions farther north in Gaza City, Hamas is trying to send a clear message that, after months of hiding from Israeli fire, the militant group is back as the only visible authority inside the Gaza Strip, according to rival militia leaders, Palestinian officials and political analysts."

There was never much hope that the clans could supersede Hamas. They would need Israeli help for a project like that, and that's something that the overwhelming majority of Gazans would reject.

So Hamas is once again in the driver's seat in Gaza despite losing its heavy weapons, tunnel system, strong allies in Iran and Syria, and about 15,000 fighters, according to U.S. intelligence.

According to a U.S. intelligence report from early this year, Hamas had recruited 10,000–15,000 new fighters since the start of the war, a number nearly equal to its combat losses. For many Palestinians under the age of 25, Hamas offers pay, food, and shelter, as well as camaraderie. 

How, then, can there be, if not peace, then the absence of conflict in Gaza? 

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 "A vision of Gaza as a peaceful, prosperous, and modern society is incompatible with a group devoted to endless war and the imposition of theocratic rule," writes The Free Press's John Aziz.

Breaking out of this grim cycle will require a lot more than signatures on a document, or any measure of good intentions. The next phase should include total elimination of Hamas’s capacity for violence, coercion, and control over the Palestinian population. This means, at the very minimum, complete disarmament, and the end of Hamas as a fighting force. They should not have any guns, rockets, tunnels, or military equipment whatsoever.

But if there is to be peace between Palestinians and Israelis, how can Hamas continue to exist at all? Allowing the warmongering group that brought Palestine to the brink of destruction to remain in Gaza, spreading their ideology of violence and hate, is fatal for any meaningful settlement. At the bare minimum international leaders, regional governments, and Palestinian civil society all need to play an active role in preventing Hamas and their ideological allies from sabotaging reconstruction and subverting new political or educational institutions before they can take root.

In fact, no one in the world wants to fight for peace except Israel. Going to war to eliminate Hamas, no matter how entrenched they are in Gaza, is a global necessity, but it will never happen. Only brute force applied with ruthlessness and without pity will lead to the destruction of Hamas and the chance for an absence of conflict in Gaza. 

Hamas will never lay down its arms voluntarily, so it prefers to take the Palestinian people down with it. Their apocalyptic vision of victory or death means that only their deaths will lead to the absence of war. That they may take hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with them is immaterial to their vision.

Hamas wants to watch the world burn. If they're a part of the conflagration, they don't mind, as long as Israel is, too.