by Hugh Fitzgerald
The intentional delusion.
Israel is now engaged in the fourth war it has had to fight for its survival. The three others were fought in 1948, 1967, and 1973. In addition, there have been a half-dozen other campaigns the Israelis have had to fight against the terrorists of the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah. The IDF soldiers, their ranks increased with the addition of 360,000 reservists, have been fighting up and down the Gaza Strip, a hellishly difficult theatre of war — that is, urban warfare in one of the most densely-populated places on earth. Israel’s mortal enemy, the terror group Hamas, has built a vast network of terror tunnels deep underground, where its operatives are able to store weapons, and to both move around, and live inside, that warren of tunnels that are between 350 and 450 miles in total length, and built at an average depth of 50 meters.
Hamas also stores weapons, rocket launchers, command and control centers, as well as personnel, above ground, in and around civilian infrastructure, including schools, mosques, apartment buildings, and hospitals. While trying to root out Hamas combatants from their lairs which have been deliberately placed among civilians, the IDF has at the same time been trying to minimize civilian casualties by a campaign, unprecedented in scope and in kind, of warning Gazans away from areas, or from buildings, about to be targeted. In this effort, the IDF has dropped 14 million leaflets, made two million prerecorded calls and 72,000 regular phone calls. Meanwhile, Hamas has tried to prevent Gazans from leaving the same areas and buildings the IDF has warned them about. The terror group wants more civilians to die; their deaths are a propaganda boost for Hamas, that can then paint the IDF as ruthless and uncaring about the welfare of civilians, when the truth is quite otherwise.
The IDF has performed spectacularly, both in neutralizing Hamas operatives, and in managing to minimize civilian casualties. Of the 28,000 deaths that Hamas had reported by mid-February — and as is its wont, not distinguishing between civilians and combatants — between 10,000 and 12,000 were, according to the IDF, members of Hamas. Even if we take the lower figure — 10,000 Hamas deaths — this means that the total number of civilian deaths cannot be more than 18,000. The civilian-to-combatant ratio of deaths is then 18:10, or 9:5. The UN has said that in all the wars since World War II, the average civilian-to-combatant ratio has been 9:1. The U.S. military did much better in the Iraq War, when there were 174,000 casualties, only 39,900 of whom were combatants, resulting in a civilian-to-combatant ratio of 7:2. But in the Gaza War, the IDF has achieved a ratio of 9 civilians killed for every 5 combatants; 9:5 is far less than what any modern army has achieved, in any war. This needs to be kept in mind.
Now we come to Joe Biden, who wants to reward the Palestinians, who have voiced their overwhelming support for Hamas’ attack on October 7, by handing them a state. Why do they deserve a state? They don’t. The Arabs have 22 states, and the creation of a 23rd one, sharing the tiny space “between the river and the sea,” would be a mortal threat to the only Jewish state. But Biden can’t get out of his head the notion of a “two-state solution” which will somehow “bring peace” to the region. Since its very name contains the word “solution” many, like Biden, Blinken, and Sullivan, simply assume that’s what it must be. It’s sleight of word.
In fact, forcing Israel to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines — which is what the Arabs will insist on, and Biden looks ready to satisfy them — would not sate, but whet, Arab appetites. Without the minimal strategic depth that control of Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank) — and especially, possession of the Jordan Valley — provides, Israel will not have the “secure [i.e. defensible] and recognized boundaries” that, according to UN Security Council Resolution 242, it has a right to possess. After all the wars that have been thrust upon it, doesn’t Israel deserve to retain defensible borders? And even more important, shouldn’t Israel be allowed to keep the borders that the League of Nations envisaged for the future Jewish state, when it decided that the territory of Mandatory Palestine should include all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea?
Hugh Fitzgerald
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/why-does-biden-think-the-palestinians-deserve-a-state/
No comments:
Post a Comment