What To Do About Hamas

I've been thinking about this problem for a long time, so when the Palestinians or the Egyptians periodically break the Arab/Israeli cease-fire, watching the news is like watching "The Ten Commandments" or "Lord of the Rings." I know what is going to happen, who the main characters are, and who is going to win in the end. The details may be different, but the basic storyline is old hat. Click here for the latest information about the current situation with respect to Hamas. For discussion of terrorists generally, click here.

I see three interesting parallels here; American Negro racism, subjugation of the American Indians, and Japanese expansionism in WWII. Some of the following may be out of sequence; the ideas are still floating around in my head.

Negro slavery was a problem to which the United States was a reluctant heir. Thomas Jefferson, and others, wanted to free the slaves, but were unable to figure out what to do with all freed slaves. We're still working that out. Long before the Civil War, the United States was working to put an end to the slave trade, even to the extent of establishing a new African state to which freed slaves could be returned without fear of recapture. Liberia has a constitution almost exactly like ours. Its capital is Monrovia, named after President James Monroe, who left office 44 years before the 13th Amendment that made US slavery unconstitutional was ratified.

Yet today we have millions of people, as American as you or I, who are forever condemned by the self-inflicted wounds of a social situation over 140 years gone with the wind. (A little emancipation humor there, folks.) These social failures blame all of their very real misery on the fact that their ancestors were slaves long ago. Today their misery comes from: (1) identifying themselves as different, (2) screwing with the educational system, (3) having children they can't support, (4) staying in trouble with the law, (5) failing to learn any salable skills, and (6) spending their time shooting up and fornicating instead of working or going to school. Black people supposedly deplore slavery, yet far too many of them do everything to maintain it and subject themselves to it so they can use as an excuse for everything. If you want to become a slave, the instructions are here.

The same can be said for poor people in general. It's easy to be poor in the United States; we'll even pay you to do that. I quit contributing anything more than my share of the maintenance to my church because they encourage people to be irresponsible year after year after year. If you keep somebody with no work ethic from becoming hungry enough to get a job, regardless of your motivation, he won't get a job. Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you'll feed him for life. Guarantee him an endless supply of fish for the rest of his life, and I guarantee you that he'll eat all your fish; you'll both starve, and he'll blame you. I have instructions on how to be poor for those who don't know how here.

Whenever I talk to people who are poor or black or both, about their perceived disadvantages, they start confessing other people's sins. They refuse to believe that people are ignorant, lazy, unprincipled, undisciplined whiny babies as the direct result of their free and democratic choice. It doesn't matter what color they are or where they came from, because they are going to remain disadvantaged until they, not other people, realize that fact and do something by themselves to change it. Millions of others have risen from misery by doing the right things, none of which is griping about it.

Same with the Palestinians. All you have to do is take a look at the signs at their demonstrations. Not one of them says, "Quit murdering Israelis!" Recently I heard on CNN that some Hamas leader announced that "it's OK to kill Israeli children." What good do you suppose will come of that? Palestinians can blame Israelis for their problems, but that doesn't make the Israelis guilty. The fact is, regardless of what happened to their ancestors, Palestinians have the opportunity to live on their ancestral farms, drink at their ancestral wells, and plow the soils their ancestors plowed, but they have to be law abiding Israeli citizens to do that. Some of them are. Two of them are the parents of a friend of mine who is an Israeli Arab. Her family isn't angry at anyone.

Palestinians who can't or won't assimilate suffer the same fate as the American Indians did. The Indians were living their own reasonably peaceful lives until the Europeans came along with superior technology and took over their land. The Indians fought back and lost, fought back and lost, fought back and lost until now they're either: (1) peace-loving American citizens like my Native American inlays, or, (2) on reservations. The last Indian uprising I heard about was a gang rape of a white woman in the 30's in Pima county, Arizona, when my mom was teaching school there. If anyone knows what happened to the rapists, he isn't telling; they simply disappeared. They're still missing! Problem solved, I say!

One could make a good case for the claim that my house and yard belong to the Biloxi Indians. Regardless of the title claim I have because of the money I paid for it, my land was originally stolen from the Indians, who were forced off it at gun point. Of course, none of that is relevant. I bought it; I paid for it; According to my laws it's mine, and I ain't leavin'! Those who have the guns make the laws!*

Same with the Palestinians. I'm old enough to remember the Zionist invasion of British-controlled Palestine, a historical event related brilliantly, if admittedly from a slated perspective, by Leon Uris in his book and the motion picture, "Exodus." The Palestinians can complain all they want, but it's all over and done; the Israelis are there and they aren't leaving. The Palestinians can be good Israeli citizens, or they can live on reservations like Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli invasion of those places is the Pima County Gang Rape Avenging on a different scale.

Many of the Palestinians (and their demonstrator supporters) really believe that Gaza and the rest of Israel really belongs to the Palestinian Arabs. It doesn't. Being wrong has always been a capital crime, and sometimes you get convicted. Those who have the guns make the laws!*

The Japanese had a legitimate complaint about the American interference with their expansionist plans in the late 30's. They did exactly the wrong thing about it. The Japanese never did take the time to learn American psychology, as a result of which whatever damage they did at Pearl Harbor, the Aleutian Islands or with their fusen bakudan balloon bombs in Washington state was overwhelmingly overshadowed by our reaction. I vividly remember a time when our entire nation was devoted to making sure the Japanese language was spoken only in hell! Those who have the (biggest) guns make the laws!*

If memory serves, the Japs had about 25 uncommitted divisions in Formosa that they could have used to prolong the invasion of Japan, but the defeat of Japan was inevitable after the Battle of Midway. Japan didn't have a domestic source of anything they needed to continue the war except manpower; that's why they went to war in China in the first place. President Truman thought that the Atomic Bomb might end the war, but not all the generals did. The Japanese were preparing to kill 1,250,000 Americans and 6,000,000 of their own people before they were starved into submission. Fortunately, they were saved by an Emperor who "could not bear the continued suffering of his people" and a President who was compassionate enough to recognize a cease-fire as a surrender, for which there wasn't even any word in the enemy's language.

The Palestinians have no such savior. Because they are bigoted, they are inclined to believe that they should vote for Hamas because Hamas is saving them from annihilation by the Israelis. The fact is, Hamas, a terrorist organization, simply cannot survive without conflict, and the moment the Palestinians might get it through their heads that Hamas is causing all their problems, Hamas would be doomed. Unfortunately, that is not likely to happen. Hamas is also heavily engaged in propaganda like Nazi Germany, and for the same reason. The Palestinians voted them into office; now they're as stuck with them as we were, for a time anyway, with Donald Trump.

For the last several years, Hamas has initiated hostilities against Israel time and again by firing 122 millimeter Russian Katyusha and other types of rockets from Gaza into Israel. The rockets have a maximum range of about 18 miles, and are primarily antipersonnel weapons, designed specifically to kill or maim people, not to destroy things. They are fired one at a time to do that to anyone, man woman or child, wherever they happen randomly to land. For legitimate military purposes, they are fired in salvos of 40 to compensate for their poor accuracy, which makes them ineffective against point targets. In the past, they have killed or injured few Israelis because of Israel's relatively low population density and, more recently, their Iron Dome defensive system. Since March 27, 2011, Israel has been essentially invulnerable to them because of Israel's "Iron Dome" missile defense system, which reliably destroys incoming rockets calculated to impact in populated areas.

Israel typically responds with precisely directed artillery and air attacks on Hamas strongholds. These are often deliberately located in populated areas, "protected" by voluntary (and sometimes involuntary) "human shields." This method of locating lucrative military targets in areas of high population density makes them easy for Israeli targeting analysts to locate, and the Iron Dome counter battery radar instantly identifies which ones are active. It also makes collateral damage and injury virtually certain!

The Israelis do everything possible to prevent casualties. They warn people away from the area by dropping leaflets, broadcasting warnings by telephone, Internet, radio and television, and even by firing warning shots known as a "knock on the roof" before firing for effect. They then surgically destroy the targets one by one with precisely targeted munitions. Unfortunately, large numbers of "civilians" are killed in the process, including those who use their wives and children as human shields and the "civilians" who are loading and firing the weapons in the first place. Unlike Hamas, which fires into Israel without warning or record, Israel frequently films their targets and allows others to do so to demonstrate the precision of their aim and the huge secondary explosions that prove that the targets are, in fact, Hamas weapons caches of large, extremely dangerous, amounts of high explosives.

Perhaps predictably, various "rights groups" have criticized Israel for "violation of the Geneva conventions," totally ignoring that the only purpose of the Hamas attacks are to achieve precisely the effects for which the Israeli's are being criticized. Among these irrelevant criticisms are:

• There is no standard gap between the delivery of the "knock on the roof" missile and fully armed missiles
• It is not clear whether the occupants of the house heed the warnings
• Not all families receive telephone calls from the Israeli military in advance
• There is no way that firing a missile at a civilian home can constitute an effective warning
• Families miss the sound of the warning missile because it sounds like just another explosion
• Areas that don't get warnings because they are not targeted are sometimes damaged anyway
• There are no bomb shelters near the targeted areas
• No warnings are given to people who are military targets
• Gaza population density makes it virtually certain that there will be collateral damage
• People who gather near a designated target to watch are often injured
• People have been killed when they returned to a target between the warning and its destruction
• Many of those killed are voluntary and involuntary human shields
• The "knock on the roof," albeit relatively innocuous, nevertheless constitutes a form of attack against the civilians inhabiting the building
• Israeli commanders are not taking all feasible measures to distinguish between civilians and combatants
• Israel's lack of specificity and thus credibility of some of their warning messages diminish their value
• People in the target area must leave their livelihoods behind and often have nowhere to go
• The warnings are actually more threats than warnings
• There is no escape
• Every home in every place is a target

Of course, none of these criticisms applies to Hamas, because they give no warning at all, and random civilians are the only targets of the antipersonnel munitions they use against Israeli neighborhoods. The Palestinians seem to think this constitutes some kind of virtue. Hamas and their supporters have stated in various media reports and interviews assertions that:

• Israel had actually provoked Hamas into firing rockets at them.
• Killing Israeli civilians is a just response to Israeli "aggression."
• Indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians is a legitimate military tactic.
• Using otherwise ineffective weapons and tactics to commit murder is a virtue.
• Hamas has a "right" to kill Israelis, especially civilians.
• Any Israeli military response at all constitutes continued Israeli aggression against Gaza Palestinians.
• The actual Israeli response is disproportionate to the provocation.
• More Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza than Israelis were killed by Hamas attacks on Israel.
• The Israeli air strikes were really planned by Israel all along, and,
• The Hamas rocket attacks were used only as an excuse by Israelis to begin wholesale murder of innocent Palestinians.

The Palestinians subsequently achieved their intended goal of suffering from the actions of the Israelis, which has been duly reported in descriptions and pictures by the major news media. The problem for the Israelis and world diplomats is that every Palestinian death is a Hamas propaganda victory, thanks to western news coverage. Hamas considers the Israelis who were (and will be) killed in the conflict an additional, but trivial, collateral benefit, whereas a Palestinian getting killed by Israelis is seen as a major accomplishment. A popular slogan among the Palestinians is "Let all martyrs die in their homes!" So far, Israel has not made the decision to eliminate Palestinian suffering once and for all by simply eliminating the Palestinians, which they surely have the ability to do, should they choose.

Here is a table from Wikipedia of the results of the 2014 Gaza War. Check here for a comprehensive report. (This is a large document; it may take several minutes to load.)

After every Palestinian attack, the Israelis capture or destroy large amounts of Palestinian weapons and ammunition, kill or capture several Hamas bigwigs, and temporarily frustrate the ability of Hamas to harass Israel. They then withdraw from Gaza or the West Bank, Hamas typically proclaims a great victory, Their allies begin supplying weapons and ammunition to them again, and the cycle begins anew. It's been going on since Biblical times.

In the most recent engagement, Palestinian terrorists suddenly attacked Israel early on the morning of October 7, 2023, Simchat Torah on Shabbat, with 3000 poorly aimed anti-personnel rockets. Simultaneously, their infantry breached the Gaza-Israeli border, murdered over 1139 Israeli Israeli residents, wounded untold numbers more, and took 243 hostages, including 30 children and the elderly, back to Gaza. Some of these are known already to have been killed. Israel responded by attacking specific hostile sites in Gaza with highly accurate rocket artillery, calling up about 300,000 Israeli military reserves, and invading Gaza with the stated intent of "eliminating Hamas."

As usual, western news media reacted with confused reports and commentary that obfuscated the facts of the matter and spread propaganda and disinformation favorable to Hamas. For example:

• There is frequent use of the term "militant" instead of "terrorist," "murderer" or "kidnapper" to describe the tactics of the Palestinian combatants.
• Commentators frequently refer to "innocent civilians" in Gaza, as if they are all powerless victims, while carefully avoiding any mention of the fact that not a single one of them made any apparent attempt to declare war or warn Israel of the impending attack.
• Remarks about "innocent civilians" ignore the fact that Hamas was voted into power in 2007 and tolerated, if not aided and abetted, ever since. There are few adult Gazan residentss not complicit in the present conflict.
• Reports of Palestinian casualties and Israeli targets, including sites protected by international law, are clearly based on Hamas propaganda that cannot be independently substantiated.
• There have been numerous public calls for Israel to "observe rules of war," despite of lack of reasonable evidence that Israel has not done, or is not doing that.
• On the other hand, virtually nothing is said about Hamas' well-known repudiation of or disregard for any recognized rules of military conduct.
• Hamas deliberately locates legitimate military targets in areas certain to create massive civilian casualties if attacked.
• News media have failed adequately to report Israeli compassionate assistance to civilians, including opening their airspace to airdropped supplies from Lebanon.
• Hamas has hindered and obstructed humanitarian aid to the civilian populace, including that from internationally recognized neutral sources.
• Kidnapped hostages can be repatriated any time, should the kidnappers choose, by use of a white flag of truce and simply turning them over. "Negotiation" is a waste of time and tactical advantage.
• Israeli ground operations provide an opportunity for Gaza residents easily to report the location of Hamas locations and crew-served weapons. "Innocent civilian" Gaza residents have allowed, but not reported to Israel, major military construction and emplacement activity in Gaza.
• Palestinian atrocities have shown time and again that they have resulted, and are resulting, in more oppression of Palestinians, not less.
• The Israeli ground incursion has provided an avenue of escape to Israeli custody, other than being deliberately set free, for Hamas hostages.
• News commentators are quick to report "massive civilian casualties" of Israeli air and artillery attacks, but rarely note the secondary explosions that prove that the target was a large cache of high explosives in a civilian neighborhood.
• No one seems to have provided a plausible reason why Hamas should not be eliminated from the face of the earth forever, whatever the cost to their "innocent civilian" allies and sympathizers.

Hamas is definitely achieving the Palestinian strategic goal, which is to continue, and enhance, if possible, the suffering of their people so that, safe in their underground warrens, they can blame it all on the Israelis. Like the poor, downtrodden Negroes and the island bound Japanese, their sense of identity depends almost exclusively on blaming their social problems on somebody else. Their arguments of very real oppression are simply excuses, about which they are, in fact, doing nothing constructive at all! They want the Israeli tanks to come rumbling into Gaza, killing their women and children, so they can show off thousands of dead women and children, including those they themselves have already intentionally murdered, on CNN. What they will not do is admit that none of these victims would be dead if Hamas terrorists had not suddenly and deliberately attacked Israel, in blatant disregard for international rules of war, brutally murdered random Iraelis in cold blood, and kidnapped totally uninvolved "hostages," including children, many of whom are likely already dead at their bloody hands!

To be sure, there are some Palestinians who are completely innocent, such as infants and small children. They have the misfortune of having parents who have not done what is necessary to eliminate deathly threats to their own children. As for nationals of other countries who are caught in the crossfire, their lack of aid from their safe alternate homelands demonstrates the unwisdom of choosing to live somewhere else.

Unfortunately, Palestinian women and children will continue to die in ever increasing numbers because the Gazan residents didn't themselves do what they should have done to get rid of Hamas! They let Hamas plan, organize and execute the heinous coordinated terrorist attack to which the Israelis are now responding! None of this would have happened if the people of Gaza had acted responsibly by electing a benevolent government in the first place and getting rid, however difficult, of the "militants." And whether they are "innocent civilians" or not, or whether "it's all because of Israeli oppression," does nothing whatever to relieve their unimaginable suffering, or make them one bit less cruelly dead!

The Palestinian people have lost the opportunity they might otherwise have had to avoid the tragic results of this castrophe by tipping off Israel about Hamas military buildup, providing intelligence information, moving somewhere else, or effective internal armed resistance against Hamas. They are now totally occupied with simply staying alive; many of them obviously aren't going to achieve that! Things aren't going to get any better for the few pitiful survivors until Hamas is eradicated from existence, and only Israel and its military now appear capable of accomplishing that! Even so, their success is not guaranteed! The results of their failure, should it occur, are too horrible to contemplate!

My recommendation for a permanent solution would be for Israel to announce to the world (after they withdraw) that they will leave the Palestinians alone as long as no more Israeli citizens are killed by enemy action. Then they should announce that they will annex a specific amount of Palestinian land in Gaza or the West Bank, respectively, in response to any Israeli citizen who is killed by any kind of enemy action from either of those places. So much for a man, so much (more) for a single woman, mother, child, elderly person, et cetera. Then do that. It's relatively easy to take over a small urban area with tanks and artillery; just destroy all the infrastructure and round up any survivors. It's even easier with open land. They could relieve them of proscribed equipment, separate known or suspected criminals for trial, put the rest of them on a barge, and report it to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Then they could leave it where the Commissioner specifies, or close to where the Egyptians, Lebanese, or other Gazans, under the watchful eyes of the Israeli navy, could get at it otherwise, if no other way.

I think this would have one or both of the following benefits: It would make the Palestinians think twice about allowing rocket launchers in their neighborhoods if they thought that they would lose their neighborhoods and never be allowed to return. This would perhaps slow down the attacks upon Israel somewhat. It would also guarantee that eventually, the Palestinians would be gone, because they are never, never, never going to leave Israel in peace.

It might have been a good idea for one of Israel's first reactions to insist on return of every one of the hostages prior to any negotiation with Hamas at all. For those who died, their DNA-verifiable remains could be returned, along with the living person(s) responsible for their deaths and transcripts of the court proceedings that determined that. Otherwise, Israel could reasonably continue the war until they, not university demonstrators, had been satisfied that all the Hamas agents had been killed or captured.

I had an opportunity to speak personally with Benjamin Netanyahu many years ago. He has a distinctive style of talking, saying this and then that, with slight pauses in between. One gets the idea that he doesn't say anything that he doesn't specifically intend. I don't think he can be made to change his mind.

The present situation should be a dire warning to voters everywhere of the consequences of giving power to those who are motivated by selfishness, retribution, hatred, and total disregard of the welfare of the people who have entrusted that power to them!

If anything good can come out of the current catastophe, besides the total destruction of Hamas, it will be a certification once again of the truth that voters who elect corrupt government often get what they deserve! Those who, for whatever reason, choose not to act in accordance with this truth, regardless of their possible sincere excuses, have only themselves to blame - just like the so-called "innocent civilian" voters of Gaza!

John Lindorfer

* PS: My family motto is "Those who have the guns make the laws" ("Armis habiant, leges faciant").