After retiring from the military I spent a number of years advising the US government on counterinsurgency operations in Iraq. I was in country with the Marines in Anbar province in 2007. I can state that the enemy was most certainly embedded in the population. At no time did the US forces ever contemplate using the tactics currently employed by the IDF in Gaza. Our forces were successful while employing strict rules of engagement that minimized civilian casualties. While this was often frustrating it is what civilized countries do. Israeli has crossed the line and needs to be held accountable. In addition to withholding offensive arms shipments I believe the US should strongly consider sanctions against members of the current Israeli government.
I agree with your comment 100%. This entire operation has been a disgrace, just as the Biden Administration’s policy of sending Israel offensive weapons unconditionally, after they were fully aware the humanitarian situation in Gaza was deteriorating has been. I commend Vice President Harris for calling on Israel to allow for considerably more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza but it is something that should have been done back in November when the current humanitarian crisis began to unfold.
Many Israelis have been so traumatized by what happened on October 7, 2023 they are incapable of acting rationally at this point. That is why it is imperative for the Biden administration to, at a minimum, enforce the Leahy Law and suspend all of the offensive weapons we regularly send to Israel until the humanitarian situation inside Gaza significantly improves and Israel is doing everything possible to protect the Palestinian civilians living there.
There is some chance that Hamas will reject the temporary ceasefire deal currently in the works being that they are terrorists who could not care less if their people starve to death or die in bombings. So, obviously, if Hamas fires rockets into Israel from Gaza Israel will immediately need to suppress the fire. However, it does require a 2,000 bomb to do this.
Finally, while the Biden administration has sanctioned 13 Israeli settlers who have incited violence against Palestinians as well as Israeli peace activists they need to further and sanction Israeli officials like Ben Give and Smoltrich who have essentially called for ethically cleansing Palestinians from contemporary Israel/Palestine on more than one occasion.
It's a while since you've posted this. Let's say for the sake of argument I agree with everything you say here. What about Hamas? What about the hostages? Do we know what Biden said to Netanyahu on October 8? Did the US agree to use every bit of its power and prestige to get them back?
To All: Vice P”resident, Kamala Harris, on Sunday, called for “an immediate cease-fire in Gaza”, “because of the immense scale of the suffering.”This is a major development in the administration policy. It’s moving in the right direction.
I agree with Joe Cirincione and Matt Duss. Sympathy for the Israeli victims of Hamas terrorism cannot justify the slaughter of innocent women and children by Israeli forces in Gaza. The US must use its influence to oppose the policies of Netanyahu.
Joe and Matt- We will live to regret (if we don’t already) our complicity in this slaughter. We have supplied the weapons and as have given the Israelis cover at the UN and on the world stage.
Ignore the political consequences; forget the election. Basta. How many kids have to die before we do the right thing? We can’t stop the killing but we can stop the transfer of the arms that do the killing.
It seems reasonable to wonder why America has to defend Europe and fund Israel.
If the Israelis can't defend themselves with their own resources are they really a country?
America is considered an irreplaceable partner to Ukraine. Why? Counting the current struggle in Ukraine, this is the 4th time over the last century or so that America has had to defend Europe from other Europeans. One wonders, when are Europeans going to learn how to defend themselves??
In 2022, the European Union's GDP was $16 trillion, according to the World Bank. World Economics estimates Russia's GDP to be about $6 trillion. The EU is almost 3 times richer than Russia. Why can't the EU defend itself?
I support NATO and America funds to Ukraine, but still, we should be asking questions like this.
What I hear Netanyahu, and perhaps Neil Hansen, saying is this....
The conflict between Israel and Hamas will continue until one of them is dead. If true, then a ceasefire in the current Gaza war will not bring peace, but only a pause in a long pattern of fighting.
Netanyahu's plan, whether right or wrong, seems to be to bring the never ending pattern of conflict to an end by exterminating Hamas. Netanyahu is the Prime Minister of Israel. His job is to protect Israelis, not to stand back and consider the interests of everyone involved in a balanced manner.
I'm not arguing for or against any side of the argument here, and agree this is a very troubling situation. But while I have no sympathy for Netanyahu as a person, the logic of his position does have some merit.
If it's true that this conflict will continue until either Hamas or Israel is dead, the sooner somebody wins and somebody else loses, the sooner the war between Hamas and Israel ends. If the conflict endlessly continues, sooner or later it will involve WMD, and then everyone on all sides will lose.
What Israel is doing in Gaza in not only justified but necessary because of what Hamas did. The IDF is destroying Hamas militarily, that is the mission it has been given.
What Kristoff and you seem to forget is in Ukraine the government there did not spend the years after the earlier Russian invasion embedding its military forces and infrastructure into the civilian population in order to maximize the civilian cost of any further Russian aggression. Quite the contrary, it made provisions to protect its civilians and successfully evacuated millions of women and children to neighboring countries that welcomed them. Compare that to Hamas and the reaction of Egypt (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,…) which has steadfastly refused to entertain the idea of accepting refugees. Woman and children are dying in Gaza because Hamas fights in a manner to maximize such deaths not because Israel is acting indiscriminately.
Any diplomatic pressure should be directed at Egypt to accept women and children refugees and Qatar.
It is not possible to kill every Hamas terrorist in Gaza without killing every man, woman and child in Gaza, being that Hamas embeds itself among the civilian population of Gaza. This strategy only plays into the hands of Hamas because Hamas could not care less if Palestinian civilians become maimed or die. In fact Hamas likes when this happens because it makes Israel look bad when people see the horrible images of this occurring on social media and also helps Hamas to recruit future terrorists from the children of Palestinian civilians who were killed.
I believe the appropriate policy at this time for the Biden administration would be to withhold the offensive weapons we regularly send to Israel until they suspend all militaries activity inside Gaza except in four specific circumstances: (1) If an attack from inside Gaza is imminent on Israel (2) If an attack from inside Gaza occurs on Israel (3) If the location of hostages being held inside Gaza can be pinpointed and Israeli special forces are able to rescue them (4) If the exact location of senior Hamas commanders can be located and the Israeli military is able to take them out. These conditions include Israel taking every possible step when they must use military force and conduct anti-terrorism operations inside Gaza as well the West Bank to minimize collateral damage. I am also in support of withholding sending our offensive weapons to Israel until they freeze the construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank.
I am under no illusion that President Biden is going to go this far when it comes to pressuring Israel over policy. However, if I am going to vote to re-elect President Biden later this year he is, at a minimum, going to have to withhold all of the offensive weapons we send over there until there is significant improvement in the humanitarian condition in Gaza and Israel is making every possible effort to protect Palestinian civilians during this operation including those living in the West Bank. This is consistent with the Leahy Law and the executive order that President Biden issued a few weeks ago clarifying it.
I believe the Israel people are so traumatized by what happened on October 7 that they are incapable of acting rationally at this juncture. The entire strategy underlying this operation is one of rage, not justice, and it is doing far more harm than good for everyone involved with it. Being that Israel will eventually need our offensive weapons to kill terrorists President Biden may be able to put a stop to this madness very quickly by enforcing the laws currently on our books.
This is so predictable and pathetic. It is exactly what Hamas counted on when it perpetrated the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
Voices in the West demanding Israel, not Hamas, surrender to protect the lives of Palestinians Hamas intentionally placed and continues to place in harms way.
Is it clear now Hamas knew better than all those voices, including mine, who were certain it had over played its hand on Oct 7.
What did you expect a war to destroy Hamas was going to look like? Hamas has spent more than a decade preparing a battlefield in Gaza meant to maximize civilian casualties specifically to elicit this reaction in the West. It knew those voices would not place the blame for the civilian suffering where it belongs but on Israel.
The only result your proposal will accomplish is to save Hamas from destruction and ensure the continued existence of a terror state in Gaza.
I hear this a lot. Everything Israel is doing now is justified by what Hamas did. First, that is not true. Second, Netanyahu is not "destroying Hamas." His war is creating more recruits than he can possibly kill. To get some idea of the toll his war is taking, here is what Nick Kristoff wrote today, after discussing the very real double standard this is sometimes applied to Israel:
"There is a reason to focus on Gaza today, for it is not just one more place of pain among many contenders but, in the judgment of Unicef, the world’s most dangerous place to be a child.
Consider that in the first 18 months of Russia’s current war in Ukraine, at least 545 children were killed. Or that in 2022, by a United Nations count, 2,985 children were killed in all wars worldwide. In contrast, in less than five months of Israel’s current war in Gaza, the health authorities there report more than 12,500 children killed.
Among them were 250 infants less than 1 year old. I can’t think of any conflict in this century that has killed babies at such a pace.
Of course Israel had the right to respond militarily to the Oct. 7 attacks. Of course Hamas leaders should give up their hostages. But none of this excuses Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombing, in the words of President Biden, and restrictions on food and other assistance.
Because of America’s support for Israel’s invasion and diplomatic protection for it at the United Nations, this blood is on our hands, and that surely justifies increased scrutiny."
242 Israel needs to GTF out of Gaza and the West Bank. Israel needs to stop its illegal blockade. And its leaders should be prosecuted for war crimes. Anyone who supports what they're doing is depraved.
After retiring from the military I spent a number of years advising the US government on counterinsurgency operations in Iraq. I was in country with the Marines in Anbar province in 2007. I can state that the enemy was most certainly embedded in the population. At no time did the US forces ever contemplate using the tactics currently employed by the IDF in Gaza. Our forces were successful while employing strict rules of engagement that minimized civilian casualties. While this was often frustrating it is what civilized countries do. Israeli has crossed the line and needs to be held accountable. In addition to withholding offensive arms shipments I believe the US should strongly consider sanctions against members of the current Israeli government.
Dear Pat,
I agree with your comment 100%. This entire operation has been a disgrace, just as the Biden Administration’s policy of sending Israel offensive weapons unconditionally, after they were fully aware the humanitarian situation in Gaza was deteriorating has been. I commend Vice President Harris for calling on Israel to allow for considerably more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza but it is something that should have been done back in November when the current humanitarian crisis began to unfold.
Many Israelis have been so traumatized by what happened on October 7, 2023 they are incapable of acting rationally at this point. That is why it is imperative for the Biden administration to, at a minimum, enforce the Leahy Law and suspend all of the offensive weapons we regularly send to Israel until the humanitarian situation inside Gaza significantly improves and Israel is doing everything possible to protect the Palestinian civilians living there.
There is some chance that Hamas will reject the temporary ceasefire deal currently in the works being that they are terrorists who could not care less if their people starve to death or die in bombings. So, obviously, if Hamas fires rockets into Israel from Gaza Israel will immediately need to suppress the fire. However, it does require a 2,000 bomb to do this.
Finally, while the Biden administration has sanctioned 13 Israeli settlers who have incited violence against Palestinians as well as Israeli peace activists they need to further and sanction Israeli officials like Ben Give and Smoltrich who have essentially called for ethically cleansing Palestinians from contemporary Israel/Palestine on more than one occasion.
Sincerely,
David Hurwitz
Chicago, IL
It's a while since you've posted this. Let's say for the sake of argument I agree with everything you say here. What about Hamas? What about the hostages? Do we know what Biden said to Netanyahu on October 8? Did the US agree to use every bit of its power and prestige to get them back?
Dear Pat,
I agree with your comment 100%. This entire operation has been a disgrace, as has the policy of the Biden administration of sending Israel weapons in
To All: Vice P”resident, Kamala Harris, on Sunday, called for “an immediate cease-fire in Gaza”, “because of the immense scale of the suffering.”This is a major development in the administration policy. It’s moving in the right direction.
I agree with Joe Cirincione and Matt Duss. Sympathy for the Israeli victims of Hamas terrorism cannot justify the slaughter of innocent women and children by Israeli forces in Gaza. The US must use its influence to oppose the policies of Netanyahu.
Joe and Matt- We will live to regret (if we don’t already) our complicity in this slaughter. We have supplied the weapons and as have given the Israelis cover at the UN and on the world stage.
Ignore the political consequences; forget the election. Basta. How many kids have to die before we do the right thing? We can’t stop the killing but we can stop the transfer of the arms that do the killing.
As to suspending arms to Israel...
It seems reasonable to wonder why America has to defend Europe and fund Israel.
If the Israelis can't defend themselves with their own resources are they really a country?
America is considered an irreplaceable partner to Ukraine. Why? Counting the current struggle in Ukraine, this is the 4th time over the last century or so that America has had to defend Europe from other Europeans. One wonders, when are Europeans going to learn how to defend themselves??
In 2022, the European Union's GDP was $16 trillion, according to the World Bank. World Economics estimates Russia's GDP to be about $6 trillion. The EU is almost 3 times richer than Russia. Why can't the EU defend itself?
I support NATO and America funds to Ukraine, but still, we should be asking questions like this.
What I hear Netanyahu, and perhaps Neil Hansen, saying is this....
The conflict between Israel and Hamas will continue until one of them is dead. If true, then a ceasefire in the current Gaza war will not bring peace, but only a pause in a long pattern of fighting.
Netanyahu's plan, whether right or wrong, seems to be to bring the never ending pattern of conflict to an end by exterminating Hamas. Netanyahu is the Prime Minister of Israel. His job is to protect Israelis, not to stand back and consider the interests of everyone involved in a balanced manner.
I'm not arguing for or against any side of the argument here, and agree this is a very troubling situation. But while I have no sympathy for Netanyahu as a person, the logic of his position does have some merit.
If it's true that this conflict will continue until either Hamas or Israel is dead, the sooner somebody wins and somebody else loses, the sooner the war between Hamas and Israel ends. If the conflict endlessly continues, sooner or later it will involve WMD, and then everyone on all sides will lose.
What Israel is doing in Gaza in not only justified but necessary because of what Hamas did. The IDF is destroying Hamas militarily, that is the mission it has been given.
What Kristoff and you seem to forget is in Ukraine the government there did not spend the years after the earlier Russian invasion embedding its military forces and infrastructure into the civilian population in order to maximize the civilian cost of any further Russian aggression. Quite the contrary, it made provisions to protect its civilians and successfully evacuated millions of women and children to neighboring countries that welcomed them. Compare that to Hamas and the reaction of Egypt (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,…) which has steadfastly refused to entertain the idea of accepting refugees. Woman and children are dying in Gaza because Hamas fights in a manner to maximize such deaths not because Israel is acting indiscriminately.
Any diplomatic pressure should be directed at Egypt to accept women and children refugees and Qatar.
It is not possible to kill every Hamas terrorist in Gaza without killing every man, woman and child in Gaza, being that Hamas embeds itself among the civilian population of Gaza. This strategy only plays into the hands of Hamas because Hamas could not care less if Palestinian civilians become maimed or die. In fact Hamas likes when this happens because it makes Israel look bad when people see the horrible images of this occurring on social media and also helps Hamas to recruit future terrorists from the children of Palestinian civilians who were killed.
I believe the appropriate policy at this time for the Biden administration would be to withhold the offensive weapons we regularly send to Israel until they suspend all militaries activity inside Gaza except in four specific circumstances: (1) If an attack from inside Gaza is imminent on Israel (2) If an attack from inside Gaza occurs on Israel (3) If the location of hostages being held inside Gaza can be pinpointed and Israeli special forces are able to rescue them (4) If the exact location of senior Hamas commanders can be located and the Israeli military is able to take them out. These conditions include Israel taking every possible step when they must use military force and conduct anti-terrorism operations inside Gaza as well the West Bank to minimize collateral damage. I am also in support of withholding sending our offensive weapons to Israel until they freeze the construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank.
I am under no illusion that President Biden is going to go this far when it comes to pressuring Israel over policy. However, if I am going to vote to re-elect President Biden later this year he is, at a minimum, going to have to withhold all of the offensive weapons we send over there until there is significant improvement in the humanitarian condition in Gaza and Israel is making every possible effort to protect Palestinian civilians during this operation including those living in the West Bank. This is consistent with the Leahy Law and the executive order that President Biden issued a few weeks ago clarifying it.
I believe the Israel people are so traumatized by what happened on October 7 that they are incapable of acting rationally at this juncture. The entire strategy underlying this operation is one of rage, not justice, and it is doing far more harm than good for everyone involved with it. Being that Israel will eventually need our offensive weapons to kill terrorists President Biden may be able to put a stop to this madness very quickly by enforcing the laws currently on our books.
Sincerely,
David Hurwitz
Chicago, IL
Congratulations on regurgitating most of the BS Israeli propaganda talking points. No one is buying them.
This is so predictable and pathetic. It is exactly what Hamas counted on when it perpetrated the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
Voices in the West demanding Israel, not Hamas, surrender to protect the lives of Palestinians Hamas intentionally placed and continues to place in harms way.
Is it clear now Hamas knew better than all those voices, including mine, who were certain it had over played its hand on Oct 7.
What did you expect a war to destroy Hamas was going to look like? Hamas has spent more than a decade preparing a battlefield in Gaza meant to maximize civilian casualties specifically to elicit this reaction in the West. It knew those voices would not place the blame for the civilian suffering where it belongs but on Israel.
The only result your proposal will accomplish is to save Hamas from destruction and ensure the continued existence of a terror state in Gaza.
I hear this a lot. Everything Israel is doing now is justified by what Hamas did. First, that is not true. Second, Netanyahu is not "destroying Hamas." His war is creating more recruits than he can possibly kill. To get some idea of the toll his war is taking, here is what Nick Kristoff wrote today, after discussing the very real double standard this is sometimes applied to Israel:
"There is a reason to focus on Gaza today, for it is not just one more place of pain among many contenders but, in the judgment of Unicef, the world’s most dangerous place to be a child.
Consider that in the first 18 months of Russia’s current war in Ukraine, at least 545 children were killed. Or that in 2022, by a United Nations count, 2,985 children were killed in all wars worldwide. In contrast, in less than five months of Israel’s current war in Gaza, the health authorities there report more than 12,500 children killed.
Among them were 250 infants less than 1 year old. I can’t think of any conflict in this century that has killed babies at such a pace.
Of course Israel had the right to respond militarily to the Oct. 7 attacks. Of course Hamas leaders should give up their hostages. But none of this excuses Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombing, in the words of President Biden, and restrictions on food and other assistance.
Because of America’s support for Israel’s invasion and diplomatic protection for it at the United Nations, this blood is on our hands, and that surely justifies increased scrutiny."
242 Israel needs to GTF out of Gaza and the West Bank. Israel needs to stop its illegal blockade. And its leaders should be prosecuted for war crimes. Anyone who supports what they're doing is depraved.