Israel’s Pearl Harbor
It took a deadly attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, to finally propel the United States into World War II and shake millions of Americans from the delusion that neutrality was an option.
Hamas’s sneak attack over the weekend was Israel’s Pearl Harbor. For far too long Israelis have clung to the belief that it is possible to coexist with a neighbor like Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization whose founding charter calls for Islam to “obliterate” Israel and to serve Allah by “killing the Jews.” Now, reeling from a barbaric slaughter unprecedented in their country’s 75-year history, Israelis know better.
Almost as soon as the attacks began on Saturday morning, photos and video of ghastly war crimes began circulating — much of it posted by the terrorists themselves. Hamas gunmen overran towns in southern Israel, going door to door and killing hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children. Scores of Israelis of all ages were dragged to Gaza as hostages. Grayhaired senior citizens were gunned down as they waited for the bus. A young Israeli couple on a kibbutz were killed just after hiding their 10-monthold twins, who are now orphans. Terrorists killed an elderly woman in her home, then photographed her corpse with her own phone and uploaded the picture to her Facebook page.
Particularly blood-chilling was the slaughter of dancers at an all-night music festival in the Negev desert. More than 260 young people were shot in cold blood, many as they were trying to flee from the mayhem. Women were brutally raped before being killed or abducted. In one video, jubilant
Hamas terrorists paraded the body of a young woman through the streets of Gaza City.
Terrorism has always been a fact of life in Israel — indeed, terror attacks on Jewish civilians predate Israeli statehood. But the mass slaughter committed by Hamas on Saturday is unprecedented. Not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in a single day. To bring the Holocaust to an end required the permanent destruction of the Nazi regime in Germany. Now it is Hamas that must be destroyed.
As was true of Pearl Harbor, the surprise attack by Hamas represents a shattering Israeli intelligence failure, for which there will be a reckoning.
But it also represents the collapse of Israel’s reckless gamble on “disengagement.”
In 2005, under prime minister Ariel Sharon, Israel dismantled the 21 Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip, removed every Jewish resident, and turned the territory over to the Palestinians. As Israeli officials described it, the blessings of what they called “disengagement” would more than justify any drawbacks. “It will be good for us and will be good for the Palestinians,” predicted then-deputy prime minister Ehud Olmert, who would become prime minister in 2006. “It will bring more security, greater safety, much more prosperity, and a lot of joy for all the people that live in the Middle East.”
Israelis overwhelmingly agreed. Sharon’s plan was backed by the government and lopsidedly endorsed by governments and media worldwide.
But disengagement proved a ghastly failure.
By 2007 Hamas had established an Islamist dictatorship in Gaza and was regularly launching terrorist raids, tunnel infiltrations, and rocket attacks into Israel. Every few years, Jerusalem would respond with several days or weeks of pinpoint bombing intended to degrade Hamas’s terror infrastructure and buy another spell of relative quiet. It was never long, however, before the terror resumed. Many ordinary Gaza residents hate Hamas. But with billions of foreign dollars at its disposal — money meant for humanitarian relief but routinely diverted to military purposes — the terrorist regime remains entrenched and focused on its singular goal: the destruction of Israel.
Successive Israeli governments accepted this status quo, convinced that the alternative — reoccupying Gaza and destroying the Hamas regime — was too costly to contemplate. The reality was the opposite: Israel cannot afford to let Hamas remain in Gaza.
After Pearl Harbor, Americans understood that they had no choice but to win a definitive and unconditional victory over the Axis powers. The United States and its allies dealt Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany a cataclysmic defeat and forced them to submit to a transformational occupation. New constitutions were imposed, new laws written, new educational systems mandated. Democratic values were instilled. By the time the occupations ended, two fanatical warmongering societies had been transformed into peaceable democracies. Japan and Germany have been trusted Western allies every since.
Israel must not only be allowed but encouraged to fight its way to an enduring victory in Gaza. President
Biden has promised “rock solid and unwavering” support as Israel moves against Hamas. If he is true to his word, he will stand behind America’s closest Mideast ally as it crushes the Hamas infrastructure, eliminates its chieftains, demilitarizes Gaza, and detoxifies its civic institutions. The savage Hamas dictatorship must finally be swept away and replaced with decent and peaceful leaders.
What worked in Japan and Germany can work in Gaza. Palestinians are entitled to live in democracy and freedom; Israelis are entitled to live in peace and security. The time has come to make it happen.
Not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in a single day. To bring the Holocaust to an end required the permanent destruction of the Nazi regime in Germany. Now it is Hamas that must be destroyed.