Letters to the editor

Gazans are responsible for the Hamas attacks
Victims, yes. Innocent, no! (“An alternate view,” Nov. 22).

A plurality of Gazans elected Hamas to run the government. Hamas did not attack Israel; Gaza did.

Humanitarians have been suckered into believing the propaganda of Hamas and its sponsors.

Arab countries have tried to destroy Israel several times, but were defeated dramatically. There is no way that a few thousand Hamas terrorists could defeat the Israeli Defense Forces, but they could provoke an embarrassing situation for Israel. Hamas terrorists are pawns who will all be sacrificed along with Gaza residents in a well-designed attempt to deny Israel world support, and especially American support.

Hamas attacked Israel to provoke the bombing and the deaths in Gaza. Israel dropped flyers, made phone calls and used the internet to encourage Gaza residents to move south. People are reluctant to change, but after hearing the first bomb explode, a typical response would be to put on your shoes and start walking south. Why did the Gaza residents stay in the north where all the bombing was occurring?

The more Gazans die, the worse it looks for Israel. Sacrificing thousands of Gazans and terrorists may not make sense to us, but it is a cheap price to pay for people who invented the philosophy “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” By creating circumstances where Israel looks bad, Iran and Hamas are trying to convert Israel’s supporters into Palestinian friends.
Too subtle? Remember 9/11? Terrorists obtained Saudi Arabia passports, enrolled in an American flight school to learn how to fly Boeing 707s, and then picked flights originating in the east so that they could attack New York and the Pentagon. That took a lot of planning, just like the Gaza conflict.

We dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force Japan to surrender and to avoid an invasion which would have cost thousands of American lives. Experience in Guadalcanal, Corregidor and Iwo Jima revealed that the Japanese would fight to the death rather than surrender. People protested the death of so many Japanese. Everyone likes to play Monday morning
quarterback, but only one person had responsibility for the war and the soldiers’ lives: President Truman. You are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has the same problem. When 1,200 Jews are killed and 240 more are kidnapped, he has to make some hard decisions. Fighting Hamas door to door in Gaza would result in many dead Israeli soldiers. The Israel Defense Forces are not just soldiers. Every Jew is descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and they are blood relatives. Netanyahu had to bomb Gaza to lessen the threat to his soldiers’ lives. Many have died, and humanitarians insist that the bombing must stop. Everyone likes to play Monday morning quarterback, but only one person has responsibility for the war and the soldiers’ lives: Prime Minister Netanyahu.

You are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

Lee Feldman
Dormont

Some things are worse than war
Following the worst anti-Jewish massacre since the Holocaust, how could any illusions remain that there could soon be “a regional federation of two states based on democracy, freedom of movement, settlement of refugee claims and guaranteed rights for all. There would need to be leaders who are committed to reconciliation and repentance.” (“An alternate view,” Nov. 22).
Hamas’ unspeakably brutal atrocities on Oct. 7 displayed an extraordinarily high level of Jew hatred among the Palestinians that will likely take generations to eradicate. The Palestinian Authority refused to condemn those assaults, and the Palestinian street and diaspora largely applauded them.

Is it possible to make peace with such people? Have they any prospective leaders, capable of democratic governance, likely to be respectful of citizen rights, or undisposed to the extreme corruption and despotism of the current two Palestinian political entities?

The “two-state solution,” under such circumstances, is but an irrational illusion. Actual implementation would be an unmitigated disaster, both for Palestinians and Israelis.

While Palestinian civilian casualties are to be deplored — though the Hamas Health Ministry supplied numbers are highly suspect — the IDF makes every effort to avoid them. That is nearly impossible when Hamas has burrowed itself deeply into civilian spaces. Its “dead babies” propaganda strategy depends on civilian shields and media intimidation. Israel warns civilians, via leaflets and other means, of impending attacks, urging temporary flight, while Hamas urges them, many
forcibly, to shelter in place. Except there are no shelters for them, only tunnels for Hamas.

War is awful but some things are worse than war. Letting the Hamas Nazi-like regime survive — an ongoing danger to its own populace and a continuing existential threat to Israel — would constitute highest level geopolitical folly.

Hamas must be wholly destroyed.

Richard Wilkins
Syracuse, New York