‘Be nice, and Hamas will self-destruct’
— Why it won’t work
Biased blunders in ‘Foreign Affairs’
ROBERT A. MICHAELS
By ROBERT A. MICHAELS, PhD, CEP
Robert Michaels, of Niskayuna, is a consulting scientist and author of Civics and Science: Contemporary Issues for Civil Democracy
Democracy faces anti-democratic forces globally, not just domestically. For example, in July 2024 France experienced an anti-democracy scare in the form of an election in which polls strongly suggested that Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally Party would prevail. Fortunately, French President Emmanuel Macron’s mainstream New Popular Front coalition prevailed instead. Even so, Macron’s program of defending democracy in France, the European Union, Ukraine, Israel, and beyond may be challenged by rising division and dysfunction within French society, much as in the U.S.
Democracy received good news, also in July 2024, when Keir Starmer of the U.K. Labour Party was elected prime minister. Starmer’s decisive victory produces the first British Labour government in 14 years. However, challenges to preserving democracy are ongoing elsewhere, for example in Ukraine and Israel. Ukraine is facing Russian military aggression, which has made inroads in part because of vacillating commitment of the U.S. and other NATO allies. Yet, the main bulwark against expanded Russian aggression against its non-NATO former Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs) is the Ukrainian military. Defending Ukraine therefore is intrinsic to defending democracy in Europe and beyond.
Israel is a democracy that is threatened by anti-democratic forces in its Middle East region. Israel also is the strongest U.S. ally in the region, and is critical to protecting U.S. interests there. Yet, Israel is under attack, not only by Hamas terrorists, but by anti-Israel forces within the U.S., European, and U.N. community of nations. Defending Israel therefore is intrinsic to defending democracy in the U.S., Middle East, Europe, and beyond.
Anti-Semitism and/or Humanitarianism
Here I address one example of anti-Israel sentiment. Much anti-Israel sentiment is motivated by anti-Semitism, but the dominant motivation in the example below, I think, is humanitarian. Many if not most of Israel’s critics rightfully sympathize, as I do, with the many tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza who have been killed, wounded, displaced, starved, and otherwise impacted during Israel’s retaliation following the brutal Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack that produced some 2000 Israelis killed, tortured, wounded, and/or taken hostage.
Audrey Kurth Cronin (2024) joins much of the world in affirming that Israel “was fully justified in taking military action after the attack” (Cronin 2024, page 50). However, she also joins much of the world in condemning Israel for “the Israeli government’s highly lethal response to the … attack and seeming indifference to the death and suffering of Palestinian civilians” (page 52). Cronin asserts, questionably, that Israel’s overwhelming military response has alienated its allies along with much of the world.
In contrast, much of the world appears to be aligned with Israel’s interest in destroying Hamas. Critics have maintained political correctness by condemning Israel’s lethal retaliation, but they largely have refrained from pressuring Israel sufficiently to stop it. A better strategy than defeating Hamas with military force, Cronin judges, would be Israeli force restraint, essentially letting Hamas defeat itself via its unpopularity. I judge this approach to be a proven failure.
Assigning Blame for Crimes Against Civilians
Cronin notes that Palestinian support of Hamas began to deteriorate soon after it took control of Gaza in 2007 (page 60): “Hamas rules Gaza through oppression, using arrests and torture to suppress dissent… suffering Palestinians are well aware that Hamas built an elaborate tunnel system to protect its leaders and fighters but did nothing to protect civilians” (page 61). My interpretation: Palestinians at least partially blame Hamas for their plight.
Cronin fails to explain why war crimes against civilians should be blamed on the retaliator, given that much of the gruesome toll is attributable to Hamas’s own strategy of vilifying Israel by provoking such retaliation while using civilians to shield Hamas leaders and fighters. Hamas, for example, has used hospitals and schools occupied by civilians including children as bases for its military assets and operations. In similar circumstances, international law assigns responsibility for such crimes against civilians to those placing them in harm’s way. Cronin deflects this responsibility issue by positing that, in either case, Israeli retaliation is ill-advised because it has been strategically ineffective.
Contradicting herself, Cronin also notes that Israeli retaliation has destroyed much of Hamas’s organization in Gaza (page 63). That hardly counts as ineffective. She suggests that “instead of trying to kill Hamas leaders, Israel might try negotiating with them on a long-term political solution” (page 58). However, such negotiations would seem doomed to failure in the absence of overwhelming Israeli military force, which Cronin would preclude, and in the absence of military effectiveness, which she highlights (page 63) but also denies (for example, “the Israeli war in Gaza has been a strategic disaster,” page 52).
Moral Inequivalents
Cronin correctly notes that Israeli force restraint would dramatically reduce the scale of Palestinian suffering in Gaza, but she ignores the fact that Israel maintained a force restraint posture for nearly all of two decades of Hamas control. Contrary to Cronin, force restraint did not result in failure of Hamas. Instead it resulted in Hamas attaining its peak strength, including formidable infrastructure of tunnels and weapons sporadically used to attack Israelis. Prolonged force restraint also has increased Israel’s vulnerability, so much so that relaxation of vigilance has been condemned internally, with consequences for the Israeli government still unfolding.
If Israel has the right to defend itself, it must have the right to do so effectively. If the results are tragic, which they are, Hamas must be blamed as the chief architect of Israel’s need to respond militarily at dual military/civilian locations in Gaza. If Israel could do more to protect civilians without compromising its military success, then some blame is to be shared.
I am not a first-hand observer of the war in Gaza, but I have a keen eye for bias. Here are three moral equivalents explicated or implied by Cronin that exemplify anti-Israel bias: attackers vs. defenders, terrorists vs. victims, and Hamas vs. Israel. These are not pairs of moral equivalents. Making the distinction is intrinsic to defending Israel, and defending Israel is intrinsic to defending democracy in the Middle East and beyond.
Literature cited:
Cronin, Audrey Kurth. How Hamas ends: a strategy for letting the group defeat itself. Foreign Affairs, 103(4):50-61, July/August 2024.
