“Without Victory there is No Survival”: The Battle Against Hamas

The bed of a child massacred by Hamas at Klar Aza

On Saturday morning the people of Israel suffered an unimaginable catastrophe of unmitigated horror. The Hamas terrorist organization launched a massive, complex, and well planned an executed assault on them. The intent was not military as the attack occurred on a major feast day on the Sabbath. The targets were unarmed and unsuspecting civilians living in small communities on the border with the Gaza Strip. As of now the number of Israelis killed number more than 1,200. Close to 3,000 have been wounded. Another 150 are hostages. The barbarity of the attack was unmatched. The images were similar to what the Nazi Einsatzgrüppen did to Jews in Poland and the Soviet Union during the Second World War.

On becoming the Prime Minister of Britain in 1940, Winston Churchill spoke words that are remarkably pertinent today for Israel and all people who oppose tyranny:

“We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

For many people, what I will say will be difficult to understand. First of all, I abhor the terrible loss of life of civilians that happens in unrestrained urban combat. Second, I believe that combatants, attackers, and defenders alike, have an obligation morally and under international law and the laws of war to do all they can do to minimize the death and suffering of civilians. Hamas has never done this and will not do so now.

That being said, there are times when an aggressor, now on the defensive, places the civilians allegedly under their protection in harm's way. Their responsibility for the care and protection of those people does not end when they shift from the offensive to the defensive.

Of course, this is something that governments that have not ceded their moral and legal obligations attempt to do. First, Hamas is not a legitimate government. They began as a terrorist organization founded upon destroying Israel and exterminating the Jews. Their rule is unrecognized by any nation or international organization. Hamas won an election against Fatah in 2006 and since then they have not allowed elections that would allow opponents to have a voice. Likewise, they have crushed their political opposition in Gaza and used violence to crush protests against their rule. They are a terrorist dictatorship. Hamas has done nothing to try to govern Gaza or improve the lives of people there. In the 18 years since they took power they have devoted themselves to conducting terrorist campaigns against Israel, in each case inviting devastating retaliatory strikes that harmed civilians in Gaza more than them. Regardless of how severe the Israeli retaliation was, Israel never went all the way to destroy Hamas, its military capability, or its ability to enforce its will on the Palestinians living in Gaza. Instead, they focused on killing Hamas leaders and Hamas fighters while destroying tunnels used by Hamas to send terrorists into Israel.

In their 18 years of unbroken rule, Hamas has turned the Gaza Strip into a fortress. Their command centers, logistic bases, weapons factories, and training centers are not separated from civilian infrastructure. Their bunkers and fortified zones are in, under, and around homes, apartment complexes, shopping centers, hospitals, schools, and mosques. What they have done in Gaza is against every international convention designed to shield civilians from the horrors of war. They have made the inhabitants of Gaza a legitimate military target. Any and all civilian casualties are not the fault of Israel but of Hamas and Iran, its major sponsor and supplier of rockets, missiles, ammunition, and military training.

To blame Israel for the plight of Palestinians without holding Hamas or the Arab nations who, since 1948, have done nothing to help the Palestinians who were victims of their failed genocidal attempts to destroy Israel. I never will forget visiting a Palestinian refugee camp on the Iraqi-Syrian border in 2007. Thousands were living in tents supported by the United Nations because nobody in the Arab world wanted them. The Palestinians, be they in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, or the diaspora, are a tragic people.

By launching an aggressive criminal war of terrorism where their goal was not defeating their opponent's military, but without warning conducting a campaign of murderous terror, in which almost 95% of their victims were innocent civilians, including infants, children, pregnant women, and the elderly, Hamas has forfeited any legitimacy and opened the gates of Hell upon the people of Gaza.

Israel has warned Hamas and the people of Gaza about the targets in Gaza that its air and sea forces are striking. Sadly, over 1,000 people have been killed. How many are Hamas terrorists, as opposed to civilians is unclear, but many are innocent civilians. The civilians in Gaza are in a terrible place. They have nowhere to go, and unless other nations agree to help Egypt take them in, Egypt will not open its borders. They know this because of how the large numbers of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan have not received assistance from the broader Arab world, especially the oil rich nations of the Persian Gulf, and how their presence has destabilized those countries.

When I think of Gaza, I remember an event in American history. In 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman’s armies had laid siege to Atlanta, the largest city of the Confederacy. General John Bell Hood’s troops turned the city into a fortress, inviting Sherman to attack. Sherman wrote the Mayor of the city of the results of allowing Hood to defend the city:

“The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufactures, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go…. You cannot qualify war in any harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out…. You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable…”

Hamas has brought all the curses and maledictions of their barbaric terrorist massacre of nearly 1,200 Israeli civilians, including the butchery committed against forty infants in one village, some of whom were beheaded by the Hamas terrorists. Every Hamas member is a legitimate target of the Israeli military, and unless Hamas is completely destroyed root and branch the people of Gaza will never have a real chance of freedom and prosperity.

Sadly for the people of Gaza, Hamas is unlike the Confederate military in Atlanta which decided to leave the city. Hamas wants this fight in the urban setting of Gaza. They have turned it into a fortress in which the citizens of Gaza, and the 150 Israeli hostages taken last weekend are human shields. The battle will be block to block and house to house. It will be like the Battle of Berlin in 1945. The horror will be unimaginable to all but combat veterans and military historians schooled in such battles. Thousands, many tens of thousands will die, most of Gaza will be flattened. The scenes of what happens in Gaza will upset many, who will try to force Israel to accept a ceasefire that would leave Hamas in control of Gaza, unbowed and encouraged to commit more terror.

Of course, the war will spread. Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran have promised to intervene against Israel. Any such action will widen the war and probably involve the United States in it. President Biden directly warned any state or non-state actor not to get involved.

I have to ask any reader whose people experienced what Israelis just experienced what they would want their government to do to the perpetrators. What would they feel if it was their loved ones who were slaughtered?

The most tragic victims are the Israeli hostages taken to Gaza by Hamas. Understandably, their family members want their government to do all that they can to release them before a ground assault. Some want the Israeli government to negotiate for their release. I understand that sentiment. Unfortunately, Hamas has said that they will not conduct any negotiations until the war ends. Their demand is tantamount to a demand for Israel’s unconditional surrender. Hamas would remain in power and others would be emboldened to commit terrorism against Israel and its people, including those in the Jewish diaspora, including in the United States.

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