Even before they officially became a news outlet for recognized terrorist organizations – so before roughly some time last week – the Washington Post was already publishing utterly indefensible characterizations of the current Gaza situation. June 5, 2006, headline: “Hamas ready to compromise if Israel swaps prisoners”:
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This, we submit to you, is a pretty stupid thing to write. Let’s break it down. The democratically eleted, legitimately empowered, internationally recognized government of whatever it is the UN has declared the Palestinian entity to be ordered its army to commit an act of war against a neighboring stat. In promulgating this order, they sought to advance both their political and military situation viz a viz that state, which just happens to be Israel.
Militarily, Hamas successfully effected a spectacular attack on a military installation in their enemy’s territory, murdering two soldiers. They demonstrated surprising military flexibility, while their enemy was tactically leaden and diplomatically hampered. Before and after, they literally shell Israeli cities indiscriminately, in violation of all norms of warfare. The effect was both partly tactical (the marginal but actual depletion of their enemy’s infrastructure and army), but moreso psychological: they undermined Israel’s deterrent by demonstrating that they could be successfully attacked with impunity. This was their ultimate military goal.
To achieve their political ends – the massive boost in credibility and power that comes with being on the side of “the Prisoners” – the Palestinian government effected the kidnapping of a third soldier to ransom in exchange for prisoners.
To deny Hamas any military from their act of war, the Israeli government has prepared a military reaction to demonstrate that Israeli cities will not be bombed and Israeli soldiers will not be bombed with impunity. In the political sphere, they have more or less declared their refusal to negotiate a prisoner exchange.
Finally, let’s examine the Hamas proposal that the Washington Post described as a “compromise”. It’s terms are: Israel releases thousands of criminals and Israel agrees not to retaliate to the Palestinian government’s willful bombing of Israeli cities and military invasion of Israeli land. In plain words, they give Hamas what it wants and allow Hamas to get away with murdering Israelis. In this context, the “compromise” would allow Hamas to succeed without reservation on the political front while even more dramatically solidifying the impression that Israel is a paper tiger that can be attacked in the most brazen form – without fear of retaliation. And what does Israel get back? In return for Israel’s total capitulation, Hamas agrees to… release the soldier that they kidnapped with the intention of trading away in the first place! Hamas gains massively, while Israel forgoes retaliation for two boys who are in the ground and humiliatingly lets pass having rockets fired at its factories and schoolhouses.
A ceasefire deal where one side gains everything it went to war for and the other side doesn’t even get back to zero is not a compromise, it’s a surrender.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
