A week or two ago I traded emails with a friend regarding my views on the Israel/Hamas conflict. Thinking of how I described my feelings about the issue in that exchange made me decide to record my perspective here for future reference. Following is a less personalized and hopefully more thoughtful and less emotional version of what I shared with my friend.

First, up front let me declare that the barbaric attack by Hamas on  Israeli citizens cannot be justified on any rational military or geopolitical level. It was pure inhuman evil and is way beyond what any civilized people would do to others, even in war. Regardless, I am beginning to find Israel’s military response against mostly innocent Palestinian people very troublesome as well. While I’m sure the IDF is not specifically trying to kill innocents in the most gruesome ways, as Hamas did, their military actions seem also to be demonstrating a lack of basic concern for human life.

Before I go further I want to clarify that I consider there is a fundamental difference between the Israeli people in general, and the current Israeli government in particular. I absolutely admire most of the Israeli people I have known. In my personal experience from many trips there, I found they are generally sincere, caring, and interested in the same things people everywhere want – to live, work, and raise their families in peace. They certainly share a common Israeli nationalist pride in their country, but I don’t think it is any different from what every nation’s citizens feel about their own country.

The current and some former Israeli governments are a different story all together. Netanyahu is exhibiting a dictatorial mindset and autocratic style similar to Viktor Orban or Donald Trump. And the members of the cabinet he has installed in his current government are, almost to a person, authoritarian extremists of the worst kind. They do not reflect the will of the Israeli people I know. I personally speculate that the reason Hamas chose to attack when it did was likely the result of their belief that domestic unrest over the PM’s anti-democratic actions had distracted the Israeli government enough that an attack could be successful.

  I fully support Israel’s right to respond to Hamas with all necessary force. But I reject the notion, as some are suggesting, that we have no right to criticize Israel for how it is conducting its military operations, given our fire and atomic bombing strategy in WWII. What we (the US and allies) did in that war must not be the standard by which we justify the behavior of Israel or any other country today. I know not every country or “tribe” behaves responsibly, but the world in general is more democratic and civilized now than it was then. And we have much more precise intelligent weapons systems and methods. Democratic governments today must be much more sensitive to collateral damage and military operations must be more surgical than was possible in previous conflicts.

I even think we make a mistake calling the Hamas/Israeli conflict a war. Hamas is a terrorist organization, not a legitimate combatant. And most of the Palestinian people in Gaza are victims just as Israeli citizens were on October 7th. Describing the conflict as a war gives Hamas a level of credibility that tends to justify Israel in using broad destructive operations with associated loss of innocent life. Of course Israel’s easiest military solution is simply to level everything in Gaza, which they seem to be executing. But doing that in the way Israel is playing it right now I think probably borders on war crimes.

Every conflict happens within a political, social, or historical context. While nothing justifies what Hamas did on Oct. 7th, the seeds for that atrocity have been sown repeatedly over the past 50 plus years. Israel has exercised a brutal occupation of Palestinian land, treated its people with contempt, granted virtually no independent rights, and have been unwilling to seriously consider any reasonable level of Palestinian self-governance. Sadly, the US has played the role of Israeli enabler throughout the whole mess.

When people have no hope, it is naive not to expect that some/most may resort to extreme measures in an attempt to gain relief. The Gaza Palestinians chose Hamas as a possible solution. In retrospect that was a mistake; Hamas has an entirely different agenda. It has not delivered anything but misery for the Palestinian people, and today does not even consider the needs of that electorate.

But what Palestinian could have known that at the time? It probably seemed a real political opportunity, or at least a less terrible alternative than then existed. All together understandable in my view. In fact right now with nothing remotely similar to what the Palestinians have faced for 50 years, many Americans are supporting the insanity of re-electing Donald Trump, apparently just to disrupt the current national political paradigm.

It is well past time for the international community, including the United States, to hold the Israeli government accountable to demonstrate more commitment to the safety, security, and humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people than they have so far, both in Gaza and the West Bank. Worldwide popular opinion demands it. At the same time Israel’s heavy handed military approach is spawning anti-Semitic demonstrations and violence everywhere. Those events are focusing hate on innocent Israelis as well as the international Diaspora of people of Jewish faith and/or heritage.

How this will end I don’t know. But I do know it is not in Israel’s best interest to continue its current strategy, or to occupy Gaza, if it wants to survive as a democracy and live in peace with its neighbors. I also know they can’t eliminate Hamas until they eliminate the reason such terrorists organizations exist. And right now Israel’s actions are recruiting and training the next generation of Hamas terrorists. At some point the Israeli government must face that reality.

What is needed most in this conflict and for long term peace and security is for Israel to publicIy recognize the need for and to endorse a two state solution, along with a pledge to actively support its implementation as soon as practical. At the same time they need to stop broad destructive operations in Gaza and support humanitarian efforts.

If Israel were to make a legitimate public commitment to implementation of two states living side by side in peace, the geopolitical environment would likely dramatically change immediately. Support for Hamas from the power players in the Middle-East would likely dissipate substantially and quickly shift to lobbying for influence in shaping the character of that political arrangement.

Even if Israel were to agree in principle, creating a sustainable two state solution will not be a walk in the park. The international community, via the UN, must play the key role in facilitating, lending credibility, and insuring fairness in the negotiating process and the ultimate implementation of an agreement. Israeli/Palestinian negotiations must not including Hamas, Hezbollah, or other terrorist organizations, but have as its goal the creation of the State of Palestine as soon as practical and with as much independent sovereign authority as possible.

Israel will likely resist the most critical elements of a successful arrangement and will have to make major (probably currently unthinkable) concessions to create a sovereign Palestinian State. Perhaps the most useful role for the US in such negotiations might be in influencing the Israelis to accept a truly balanced agreement. Subsequently, whatever the arrangement, it will be the broader international community in its commitment to Palestinian economic development that will insure success or failure.