Did Hamas Save The World?
By
Leonard Zwelling
On Friday November 8, I hosted a presentation by my good friend and Israeli tour guide Gil Regev at the Shul of Bellaire where he discussed disunity in the Israel of the Bible comparing that time to our current moment emphasizing the need for Israeli unity to preserve the nation today. Remember, an independent state of Israel has never lasted more than 100 years. We are at 76 for its current iteration.
During our lunch before his talk, he said something that struck me as both odd and true. The Hamas terrorist operation of October 7, 2023 may have saved Israel and the world. How?
As the Israeli Defense Force is moving through southern Lebanon, it is finding huge caches of munitions and rockets that Hezbollah was ready to use against Israel. If Hezbollah had invaded Israel co-temporally with Hamas, Gil thinks the Arabs might have gotten all the way to Tel Aviv without being turned back by the Israeli Defense Force. There simply would have been too many Arabs with too many weapons in a coordinated attack from Hamas and Hezbollah on an unsuspecting Israel. That would have meant the end of Israel and open season for terrorists around the world (see Amsterdam for the latest in antisemitism).
Instead, Hamas attacked on its own, doing significant damage but putting Israel on high alert and instigating the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon to clear out Hezbollah as a threat to northern Israelis.
Gil made a couple of other key points.
First, Israel would be farther along in Gaza if President Biden hadn’t constantly tried to micromanage the war. With a change in the White House pending, January might be a very bad month for Hamas.
Second, despite all his failings, Bibi Netanyahu has had one constant tenet throughout his political career. There will be no Palestinian state on his watch. In essence, October 7 proved Bibi was both asleep at the wheel in the short term, but right all along in the long term.
Given all of this, what is next in Israel?
It is likely that President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu will come to an agreement on the extent of Israeli destruction in Gaza, the fate of the West Bank, and the future of the Palestinians. Gil confirmed that most Israelis don’t care what happens to the Palestinians.
There may come a time that Israel officially allows Palestinian Arabs to have official residency in an Israel-controlled West Bank and Gaza. If those Arabs with residency commit terrorist acts, they can lose their residency and be deported. I am unsure to where. Basically, Gil is saying that the order of events should be residency first, deportation of terrorists second, annexation third.
No matter how hard I pressed the issue of what are you going to do with the three million or so Arabs who live between the river and the sea, but are not Israeli citizens (about 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab), I was met with indifference, both now with Gil and during our visit in July of 2023. Israelis are a fact of reality and are not going nowhere. The Arabs may just have to solve their own problem. If the Arabs had competent leaders, perhaps they could propose a compromise. Alas, that is not the case now.
I believe that as soon as President Trump is inaugurated, Israel will finalize the destruction of Hamas and move on to Hezbollah and maybe even Iran itself. There will be no one in the White House holding the IDF back.
Hamas’ attack on Israel finally might have awoken the world to a choice the world is not going to make. It may be a choice between a one-state or two-state solution, but Israel will be making the choice, not the outside world.
If Israel, in the end, annexes the West Bank and Gaza, I do not know how much of a Jewish state Israel would be as half of the people in the country would be Arab. Gil had no answer for that one.
4 thoughts on “Did Hamas Save The World?”
I heard you speak at a conference a decade ago. You were so feisty and honest I didn’t take you to be a Zionist.
I am not sure what my honesty or feistiness has to do with my support for Israel. I am an American Jew who has made several trips to Israel and to the West Bank and firmly believe that Israel must exist as a Jewish state. That being said, I am not opposed to a Palestinian state, but there must be safeguards for the Israeli people. October 7 shows us that this might not be possible until the Palestinians get new leadership.
Completely eliminating Hamas or its Palestinian equivalent is problematic. When we visited Israel two years ago, the Israeli guides said repeatedly that there will be NO two-state solution. So, life will go on in a continuing battle between Israelis and Palestinians. It is sad that both sides cannot abide one another’s human rights and settle into a peaceful coexistence.
The Israelis have had enough of the Palestinians. It is likely that Israel will annex the West Bank areas in which the settlements sit. At some point the Israelis must deal with the 3 million Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. I just don’t know how with the current leaders on both sides.