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| Truman |
Before Carthage in modern day Tunisia was destroyed by Rome in 146 BC, the Roman orator Cicero was known for having ended all his speeches in the Senate with the words “Carthago delenda est” – “Carthage must be destroyed.”
Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Murphy is not quite as
insistent that Hamas should be destroyed, but he did manage briefly to mention the
Iran supported terrorist organization in a story in a Hartford paper, “Sen. Chris Murphy makes bipartisan plea
for a ceasefire in the Middle East as others, including President Biden, join
call to stop bloodshed.”
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and his Republican colleague, Sen.
Todd Young of Indiana, the paper noted, “are calling for a ceasefire between
Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers in an effort to stop civilian bloodshed.
“’Israel has the right to defend itself from Hamas’ rocket
attacks, in a manner proportionate with the threat its citizens are facing,’
Murphy and Young said in a joint statement issued Sunday night. ‘As a result of
Hamas’ rocket attacks and Israel’s response, both sides must recognize that too
many lives have been lost and must not escalate the conflict further.’”
In his interview with the paper’s reporter, Murphy added a
tantalizingly ambiguous endnote.
“Murphy acknowledged that his joint statement was worded to
win bipartisan support. Murphy is the chairman and Todd Young is the ranking
Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South
Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
“’These joint statements are compromises,’ Murphy said. ‘To
me the most important thing is to bring this violence to an end and the
quickest way to get there is to have folks from both sides of the aisle call
for a ceasefire. A statement that was just coming from me would look
differently.’”
If the reporter did ask the obvious question – What would an
uncompromising statement coming just from Murphy look like, and in what
important respect would it differ from his ballyhooed bipartisan statement? –
the answer to the question does not appear in the story.
The Murphy-Young bi-partisan statement,
mercifully brief, is entirely beside the point. The joint statement reads in
full:
“Israel has the
right to defend itself from Hamas’ rocket attacks, in a manner proportionate
with the threat its citizens are facing. As a result of Hamas’ rocket attacks
and Israel’s response, both sides must recognize that too many lives have been
lost and must not escalate the conflict further. We are encouraged by reports
that the parties are exploring a ceasefire. We hope that this ceasefire can be
reached quickly and that additional steps can be taken to preserve a two-state
future.”
Any ceasefire that
occurs before Hamas in the Gaza Strip is routed and rendered harmless will not
lead to a cessation of hostilities, as opposed to a temporary halt in
continuing efforts by Israel’s enemies to push the Middle East’s only democracy
into the sea. Such temporary halts in the past have rendered all promising two
state solutions unlikely, if not impossible.
We know this is the
case because Iran has for decades been using terrorist clients to destroy every
possibility of a Middle East peace accord that does not have as its end point
the destruction of the Israeli state, brought into being in large part through
Democrat President Harry Truman’s courageous recognition of Israel as a state way
back in 1948, nearly three quarters of a century past. Truman was opposed in his
venture by many prominent politicians of the day, and also by his Secretary of
State George C. Marshall, who Truman considered the greatest living American.
Those who stake
their political futures on a two state solution should be asked at every
opportunity to describe in vivid historical detail what is the problem to which
the two state solution is a solution.
Since the rise of
Hamas in Gaza, the Palestinian people in Israel have been ground to dust by two
great grindstones – Fatah and Hamas – both claiming to represent displaced
Palestinians. The undeclared political war between the two groups, beginning
roughly in 2007, has continually resulted in the deaths of Palestinians largely
because of Hamas’ military operations against Israel. It is well known, even
among enemies of Israel, that Hamas uses the Palestinians as human shields to
protect their military emplacements in Gaza from counter attack by Israel.
Hamas has been
condemned over the years by a host of countries. The United States outlawed
Hamas in 1995, Canada in 2002. Hamas’ military wing was outlawed by the
European Union in 2002. Japan, New Zealand, Australia and the United
Kingdom have designated the military wing of Hamas as a terrorist
organization. Hamas is banned in Jordan. Countries that do not presently regard
Hamas as a terrorist organization are, unsurprisingly, Iran, Russia, Turkey,
China, Egypt, and Syria.
Murphy – and
especially U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, who is Jewish -- easily could play
Cicero to Hamas and call for its extirpation, a necessary requirement of peace
the Middle East. But they and the whole of Connecticut’s all Democrat U.S.
Congressional Delegation will always fall far short of the mark as long as they
regard Israel and Hamas as equally deserving of moral approbation.
The additional step
necessary to “preserve a two-state future,” Murphy should understand, is the destruction
of Hamas.
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