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Hamas Must Be Destroyed

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.

Comments

Marty G said…
Murphy is confused and trying to be too smart by half. No one is fooled by his act.

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