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| Netanyahu and Biden -- Avi Ohayon, Israeli Government, via Associated Press |
Consider the following brief news story from The Hill, a
publication most would consider either non-partisan or discreetly partisan: “Biden says Netanyahu isn’t doing enough to
get hostage deal.”
According to the lede, “President Biden on Monday said
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not doing enough to secure a
hostage deal, adding pressure on the Israeli leader to reach a cease-fire
agreement after six more hostages were found dead in Gaza over the weekend.’
There is no argument here. The Hill notes, “Biden was asked
by reporters outside the White House on Monday if Netanyahu was doing enough to
reach a hostage release agreement, to which he said, ‘No.’”
Well then, are those mediating the so called “two state
solution” to the war in Gaza, and Lebanon, and Yemen, and, derivatively, Iran
satisfied that they have put together an agreement that will appease both
Israel and assorted terrorists, mostly Shia Arabs?
The answer to this question is – No. The Hill notes, “When
asked if mediators are prepared to present a final hostage deal this week to
both Israel and Hamas, Biden said, ‘We are very close to that,’ adding, ‘Hope
springs eternal.’”
“Eternal” may be the right word. The mediators have been
constructing their “two state solution” agreement, it seems, for the entire
length of the Hamas-Israeli war. Hamas, under the direction of Iran, has
refused any and all peace overtures. And Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin
Netanyahu said, following the execution at close range of four hostages held in
a Rafah tunnel for nearly a year, “We will not rest, nor will we be silent. We
will pursue you, we will find you and we will settle accounts with you. Whoever
murders hostages does not want a deal.”
It appears there has
been a war in progress between Israel and Hamas ever since Hamas attacked
peaceful Israeli citizens enjoying a concert. The four hostages murdered by
Hamas were captured during that concert on Oct 7, 2023. Hamas killed about
1,200 people and, The Hill reports, “Roughly 250 hostages were taken captive
during Hamas’s surprise assault… About
100 of the hostages were released late last year during a week-long
cease-fire.”
The Biden administration, dripping with empathy for the
victims, is even now insisting on what appears to be a political point, almost
an academic point: Netanyahu is “not doing enough” to bring Hamas, and
Hezbollah and the Houthis to the negotiating table. Netanyahu has pledged to
rid Israel of continuing assaults by three terrorists groups financed by Iran.
Negotiation, some hands-on political negotiators might
insist, is war by other means. But what matters in such negotiations is – who
wins the war? As a general rule, the party that wins the war determines the
peace in post war negotiations.
The Biden-Harris administration regards any negotiation as
an end in itself. This view of things is historically shortsighted but
politically opportune. Netanyahu clearly is not interested in his own political
salvation and likely will be voted out of office at the conclusion of a
successful wider war against Iran supported terrorist agents.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill never survived
the political assaults launched against him following the successful prosecution
– with the aid of the United States -- of both World War II and the ensuing
Cold War against communist domination of Eastern Europe. Churchill lost the
political battles, but he won both struggles through sheer force of character.
In the end, those who successfully prosecuted both hot and
cold wars advanced the cause of peace for generations. And in the end, peace always
secured at a great cost, they were dispensable.
Looking back at the bloodiest century in world history,
French philosopher Julian Benda closed his much read book, La Trahison des Clercs
(English translation: The Treason of the
Intellectuals) with a dreadful prediction. The impulse towards domination
of the material world, materialism itself, would produce an all-encompassing
species-wide civilization that would completely cease "to situate the good
outside the real world." The lust for power as an end in itself would
become the primary pursuit of society.
Benda concludes his work with these words: “And History will
smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ
died."
Sometimes it is necessary to wade through blood so that the
spiritual nature of the human species will not be lost in vanity and material or
political progress alone. Neither Socrates nor Christ gave up their lives so
that materialism – a vacuous pursuit of power – should suppress the human drive
for honor and the rights of God.
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