As the Israel-Palestine conflict drags on in its most recent and horrifying iteration, I have found the rhetoric surrounding the conflict has reached a fever-pitch in terms of vitriol and hate. Although I am no expert, I hope the following may provide a framework for evaluating the conflict.
The obvious first step is to stop blanket-labeling our ideological opponents as “terrorist sympathizers,” “Nazis,” “fake Jews,” “genocidal,” and more, when such labels are both factually incorrect and counterproductive to a dialogue. Once we agree to a dialogue, we must work toward a solution.
There are no good options here. On one end of the spectrum, an immediate and permanent ceasefire with no explicit promise of further negotiations is an invitation not just for Hamas to attack Israel again, but also any extremist group which wishes to extract concessions from any democratic government. On the other end, carpet bombing the Gaza Strip will result in an unacceptable number of Palestinian civilian casualties (around half of whom are children).
I will take an aside here to emphasize the danger of a trend I have seen recently among right-wing American politicians. There are many who claim civilians in Gaza are complicit in Hamas’s actions by virtue of having voted for them in an election in 2006. They then use it to justify the use of indiscriminate violence in the Gaza Strip.
Although true, this is a misleading statement. One: Hamas won a plurality of the vote, not the majority. Two: they presented themselves back then as a moderate, pro-democracy force – their transition into their present-day extremist ideology occurred later. Three: their main opponent, Fatah, was widely seen as corrupt and inept. Four: nearly half of Gaza’s current population had not been born when this election happened, and a much larger percentage could not vote. Five: many Gazans today hate Hamas, but just like Ukrainians in the occupied provinces have found out, it is hard to verbally resist armed extremists. Even if points one through five were not true, that DOES NOT justify (which is different than “allow”) the killing of civilians in both my opinion and the opinion of the International Criminal Court, which prosecutes war crimes. Anyone who dehumanizes civilians should not be in a position of power.
To me, there seems to be two alternatives by virtue of being less bad. One is a ceasefire that works toward a stated goal of de-arming Hamas but giving power back to the Palestinians. The pro of this option is it minimizes innocent civilian casualties, but the cons are that the Oct. 7 attackers will not be brought to justice and other terrorist groups may be emboldened to conduct similar attacks to achieve their demands. Additionally, the unpopular, inept Palestinian Authority is the only group capable of governing Gaza in the near-term.
Two is a continued assault on the Gaza Strip with heavier use of infantry to clear out buildings and far less airstrikes. This is better than continuing the attack in its current form because ground soldiers, although not perfect, are better at avoiding civilian casualties than jets thousands of feet in the sky. The pro is Hamas is more likely to be rendered ineffective. The cons are there will still be civilian casualties as well as many Israeli Army casualties (who are innocent too but whose deaths in war are sadly “acceptable,” as opposed to the deaths of unarmed civilians).
There are other alternatives that are combinations of these options and the present situation taken to various degrees of intensity. I am not sure which one will lead to the least loss of innocent life and the quickest yet most lasting peace, but these are the factors Israelis, Palestinians and all their backers, like America and the Arab states, must consider if they truly have good intentions.
