Imagine if, on October 6th, Benjamin Netanyahu
had called you with the following dilemma. The wall surrounding Gaza, despite
looking impressive, has the value of the French Maginot Line. Israeli
intelligence knows that Hamas is planning a major assault but cannot say when.
For all we know, it might happen tomorrow. The only way to stop this attack is
for Israel to launch a preemptive invasion of Gaza and kill, take your pick, ten thousand, one hundred one-hundred-thousand, or a million Palestinians. Failure to
commit such an atrocity means that Hamas will send thousands of fighters into
Israel, kill twelve hundred people, and take 250 hostages. At what point do you
say: “Prime Minister, I understand that this is difficult to hear, but there
are certain things that civilized people cannot stoop to doing no matter the
cost. You must hold back even though it will lead to an unimaginable tragedy
for Israel.
This is the fundamental question that has faced Israel since
the attacks of October 7th. On October 6th, it was a
matter of debate as to whether Hamas could pull off an October 7th-style attack. On October 7th, they proved that they could. As such, any
agreement that Israel makes that allows Hamas to remain intact as a military
force, inevitably means that October 7th will happen again at some point. It does
not matter that Israel will learn from its mistakes, so will Hamas and its
Iranian sponsors. Most importantly Hamas knows that it can commit large-scale
terrorist attacks without losing sympathy in the Muslim world or even with the
Western left. As such, Hamas is not going to be held back by the main practical
consideration that usually keeps terrorists in check, the concern that killing
children will make the enemy more sympathetic.
Let us be clear about what the consequences of repeated October 7th
attacks will be. A state that cannot stop invaders from crossing its borders will
cease to have the confidence of its people and will collapse. There will be a mass exodus of people fleeing Israel seeking safety. Refugees are a vulnerable
group under the best of circumstances. Combine this with traditional
anti-Semitism and the fact that much of the world already thinks that Israel is
the equivalent of Nazi Germany and you have the making of a second Holocaust.
Presumably, there is some moral outer limit to what Israel
can do even if the alternative is the Holocaust. The anti-Zionists have a point
when they argue that having a State of Israel in the face of Arab opposition
requires being willing to do terrible things to the Arabs. At what point do we
say that it is not worth it even if we say that it is the Arabs who have
brought this calamity upon themselves? To kill people, even bad people, means
to be a murderer. This applies to the soldier who pulls the trigger as well as Jewish
civilians outside of Israel like me in whose name this killing is being done.
What if the only way to save Israel and, by extension, the
Jewish people was to launch nuclear weapons in a first strike against Arab
capitals? I can imagine not pressing that bottom and agreeing to be passively
led, along with the rest of those Jews deemed not sufficiently anti-Zionist, to
the gas chambers. Better a Final Solution to Judaism than Judaism being
responsible for nuclear Armageddon, maybe.
Part of the dream of Zionism is that, in a world in which people want to do bad things to Jews, we should be able to plausibly threaten to do bad things in retaliation. It is a fair question whether the moral cost is worth it. What should not be in doubt are the real-world consequences of not having the power to do those bad things. Part of what I admire about Tolstoy’s pacifist writings was how honest he was about the consequences of his ideas. He was open about his willingness to set murderers free to repeat their crimes. Tolstoy did not believe that one should care about this world, certainly not at the price of destroying one's soul through violence. Like most people, I am too much a pragmatist to follow that path, but I can respect people who do as long as they are being honest about it and are willing to apply this principle to everyone and not just Israel. If oppressed people have the right to resist their oppressors then Israel has the right to storm Gaza.
Thinking in terms of preventing the next October 7th, allows us to have an honest conversation about Israel’s actions. A common argument against Israel is that Hamas cannot be destroyed and that Israel has no plan for what to do the day after in Gaza. These arguments sidestep the critical point. Israel certainly can wipe out Hamas. It is less obvious that it can do so without killing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. As for a day after plan, it is the international community that lacks a plan for allowing two million Palestinians to remain in Gaza while guaranteeing Israel that October 7th will not happen again. If you believe that Israel should allow another October 7th in order to save Palestinian lives, be honest about that. Make no mistake. The choice is between tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths as well as their likely mass expulsion and another October 7th.
One of the things that shock me about the pro-ceasefire crowd is how open many of them are about wanting another October 7th. It is not that they want to save Palestinian lives, they want Israelis to die. The charge of genocide serves a similar role. If Israel is guilty of genocide then the Palestinian people have the right to resist with October 7th-style attacks. Obviously, saying that you want a ceasefire to protect Palestinian children from being slaughtered in an Israeli genocide sounds a lot more humanitarian than you want to butcher Israelis.