I didn’t want David C. Hendrickson’s post at Responsible Statecraft to pass without comment. In the post Dr. Hendrickson makes the following blunt analysis:
From the beginning of the crisis, the Biden administration’s approach to the war ran closely in parallel with the course recommended by Mort and Walzer. Eliminate Hamas. Do so while sparing civilians as much as possible. Then be sweet to the Palestinians and give them an independent state.
Israel was happy to take the first part of this formula and to contemptuously reject the rest. Meanwhile, alongside these homilies to humane war, the United States has undertaken a vast effort to resupply Israel’s stock of bombs.
Confronting the escalating death toll, U.S. policymakers are dazed and confused. They’re still on autopilot in support of Israel’s war aim, while ineffectually shrieking in horror at the cost to Gaza’s civilians.
The truth is that there is no way to destroy Hamas without destroying Gaza. Contrary to Secretary Blinken’s words (and Walzer’s advice), Israel does not know how to destroy Hamas while minimizing harm to innocent civilians.
While I think that’s probably a fair statement of Israel’s strategy I think it ignores something. There are strategies which would accomplish the objectives (eliminate Hamas, minimize harm to Gazan civilians) and if those strategies have occurred to me they have undoubtedly occurred to the Israelis. The problem with these strategies is that they increase the risks to Israeli troops and, potentially, civilians which is why I think the Israelis have rejected them and are pursuing a course which will inevitably lead to the complete destruction of Gaza with the attendant loss of Gazan civilian life.
That’s the reason for my position which is that given a choice between Israel and Hamas our choice is clear: Israel. However, we don’t have to support them as vociferously and enthusiastically as the administration has been. Let’s not make this horrific conflict about the United States.
One last observation. Dr. Hendrickson remarked in the post:
I won’t argue with him about 1945 but the situation was different in 1940. Japan had plenty of friends in Asia at that point with their “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. It wasn’t until it became clear that the sphere, rather than throwing off the chains imposed by Western powers, was replacing those chains with Japanese chains that Japan became unpopular in Asia.
The situation was similar with Germany in Europe. Germany had plenty of friends in Europe even after its armies had marched into countries and replaced their governments. That was true in both France and the Netherlands.