Washington’s Unhelpful Message to Israel: "Reduce Tensions" With Enemies Sworn to Your Destruction

A drumbeat of demands that collide with reality.

Israel advancing deals with US to purchase fighter jets, helicopters and munitions. (The Times of Israel)

Hamas is an evil terrorist organization. With these murders, Hamas has even more American blood on its hands. I strongly condemn Hamas’ continued brutality, and so must the entire world. From its massacre of 1,200 people to sexual violence, taking of hostages, and these murders, Hamas’ depravity is evident and horrifying. The threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel—and American citizens in Israel—must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza.

Thus spoke Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris on August 31, the day the bodies of US citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other murdered Israeli hostages were found in a tunnel in Gaza.

[The parties] announce restoration of a sustainable calm (cessation of military operations and hostilities permanently) and its commencement prior to the exchange of hostages and prisoners between the two sides—all remaining Israeli hostages who are living men (civilians and soldiers) in exchange for a number of prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza strip. (emphasis added)

Thus says the second phase of the Israeli plan for a hostage deal with Hamas, submitted on May 27 under American pressure, which still forms the basis for the ongoing US-Israeli-Egyptian-Qatari-Hamas negotiations over a hostage deal. True, in July Prime Minister Netanyahu added the demand that Israeli forces remain on the Philadelphi corridor in the first phase of the deal. But he hasn’t ruled out that even this small force would leave the corridor in the second phase.

There’s a notable contradiction, then, between Harris’s “the threat Hamas poses...must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza” and the wording of the US-approved deal: “cessation of military operations and hostilities permanently” and “complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza strip.”

If military operations and hostilities end permanently, and all Israeli forces leave Gaza, how exactly does the Hamas threat get eliminated and how is Hamas’s control of Gaza ended?

The May 27 plan for the hostage deal goes on to stipulate—after the Israeli withdrawal—the  

reconstruction of the Gaza strip for the duration of 3-5 years including houses, civilian facilities and civilian infrastructure and the support of all those affected under the supervision of a number of countries and organizations including Egypt, Qatar and the UN.

But what about the thousands of Hamas terrorists who will still be in Gaza? Clearly, they won’t amenably lay down their arms and join the reconstruction effort. No less clear is that Egyptian, Qatari, and UN forces won’t fight them and disarm them.

The contradiction runs through US statements about Israel, Hamas, and the multifront war Israel is now engaged in.

On September 6, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz said:

Well, I think first and foremost what we saw on October 7 was a horrific act of violence against the people of Israel. They have certainly, and the vice president said it, I’ve said it, have the right to defend themselves and the United States will always stand by that.... 

But we can’t allow what’s happened in Gaza to happen. The Palestinian people have every right to life and liberty themselves. We need to continue, I think to put the leverage on to make sure we move towards a two-state solution. I think we’re at a critical point right now. We need the Netanyahu government to start moving in that direction....

We need to find a way that people can live together in this and we’ve said it and continue to say it, getting a ceasefire with the return of the hostages and then moving towards a sustainable two-state solution is the only way forward.

Where’s Hamas in this? With whom does Israel negotiate the two-state solution? One Palestinian entity, the West Bank–based Palestinian Authority, is ruled by Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement. Abbas is despised by the large majority of the Palestinian population, and his “Authority” has ceded control of large parts of the territory to Islamist terror organizations.

The Palestinian ruler of the other Palestinian entity, Gaza, is Hamas. Is Hamas “brutal” and “horrifyingly depraved” (to paraphrase Vice President Harris) or is it Israel’s partner in the two-state solution?

It was also reported on September 6 that “Washington...sent a message to Israel” saying that

with regards to a potential wider all-out regional war and Iranian attack...tensions need to be reduced at some stage because “the [US] aircraft carriers will not be able to stay in the area forever.”

It’s the same message: reduce tensions, withdraw all forces, have a ceasefire, concoct the two-state solution.

Israel cannot, though, reach peaceful resolutions with Hamas, Iran, and all Iran’s proxies including Hizballah in Lebanon, the militias in Syria, the militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and the West Bank terror organizations. It can’t do so any more than America can make peace with ISIS and al Qaeda. The Iranian-led assault on Israel is a genocidal assault; Israel cannot reduce tensions with a genocide endeavor.

Genuine US backing for Israel would send a much stronger and more convincing message to the axis of evil than constant pressures to achieve unachievable goals that evince, at best, a profound misunderstanding of a region.