In a Jan. 19 phone call, President Joseph Biden pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to wind down Israel’s military offensive against Tehran-backed Hamas in Gaza.
Biden insists Israel agree to withdraw all its troops from Gaza in exchange for Hamas releasing the remaining hostages. And that Israel accept a “two-state solution”: a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank alongside Israel. But Hamas and Tehran want the destruction of Israel and the Jews, and have no interest whatsoever in two states.
In a Jan. 16 interview with a Kuwaiti reporter, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal insisted they will continue to fight to conquer the entire region, “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” He also said their 17-year rule over Gaza was “political and administrative cover” to amass weapons, dig tunnels and prepare for attacks on Jews in Israel.
Biden claims “two states” would protect Israel’s security, but his demand would leave Hamas intact. The U.S. ruling class that he serves has only one concern: defending U.S. imperialism’s own economic and political interests in the region.
After the call Netanyahu reiterated that Israel “must maintain full security control in the Gaza Strip” and will not accept any proposal that allows Gaza to be a staging ground for future anti-Jewish massacres.
The Israeli government and people have little choice but to fight to eliminate Hamas. The reactionary Islamist group — financed, trained and armed by Tehran — put together an army of some 40,000 combatants.
Hamas thugs murdered 1,200 people in cold blood in Israel Oct. 7, mostly civilians, wounded more than 5,000 and took more than 240 hostage. The Islamist death squads raped, tortured and mutilated many of their victims. It was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
They also abused, murdered or took hostage dozens of Arab, Thai, Nepalese, Filipino and African workers for the “crime” of working with Jews.
More than 200 Israeli soldiers, including Bedouin Arab volunteers and Druze, have died since the Israel Defense Forces began its ground offensive in Gaza.
The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health states that more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed. While nothing Hamas says can be trusted — it still claims the hostages are well treated and denies its thugs raped and mutilated women and killed children — thousands of civilians have died. Israeli officials says more than 9,000 of those Gazans killed are armed fighters.
Hamas maximizes civilian deaths
Unlike every other capitalist army in the world, the Israel Defense Forces makes efforts to get civilians out of combat zones. Hamas does the opposite. The terror group seeks to maximize the deaths of civilians by using them as human shields.
After gaining control over most of northern Gaza and under pressure from Washington, Israel has adjusted its military tactics. That’s meant a 50% drop in civilian deaths over the last month, but also fewer daily deaths or capture of Hamas and Islamic Jihad thugs.
The fighting in Gaza could be stopped. All Hamas has to do is release the remaining hostages, exit its network of tunnels under Gaza, and hand over those who ordered or carried out the Oct. 7 pogrom.
For Hamas, just keeping its command structure intact would be a victory, allowing it to reorganize and launch future assaults. And any “victory” for Hamas would put wind in the sails of Jew-haters around the world, who have been using the deaths of the civilians in Gaza — the “martyrs” created by Hamas — to step up their antisemitic actions.
As Israeli soldiers advance they have found how extensive Hamas’ tunnel network is. Israeli officers estimate there are up to 450 miles of tunnels, with nearly 5,700 shafts, in a territory that is only 25 miles long. The tunnels are intertwined under and inside mosques, hospitals, schools, residences and other civilian infrastructure, a central part of Hamas’ strategy.
In Khan Younis Israeli soldiers found jail cells more than 20 yards underground where some 20 hostages had been held.
Israel pulled out all its settlements and troops from Gaza in 2005. Then Hamas narrowly won election in Gaza. By 2007 it had imposed a brutal dictatorship. It used the newly independent Palestinian state to execute its opponents in Fatah, enrich top Hamas leaders and attack civilians in Israel.
Tehran, Hamas target West Bank
Meanwhile, Hamas leaders outside Gaza together with Tehran are sending arms, cash and cadre to the West Bank, hoping to turn it into another Gaza.
Three million Palestinians live in the West Bank. The growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, now some 468,000 Israeli citizens in more than 340 settlements, has been a source of tension and controversy inside Israel for decades. Some of the more extreme rightist settlers have tried to push out their Palestinian neighbors and grab their farmland, leading to violent clashes.
About 60% of the West Bank is under direct Israeli military control. The rest is run by the Palestinian Authority, in many areas jointly with Israeli police.
About 100,000 Palestinians from the West Bank worked inside Israel, many for decades. The Israeli government suspended all but 8,000 of those workers’ permits in the wake of Oct. 7. Needing their labor and worried that with no income some will be drawn toward Hamas, Netanyahu and the army leaders want to let them back in. But opposition within Netanyahu’s governing coalition has put the proposal on hold.
At the same time, 8,000 Palestinians have returned to their jobs in West Bank factories and other worksites on Israeli settlements there.
Hamas’ threat to Jews across Israel was brought home when two Hamas supporters from Hebron in the West Bank ran over pedestrians in several locations in Raanana, north of Tel Aviv, and stabbed several Jan. 15. The terrorists killed 79-year-old Edna Bluestein and injured 17 people, including children and teenagers.
Hamas falsely called the victims “settlers,” as if that somehow would have justified their barbaric actions.
Decisively defeating Hamas in Gaza is a precondition for Palestinian workers there and in the West Bank forging a new leadership that rejects Jew-hatred and defends Palestinian rights. This, not “two states,” would open the possibility for Palestinian and Jewish workers coming together to defend their common class interests.