The Jewish Leadership Blog: Misconceptions About the Israel-Hamas War

by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

The Western mainstream view is systematically baffled by the volcanic, violent, intolerant, unpredictable, despotic and frustrating reality of the Middle East. This is evident in the Western misconceptions about the war between Israel and Hamas, which undermines the national and domestic security of the US.
For example:

*The State Department’s pressure on Israel to move from the military option toward Hamas to the diplomatic/negotiation option ignores the failure of the US diplomatic option toward the Iranian ayatollahs, and the on-and-off Israeli diplomatic option toward Hamas since 2007 (the last of which was in May 2023), which dramatically improved Hamas’ terror capabilities, and paved the way for the horrific Hamas terrorism of October 7, 2023. Furthermore, Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and a proxy of the Iranian ayatollahs, who are committed to overthrowing the regimes of all pro-American Arab countries and bringing Western “infidels”, and especially “The Great American Satan”, into submission.

*Thus, snatching Hamas from the jaws of destruction would reflect a determination by the State Department and Israel to repeat, rather than avoid, past critical mistakes. In the Middle East, it would be seen as a major victory for Islamic terrorism, undermining the US and Israeli posture of deterrence and promoting more anti-American terrorism in the Middle East and on US soil. It would intensify terrorism against pro-US Arab regimes (who feel the Muslim Brotherhood’s machete at their throats) and against Israel, and would be a major setback for the Arab-Israeli peace process (which has been largely caused by Israel’s posture of deterrence, which was destroyed on October 7).

*Israel is not fighting a Hamas terrorist organization, but the most fortified above-ground and underground Hamas terrorist state with an extensive network of 18-24 meter deep tunnels, equipped with the most advanced electronics, capable of handling heavy vehicles and longer than the New York subway system!

*The toll of Hamas atrocities on October 7, 2023—1,200 maimed Israelis—does not fully capture the scale of Hamas terrorism. Relative to the size of the U.S. population (340 million), it was the equivalent of 41,000 American deaths, or 13 “nine-elevens” committed by terrorists sent by a neighboring country. How would the U.S. respond to such a neighbor?!

*The number of Arab casualties in Gaza is issued by Hamas and the Gaza-based branches of international organizations controlled by Hamas, which is known for its horrific violation of human rights, hate teaching, despotism, ruthlessness and corruption. However, in the pursuit of immoral “moral equivalence”, Western policymakers and public opinion formers echo Hamas’s figures…

*Are most Gazans innocent civilians? Hitler’s Mein Kampf has been a bestseller in the Palestinian Authority since its creation in 1993, including in Gaza. The people of Gaza regard “9/11” as a role model of Islamic heroism. Since 1994, parents in Gaza have been sending their children to hate-education schools – the most effective production line of terrorists – while they pray in hate-sermon mosques, cheer and announce daily acts of terror, and entice their children to join Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations.

*As expected, Western and Israeli humanitarian aid to Gaza is controlled by Hamas terrorists, which strengthens their terror capabilities; thus dehumanizing the aid. Real humanitarian aid would be provided by destroying Hamas’ terror capabilities, which could put Gaza on a humanitarian path.

*While Hamas views its October 7 terror offensive as a divine mission to destroy the “infidel” Jewish state, the State Department takes lightly the centrality of fanatical Islamic visions in the behavior of rogue Middle Eastern states. Foggy Bottom believes that terrorism is driven by desperation and assumes that financial (“money talks”) and diplomatic bonanzas can lead to moderation. However, the Iranian ayatollahs, Hezbollah, and Hamas interpret Western and Israeli gestures as weakness, which fuels their terrorist appetite. They have shown that fanatical Islamic ideology trumps financial considerations and eclipses agreements with the “infidel.” They have diverted mega-billions of dollars in Western gestures to anti-Western terrorism, not to moderate policies.

*Western policymakers have showered rogue Middle Eastern states with diplomatic and financial gestures, ignoring precedents that terrorists bite the hand that feeds them, as experienced by the US, which facilitated the takeover of the Ayatollahs in Iran in 1978/79 and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan (1980s). These terrorist organizations emerged as the main anti-American terrorists, participating in “9/11” and the bombings of the US embassies in Lebanon (1983), Kenya and Tanzania (1998), as well as the Marine barracks in Lebanon (1983). Similarly, Israel overwhelmed the Middle East in 1993 and 2005 with dramatic gestures (never contemplated by Arabs) toward the PLO, leading to unprecedented waves of terrorism, as evidenced by the series of Israeli financial and humanitarian gestures to Hamas in the period 2007-2023, which resulted in thousands of rockets hitting Israeli civilian targets and led to the massacre on October 7, 2023.

*Israel’s wars against Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists are not just Israel’s wars. These wars are largely designed, directed, supervised, and financed by the Ayatollahs of Iran. The Ayatollahs’ strategic footprint stretches from the Persian Gulf through the wider Middle East and Africa to Latin America—seen as the US’s soft underbelly—and onto US soil, as FBI Director Chris Wray recently testified. The Ayatollahs view Israel as the most effective US outpost/beachhead in the Middle East and the Western democracies’ first line of defense against Shiite (Iran’s Ayatollahs) and Sunni (Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS) Islamist terror.

*A nuclear Iran is not the only real and clear threat to global stability. In fact, the most pressing threat to global stability and vital U.S. interests is Iran’s conventional military, which has its machete to the throat of every pro-American Arab regime while serving as the global epicenter of anti-American terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, and weapons proliferation. They train terrorists in the Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil and Chile-Bolivia-Peru tri-border areas, and supply underground tunneling equipment and unmanned predator aircraft to Venezuela and Mexican drug cartels.

*The 45-year-old US diplomatic option—and its hundreds of billions of dollars in bonuses—failed to entice the ayatollahs to peaceful coexistence, good faith negotiations, and the abandonment of a fanatical ideology. In effect, the diplomatic option transformed the ayatollahs from a secondary power in 1979 to a leading regional and global power in 2024, and to provide critical support to Hezbollah, Houthi, Hamas, and Latin American terrorists—a major threat to global sanity and US national and homeland security. Contrary to popular misconception, the Iranian ayatollahs are not a partner for negotiations, but a target for regime change, for the sake of global sanity.