THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
For Israel, a cease-fire means death
BY MICHAEL OREN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 11/09/23 1:00 PM ET
Pressure is mounting on Israel to agree to a cease-fire in Gaza. In capitals and campuses across America and much of the world, hundreds of thousands are demonstrating for an immediate halt to the fighting in Gaza.
The painful photos coming out of the battle zone, together with mounting civilian casualties, further fuel the protestors’ demands. In addition to preventing further bloodshed, a cease-fire would allow for mediation to free the hostages — so the reasoning goes. Palestinian refugees can then be repatriated, and the process of rebuilding can begin.
Rejecting these arguments is not easy for Israelis. Though responsibility for civilian casualties rests with the Hamas terrorists who use their own population as human shields, Israelis can sympathize with the Palestinians’ pain. We, too, are sustaining daily losses and the uprooting of 250,000 of our citizens from their homes. We want nothing more than to see an end to this war.
But for Israel, accepting a cease-fire means victory for Hamas. For Israel, a cease-fire means death.
Which is precisely why Hamas wants one. If imposed, a cease-fire would enable the terrorists to get away with mass murder. It would empower them to replenish their rocket arsenal and repair whatever damage Israel has so far wrought to their military infrastructure. As in the past, much of the international aid channeled into Gaza would be siphoned off by Hamas to augment its ability to kill Jews.
A cease-fire would empower Hamas to declare a triumph for its jihadist aberration of Islam and to prepare for the next, even more barbarous, round. The October 7 onslaught “was just the first time,” declared Hamas political leader Ghazi Hamad. “There will be a second, a third, and a fourth. We are ready to pay the price. We are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”
A cease-fire, by contrast, would mortally tie Israel’s hands. With Hamas resurgent on Israel’s southern border and an emboldened Hezbollah to the north, the towns and communities evacuated from these areas would never be able to return. Tourism and foreign investment would vanish, and many Israelis would choose to raise their children elsewhere.
But along with forfeiting our internal security, Israel would lose its regional deterrence. Iran could strike us with impunity, confident that any attempt to defend ourselves would swiftly be curtailed by a cease-fire. The Israel Defense Forces may be the most powerful army in the Middle East, but without the legitimacy and maneuverability to use it, Israel is fatally exposed.
President Biden understands this and, together with Israel, has withstood the rising pressure for a cease-fire. He knows that a cease-fire means not only defeat for Israel but also for a United States facing many of the same Iranian and terrorist threats.
But growing criticism of the president’s policy within his party as well as from allied Middle East leaders necessitates some flexibility. This, Biden believes, can be gained through the humanitarian pauses recommended by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during his recent visit to the region. Such pauses, Blinken explained, would help Israel “minimize civilian deaths while still achieving its objectives of finding and finishing Hamas.”
Though Blinken reiterated America’s opposition to a cease-fire, his proposal for humanitarian pauses was still rejected by Israel. “Israel refuses a temporary cease-fire that does not include the release of our hostages,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained.
The government’s position reflects that of the vast majority of Israelis who regard giving aid to Gaza as weakening the little leverage they have to secure the hostages’ freedom. Israelis also know that, even with the most draconian inspections, a portion of any aid shipment into Gaza will be appropriated by Hamas and that, by hiding among evacuating civilians, the terrorists will try to escape. Israelis do not want to slow their troops’ momentum or to provide Hamas with any opportunity to regroup. Humanitarian pauses, from Israel’s standpoint, will only strengthen Hamas and cost us more of our soldiers’ lives.
Nevertheless, the question of whether or not Israel can agree to humanitarian pauses is likely to become more critical in the coming days. Israel will increasingly have to rely on the U.S. to veto U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Expending ammunition at an enormous rate, Israeli forces will soon have to call on America for resupply. By unequivocally upholding Israel’s right to defend itself and dispatching massive naval forces to deter Israel’s enemies and protect its skies, Biden has earned a significant amount of influence over Israeli decision-makers. “Help me,” he could reasonably say to them, “help you.”
Needed is a compromise formula that will enable the White House to claim that aid is indeed reaching the Palestinians while Israel preserves its leverage over Hamas and pursues its plan of battle. One such solution might be for strictly limiting the length of the pauses and to locations far from the front. Shorter pauses designed solely to allow Palestinians to evacuate combat zones could also be considered. In all cases, Israel would have the ability to inspect the aid going into Gaza and, to the greatest degree possible, ensure that none of it reaches Hamas.
Regardless of whether a compromise on the pauses is possible, Israel and the United States must remain united in opposing a cease-fire. Difficult though it will be maintaining that front as the war in Gaza progresses, neither country can allow Hamas to win nor to permit Israel’s security to be permanently and perhaps fatally impaired. A cease-fire may mean an end to this round of bloodshed — but it guarantees even bloodier conflicts ahead.
Michael Oren, formerly Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Knesset Member, and Deputy Minister in Charge of Diplomacy, is the author of the Substack “Clarity.”
I have no skin is this fight but why does the US taxpayer have to pay for Israeli weapons? Did israel support Ukraine when Russia invaded? Quite the opposite.. it continued trading with Russia.. yet now when it’s attacked it wants the West to help it??
You know that the issue is much more complex than your one line comments. I posted a thoughtful response to Andrew poster . . . I respectfully answered your initial question. It is time to say goodbye.
Your “thoughtful” response was an article written by someone else and your replies just stated your opinions with nothing to back them up.. if that’s the best you can do please stick to cartoons in the daily paper.
Calls for a ceasefire, while they sound really nice and peace loving, are specious.
Ask yourself: If Hamas laid down their weapons and released all hostages, would there be peace? No reasonable observer would think otherwise.
Now turn it around. If the Israelis laid down their weapons, what would happen? No reasonable observer would believe that anything other than rape, slaughter and mass atrocities would follow.
A ceasefire should only happen once all hostages have been returned and Hamas has surrendered.
IMO, Politicization of non-political spaces like work and non-political content are a bad idea.
I subscribed to substack because i want to read about bread and other topics that interest me. Substack is turning into twitter. Most of my subscriptions will be cancelled.
When I signed up and paid for this subscription I was not looking for political commentary, there are others that provide subscriptions for that. That said, I don't recall you declared a strike when babies were murdered, burned, and decapitated, when women, including pregnant women, were raped and butchered by Hamas in Israel on Oct 7, 2023. When Hamas took hundreds of hostages including babies and toddlers. This is a double standard that I cannot support. If you plan on continuing politicizing this space then I would no longer be able to continue supporting you and your space.
Not going to respond to people individually, but I have two things to add:
1. NOTHING you can say will convince me that bombing Palestinians indiscriminately—including more than 5000 dead children, at last count—is going to achieve the ends that any of us desire here: freeing the remaining hostages, ending Hamas's control over Gaza, bringing justice to the victims of the October 7 attacks, or attaining some sort of lasting peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.
2. I do not post "political" content here often, but anyone who has been here more than a few months will know that this is hardly the first time I have. If you'd prefer your bread content to be politics-free, I'm sure there are others you can follow, but I'm not going to censor myself on your behalf. Bread is life and silence = death.
Thank you for your more detailed explanation of your views. The problem with a "Stand with Palestine" position as the graphic in your first post describes, is that in recent polls, 75% of Palestinians agreed with the Oct7th attacks and 75% supported the destruction of Israel and the claiming of the land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. So standing with Palestine does NOT mean supporting the ends that you mention in your point 1 above.
this only supports my thinking. That poll was taken from 10/31-11/7, more than three weeks into the bombing campaign. If the goal was to eliminate Hamas and its support from the Palestinian public, this clearly shows this is the wrong approach (never mind the death of tens of thousands of innocents). I'm guessing that support for Hamas has only gone UP since then, and will probably do so for as long as the bombs keep dropping. I doubt there's any way to reverse this trend, but continuing it is only going to create more people who think terror is the only possible way to prevent the complete destruction of their culture.
I agree that the current approach has only led to further support of Hamas, but I find it hard to come up with any strategy that will achieve the ends that you (and I) desire. A ceasefire without return of the hostages and punishment of those guilty for the 10/7 attacks only plays into Hamas' hands.
Thank you for clarifying your views. In this I am going to cancel my subscription and request my money back. As I said before, I signed up because I care about bread baking but I didn't sign up to hear your political views whatever they are.
I agree with Andrew. The issue is not “standing or not standing with anyone” . The cease fire is not to be nice to Hamas. The issue is that there are war crimes (some would say genocide- according to an open letter published by over 50 US based Holocaust and genocide scholars- look it up if you wont take my word for it) happening as we speak. The killing and starvation of civilians needs to stop. Once the humanitarian disaster is stopped, there will be plenty of time for justice to take its course on all sides. If you dont agree with that, then I feel sorry for you. Never Again means never again for anyone.
On another note, for those interested, please go to instagram or your social media of choice and look at the bread baking going on in Gaza.
I hesitated before posting because often the best solution is simply to accept that when as a reader I subscribe to a publication I am engaging with many people whose worldviews don't match mine. That is ok, this the way my worldview is stretched, challenged and sometimes changed. My work life is filled with politics (office politics, American politics, world politics, cultural politics...) and as such at times I seek out and relax in corners of my life that I can, hopefully, use as a place to rest, recover and restore my soul/spirit.
I am of course disappointed to find once again that part my restful temporary retreat is now a place I must choose not to return to. I'm a lurker only so my leaving won't be noticeable.
You do realize that this war would end tomorrow if Hamas returned the hostages?
OPINION>INTERNATIONAL
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
For Israel, a cease-fire means death
BY MICHAEL OREN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 11/09/23 1:00 PM ET
Pressure is mounting on Israel to agree to a cease-fire in Gaza. In capitals and campuses across America and much of the world, hundreds of thousands are demonstrating for an immediate halt to the fighting in Gaza.
The painful photos coming out of the battle zone, together with mounting civilian casualties, further fuel the protestors’ demands. In addition to preventing further bloodshed, a cease-fire would allow for mediation to free the hostages — so the reasoning goes. Palestinian refugees can then be repatriated, and the process of rebuilding can begin.
Rejecting these arguments is not easy for Israelis. Though responsibility for civilian casualties rests with the Hamas terrorists who use their own population as human shields, Israelis can sympathize with the Palestinians’ pain. We, too, are sustaining daily losses and the uprooting of 250,000 of our citizens from their homes. We want nothing more than to see an end to this war.
But for Israel, accepting a cease-fire means victory for Hamas. For Israel, a cease-fire means death.
Which is precisely why Hamas wants one. If imposed, a cease-fire would enable the terrorists to get away with mass murder. It would empower them to replenish their rocket arsenal and repair whatever damage Israel has so far wrought to their military infrastructure. As in the past, much of the international aid channeled into Gaza would be siphoned off by Hamas to augment its ability to kill Jews.
A cease-fire would empower Hamas to declare a triumph for its jihadist aberration of Islam and to prepare for the next, even more barbarous, round. The October 7 onslaught “was just the first time,” declared Hamas political leader Ghazi Hamad. “There will be a second, a third, and a fourth. We are ready to pay the price. We are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”
A cease-fire, by contrast, would mortally tie Israel’s hands. With Hamas resurgent on Israel’s southern border and an emboldened Hezbollah to the north, the towns and communities evacuated from these areas would never be able to return. Tourism and foreign investment would vanish, and many Israelis would choose to raise their children elsewhere.
But along with forfeiting our internal security, Israel would lose its regional deterrence. Iran could strike us with impunity, confident that any attempt to defend ourselves would swiftly be curtailed by a cease-fire. The Israel Defense Forces may be the most powerful army in the Middle East, but without the legitimacy and maneuverability to use it, Israel is fatally exposed.
President Biden understands this and, together with Israel, has withstood the rising pressure for a cease-fire. He knows that a cease-fire means not only defeat for Israel but also for a United States facing many of the same Iranian and terrorist threats.
But growing criticism of the president’s policy within his party as well as from allied Middle East leaders necessitates some flexibility. This, Biden believes, can be gained through the humanitarian pauses recommended by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during his recent visit to the region. Such pauses, Blinken explained, would help Israel “minimize civilian deaths while still achieving its objectives of finding and finishing Hamas.”
Though Blinken reiterated America’s opposition to a cease-fire, his proposal for humanitarian pauses was still rejected by Israel. “Israel refuses a temporary cease-fire that does not include the release of our hostages,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained.
The government’s position reflects that of the vast majority of Israelis who regard giving aid to Gaza as weakening the little leverage they have to secure the hostages’ freedom. Israelis also know that, even with the most draconian inspections, a portion of any aid shipment into Gaza will be appropriated by Hamas and that, by hiding among evacuating civilians, the terrorists will try to escape. Israelis do not want to slow their troops’ momentum or to provide Hamas with any opportunity to regroup. Humanitarian pauses, from Israel’s standpoint, will only strengthen Hamas and cost us more of our soldiers’ lives.
Nevertheless, the question of whether or not Israel can agree to humanitarian pauses is likely to become more critical in the coming days. Israel will increasingly have to rely on the U.S. to veto U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Expending ammunition at an enormous rate, Israeli forces will soon have to call on America for resupply. By unequivocally upholding Israel’s right to defend itself and dispatching massive naval forces to deter Israel’s enemies and protect its skies, Biden has earned a significant amount of influence over Israeli decision-makers. “Help me,” he could reasonably say to them, “help you.”
Needed is a compromise formula that will enable the White House to claim that aid is indeed reaching the Palestinians while Israel preserves its leverage over Hamas and pursues its plan of battle. One such solution might be for strictly limiting the length of the pauses and to locations far from the front. Shorter pauses designed solely to allow Palestinians to evacuate combat zones could also be considered. In all cases, Israel would have the ability to inspect the aid going into Gaza and, to the greatest degree possible, ensure that none of it reaches Hamas.
Regardless of whether a compromise on the pauses is possible, Israel and the United States must remain united in opposing a cease-fire. Difficult though it will be maintaining that front as the war in Gaza progresses, neither country can allow Hamas to win nor to permit Israel’s security to be permanently and perhaps fatally impaired. A cease-fire may mean an end to this round of bloodshed — but it guarantees even bloodier conflicts ahead.
Michael Oren, formerly Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Knesset Member, and Deputy Minister in Charge of Diplomacy, is the author of the Substack “Clarity.”
then of course a little context as to how Hamas was able to get weapons
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-qatar-money-prop-up-hamas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FE0.i4qU.nPUfBkLN7Ko9&hpgrp=c-abar&smid=url-share
Did I miss the post to stop any work until all hostages are released and hamas is defunded?
I have no skin is this fight but why does the US taxpayer have to pay for Israeli weapons? Did israel support Ukraine when Russia invaded? Quite the opposite.. it continued trading with Russia.. yet now when it’s attacked it wants the West to help it??
If Israel falls . . . the Middle East falls.
of course.. but do enlighten us.. to "whom" does the Middle East" fall? the chinese? the iranians?
Your question was . . . why we should help Israel . . . because it is in the best interest of the United States.
And why is that? We are energy independent in the USA.
You know that the issue is much more complex than your one line comments. I posted a thoughtful response to Andrew poster . . . I respectfully answered your initial question. It is time to say goodbye.
Your “thoughtful” response was an article written by someone else and your replies just stated your opinions with nothing to back them up.. if that’s the best you can do please stick to cartoons in the daily paper.
Calls for a ceasefire, while they sound really nice and peace loving, are specious.
Ask yourself: If Hamas laid down their weapons and released all hostages, would there be peace? No reasonable observer would think otherwise.
Now turn it around. If the Israelis laid down their weapons, what would happen? No reasonable observer would believe that anything other than rape, slaughter and mass atrocities would follow.
A ceasefire should only happen once all hostages have been returned and Hamas has surrendered.
IMO, Politicization of non-political spaces like work and non-political content are a bad idea.
thanks for standing with common sense and humanity.
I subscribed to substack because i want to read about bread and other topics that interest me. Substack is turning into twitter. Most of my subscriptions will be cancelled.
When I signed up and paid for this subscription I was not looking for political commentary, there are others that provide subscriptions for that. That said, I don't recall you declared a strike when babies were murdered, burned, and decapitated, when women, including pregnant women, were raped and butchered by Hamas in Israel on Oct 7, 2023. When Hamas took hundreds of hostages including babies and toddlers. This is a double standard that I cannot support. If you plan on continuing politicizing this space then I would no longer be able to continue supporting you and your space.
Not going to respond to people individually, but I have two things to add:
1. NOTHING you can say will convince me that bombing Palestinians indiscriminately—including more than 5000 dead children, at last count—is going to achieve the ends that any of us desire here: freeing the remaining hostages, ending Hamas's control over Gaza, bringing justice to the victims of the October 7 attacks, or attaining some sort of lasting peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.
2. I do not post "political" content here often, but anyone who has been here more than a few months will know that this is hardly the first time I have. If you'd prefer your bread content to be politics-free, I'm sure there are others you can follow, but I'm not going to censor myself on your behalf. Bread is life and silence = death.
Thank you for your more detailed explanation of your views. The problem with a "Stand with Palestine" position as the graphic in your first post describes, is that in recent polls, 75% of Palestinians agreed with the Oct7th attacks and 75% supported the destruction of Israel and the claiming of the land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. So standing with Palestine does NOT mean supporting the ends that you mention in your point 1 above.
link to polling data: https://www.awrad.org/files/server/polls/polls2023/Public%20Opinion%20Poll%20-%20Gaza%20War%202023%20-%20Tables%20of%20Results.pdf
Thank you for sharing this data
this only supports my thinking. That poll was taken from 10/31-11/7, more than three weeks into the bombing campaign. If the goal was to eliminate Hamas and its support from the Palestinian public, this clearly shows this is the wrong approach (never mind the death of tens of thousands of innocents). I'm guessing that support for Hamas has only gone UP since then, and will probably do so for as long as the bombs keep dropping. I doubt there's any way to reverse this trend, but continuing it is only going to create more people who think terror is the only possible way to prevent the complete destruction of their culture.
I agree that the current approach has only led to further support of Hamas, but I find it hard to come up with any strategy that will achieve the ends that you (and I) desire. A ceasefire without return of the hostages and punishment of those guilty for the 10/7 attacks only plays into Hamas' hands.
Thank you for clarifying your views. In this I am going to cancel my subscription and request my money back. As I said before, I signed up because I care about bread baking but I didn't sign up to hear your political views whatever they are.
THANK YOU, Andrew!!!
Unsubscribed
I agree with Andrew. The issue is not “standing or not standing with anyone” . The cease fire is not to be nice to Hamas. The issue is that there are war crimes (some would say genocide- according to an open letter published by over 50 US based Holocaust and genocide scholars- look it up if you wont take my word for it) happening as we speak. The killing and starvation of civilians needs to stop. Once the humanitarian disaster is stopped, there will be plenty of time for justice to take its course on all sides. If you dont agree with that, then I feel sorry for you. Never Again means never again for anyone.
On another note, for those interested, please go to instagram or your social media of choice and look at the bread baking going on in Gaza.
For anyone interested in a human perspective of the problem…
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/886083832
I hesitated before posting because often the best solution is simply to accept that when as a reader I subscribe to a publication I am engaging with many people whose worldviews don't match mine. That is ok, this the way my worldview is stretched, challenged and sometimes changed. My work life is filled with politics (office politics, American politics, world politics, cultural politics...) and as such at times I seek out and relax in corners of my life that I can, hopefully, use as a place to rest, recover and restore my soul/spirit.
I am of course disappointed to find once again that part my restful temporary retreat is now a place I must choose not to return to. I'm a lurker only so my leaving won't be noticeable.
Thank you for using your platform to bring awareness to the general strike and for standing in solidarity, Andrew!
Perhaps you should hear from the people living in Gaza.
https://www.peacecomms.org/gaza