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This is a guest essay written by Daria Davis of The Truism.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
Share this essay using this link: https://www.futureofjewish.com/p/how-the-israel-hamas-war-can-end
The war in Gaza, which started in response to the horrific terror attack on Israel on October 7th, has been going on for many months.
What can end this war?
To end a particular situation you have to find out what is causing it and then remove the cause. Sometimes a situation has unpleasant symptoms and people can be tempted to think that curing the symptoms will cure the situation. But doing that will only worsen the situation because the actual cause will not be taken care of.
So, what is the cause of this war?
It’s obvious.
The October 7th attack and the intention behind it. The massacre made it clear that Hamas was intent on trying to destroy Israel with constant terror attacks. And Israel decided to eliminate Hamas in order to defend itself against this existential threat. The cause of this war is Hamas’ diabolical wish to destroy Israel. Israel’s response of defending itself against this is the symptom.
Some people focus on the symptoms of this war (which is characteristic of all wars) and think that is the problem. If we just stop the symptom, which is Israel’s response, the war will stop.
But it won’t.
Because the cause will not have stopped. Hamas’ evil intentions will still be there and they will try to attack again. Anyone with minimal intelligence knows this is guaranteed. Israel will then retaliate and the war will continue. This is why, if people want the war to end, they must eliminate the cause, which is Hamas and its diabolical wish to destroy Israel.
There is this false and ridiculous claim that the attack was because of what Israel has done to the Palestinians. Why is it ridiculous? Because Hamas and the people in Gaza themselves don’t say it. If you ask them why October 7th happened, they will say it was “to save Al-Aqsa” (a mosque in Jerusalem).
According to them, it was a fanatical religious reason. The Palestinian Authority president himself called the massacre “an adventure.” If it was a resistance against horrible things Israel did, surely the last thing he would have called it would be “an adventure.” This is a narrative that only “pro-Palestinians” in the West say as part of their false propaganda that is spread by a calculated PR machine.
Another interesting narrative is that it did not start on October 7th. That’s actually correct. It started in 1947, the day after the United Nations decided to partition the British Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state.
The local Arabs refused to accept a Jewish state and live in peace with their neighbors. They started attacking the Jews in the then-British Mandate for Palestine the day after the decision (before the State of Israel even existed and had a chance to “oppress” them). And they have continued to attack Israel with the intent to destroy it ever since. The October 7th attack is a continuation of this wicked intention.
Pressuring Israel to stop fighting will not help. All the ostracizing, the banning, the criticizing , and the defaming will not be able to pressure Israel into stopping its mission to defend itself. Israel doesn’t care about the opinion or pressure of any organization for the simple reason that a person who is pushing away someone who is holding a knife to his throat doesn’t care what the neighbors are saying.
Israel will not stop fighting in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed or surrenders. This is basic psychology. You cannot pressure someone to stop defending themselves against someone that is trying to destroy them. All the lies in the world will not change reality. And the reality is that Palestinian terrorists, including but not limited to Hamas, want to destroy Israel.
The only way to get Israel to stop fighting in Gaza, meaning to defend itself, is to get Hamas to surrender and release all the hostages.
Why haven’t they surrendered yet?
A lot of Gaza is ruined, one big pile of rubble, and Gazans are suffering. Even though Israel has not yet “won,” the Palestinians have definitely lost. You cannot describe the situation in Gaza as anything other than losing. Any normal leaders would have surrendered long ago to save their people.
Now, obviously, we are dealing with sociopaths who don’t care about people and are also quite delusional. But there is something that is stoking their fire. And that is the international response.
The international response, primarily in the West — be it those ignorant college students or antisemitic “Woke” activists — has strengthened Hamas and its resolve to continue the war. They recite it as an achievement of the war. Never mind that they are stupid to think this is an achievement and that it will help them. It won’t because Israel doesn’t care about international opinion while defending its existence.
And it will definitely not be pressured into stopping its mission because of it. Even though the media war that they may have won has no effect on what matters, which is the battle on the ground in Gaza, they are stupid enough to think it will and that is why it encourages them to continue fighting.
I will even dare say that the Westerners’ support of Hamas and the Palestinians, while being anti-Israel, has prolonged this war. Because it encouraged Hamas. Hamas might have surrendered already had it not thought it had this illusionary achievement from the West.
If “Woke” Westerners care about Palestinians and want to end the war for their sake, and not just to continue berating Israel, they must condemn Hamas and pressure them to surrender and release all the hostages. There is some chance it might help.
But if they continue their support, the likelihood of that will diminish and the war will last much longer.
This is the moment of truth. Do the “Woke” Westerners truly care about the Palestinians, or is it just about condemning Israel? I honestly don’t see that anyone really cares about the Palestinians. Because, if they did, they would have criticized Hamas for everything it has done to them.
We have all seen videos of them stealing food from aid trucks and shooting at people trying to get food from the aid supply. We all know they have used hospitals as their terror bases while removing sick people from wards. It’s undeniable. And yet no one has condemned them for it.
If you care about the Palestinians, why are you not concerned about that? Of course, if the only thing that matters to you is bad-mouthing Israel, then that makes sense.
One thing is for sure: If the West doesn’t start condemning Hamas and pressuring it to surrender and release all the hostages, Gaza will stay in big piles of rubble for a long time, and Westerners will only have themselves to blame for it.
The attacks on jews started long before 1947
You hit the nail on the head. The pro Hamas propaganda from the West is prolonging it. I think it's essential to publicize that in the media so more people recognize it.