Opinion: Asheville City Council is right to decline Israel-Hamas cease-fire resolution
Local activists have been admonishing Asheville City Council to support an “immediate and durable cease-fire” in Gaza. I oppose this proposal, first because it’s far outside of City Council’s purview, and because even if the resolution were aimed at Congress and the president, they have little ability to stop Israel from doing what it deems necessary for its own survival.
It’s just a bad idea. Some history may explain why.
The Pacific theater of World War II could have ended sooner than it did if the Allies had accepted Japan’s conditions for its surrender. But Truman insisted on unconditional surrender. In “Unconditional,” historian Marc Gallicchio explores the consequences of this decision. Under it, the Allies brought ruin to the land, stripped the emperor of most of his power, occupied Japan for years, demilitarized it and forced upon it a democratic constitution.
Gallicchio concludes: “Unconditional surrender was not an end in itself. It was the first step in a process that transformed Japan from a military dictatorship into a more democratic and peaceful nation. This transformation was possible only because Truman rejected the recommendations of his conservative advisors to preserve the monarchy, limit the occupation, and leave Japan in control of portions of its empire. In short, the changes happened because of Truman’s resolve that Japan’s surrender be nothing less than unconditional.”
Similarly in Europe, the Allies left fascism wholly discredited as an ideology and dismantled as a war-making machine, lest it be reborn to again terrorize its own people and its neighbors. Consequently, Germany and Italy emerged from the rubble as peaceful, prosperous democracies.
The same principle applies in Gaza. Hamas has proven itself an intolerable neighbor to Israel. It must be crushed. Leaving it capable of regeneration would ensure it would resume carrying out more attacks on Israel — as it has sworn to do. This is unacceptable to Israel, as it would be to any nation. Hamas’ power to terrorize its own people and neighbors must be extinguished. As others have said, you don’t put out 80% of a fire.
Sometimes the actions of evil people leave us with no good choices. Uprooting Hamas from its embedded positions within the Gazan populace is a terrible option, with horrific humanitarian consequences. But not eradicating Hamas is an even worse option — not only for Israel, but for Gaza.
Gazans can never be prosperous while their government devotes its resources to attacking Israel, rather than building an economy.
Gazans can never be free while they are ruled by fanatical devotees of a death cult.
Gazans can never be safe while Hamas says, “Jihad is its path, and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”
Gazans can never have peace while their leadership is committed to “obliterate” Israel, “struggle against the Jews” (who, it says, are “smitten with vileness wheresoever they are found”), and reject negotiation because “there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad.”
Gazans can never have a state side-by-side with Israel while governed by Hamas, which “strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine,” demands that “the law governing the land of Palestine [is] Islamic Sharia,” and insists that none of the territory can be “given up,” because it “is an Islamic Waqf [endowment] consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day.”
Leaving Hamas in control of Gazans condemns them to unending immiseration. This should be even more unacceptable to the civilized world than are the terrible consequences of the excruciating task of extracting Hamas from its hiding places among and beneath the civilians. Calls for an “immediate and durable cease-fire” amount to calls for this malevolent, theocratic, bloodthirsty, openly genocidal regime to remain in power. To be pro-Palestinian, you must be anti-Hamas.
The local resolution might make its proponents feel good about themselves, but it would accomplish nothing. And even if they could somehow get the cease-fire they seek, Israel, Gaza and the rest of the Middle East would be ultimately worse off. City Council is right to decline to enact the resolution.
War is all hell. The Asheville City Council has no power to change that sad fact.
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Robert Woolley, a physician who does consulting work on medicolegal cases, has lived in Asheville for 11 years.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: Gazans will never be free or safe with Hamas in power
