Early ceasefire would carry risks

There may be a ceasefire soon in Gaza. But Joe Biden’s attempt to cajole Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into “a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire” was a strategic blunder. The remark showed the US President’s limited understanding of what is at stake in the onslaught against Israel by the Hamas terrorists and their Islamic Jihad allies. Both are proxies of the malevolent Iranian regime, which is hellbent on Israel’s annihilation. Mr Biden, who during the first few days of the conflict wisely upheld Israel’s right to defend itself, has caved in to the far left of his Democratic Party, which absurdly but predictably sees Israel as the villain of the piece. Mr Netanyahu made it clear after his fourth call with Mr Biden that Israel was “determined to continue the operation (in Gaza) until its goal is achieved — the return of quiet and safety to you, the citizens of Israel”. The Israeli leader was right to do so.

Achieving an end to the violence and suffering of the Palestinian and Israeli people is vital. But before Israel ends its legitimate retaliation against 4000 Iranian-supplied terrorist rockets that have been launched against it so far, it must ensure enough has been done to degrade the capacity of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to embark on yet another war anytime soon.

History is replete with conflict between Hamas and Israel. In 2014, about 2100 Palestinians and 73 Israelis were killed in a ferocious war lasting 50 days that included a Gaza ground invasion. Israel has made it clear that it does not want a repeat, but understandably it wants to inflict sufficient damage on the terrorists’ rocket stockpiles and their leadership to enable a genuine ceasefire to be negotiated.

No rational argument can be made against Israel’s right to defend itself. Any other nation would do the same. Yet in the world of woke derangement syndrome, Israel is accused, as usual, of war crimes and causing a humanitarian catastrophe. As US commentator John Podhoretz wrote: “War criminals don’t drop ‘knock-knock’ dud bombs on buildings to provide warning to the residents and office renters that an attack is coming so they can get out of harm’s way. War criminals don’t telephone the owners of buildings to let them know a strike is coming, so that residents (and even Hamas militants) might be evacuated.”

Much is made of the disparity between what the UN says is at least 227 Palestinians killed, including 64 children, and 12 Israelis killed, including one child. The fact relatively few Israelis have died is owed almost entirely to the success of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system. Without it, many hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Israelis would be dead by now, with destruction to match. In contrast to the terrorists’ indiscriminate targeting of civilians, Israel has been demonstrably scrupulous in seeking to limit casualties, as happened with its pinpoint destruction of the Gaza building housing media and allegedly Hamas intelligence. The terrorists notoriously interlace their weapon arsenals and fighters, many of whom are Iranian-trained, in and around Gaza’s civilian population as well as hospitals and schools.

Mr Biden should recognise that a ceasefire simply for the sake of it will be pointless without the assurance the terrorists have been sufficiently degraded to prevent them from a similar onslaught in a couple of years or earlier. Anything less would embolden Iran’s other terrorist proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, with their estimated 100,000 rockets also poised to wreak devastation.

As he tries to renegotiate Barack Obama’s deeply flawed nuclear deal with Iran, Mr Biden should be building on Donald Trump’s historic Abraham Accords, which established powerful ties between Israel and Sunni Arab states. Israel deserves better than the mindless hand-wringing and moralising by the Democratic Party left.

Mr Biden will make a grave mistake if he plays into the hands of the malevolent ayatollahs in Tehran who are pulling the strings in Gaza.