Can we ever have peace if Hamas can rearm?

We know them by a few bare facts. We know them by photos, snapshots that reflected their warmth, their enthusiasm for life. We know them by headlines that flew across the world. We know them by the grief that engulfed anyone with simple human feelings, Jews and non-Jews alike.

They were: Carmel Gat, 40, a yoga instructor who helped other hostages cope with nearly 11 months of imprisonment by practicing her craft with them; Alex Lobanov, 32, who left behind two children, one born while he was held captive; Ori Danino, 25, who escaped the Nova music festival, but returned to help save others and was captured.

Also, Almog Sarusi, 27, who attended the festival with his girlfriend whom terrorists murdered there; Eden Yerushalmi, 24, who attended the festival with friends; and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, an American-Israeli citizen who lost part of an arm in the assault, and whose parents spoke at the Democratic National Convention and met with the president and the pope.

These six hostages were among more than 240 taken by Hamas and its allies nearly a year ago, on Oct. 7th. They were kept in tunnels by terrorists committed to killing Jews like them. And those terrorists did just that with these six, shooting them multiple times at close range between only days before their likely rescue by Israeli soldiers.

Then, of course, the murderers slunk off like cowards, no doubt hoping to kill again. Recall that their job, as Hamas fighters, is not to respect life, but to take it, brutally, if possible. Their job — and their hope, if they’ve imbibed all the pabulum that their perverse grasp of Islam tells them — is to be martyrs, though not when it would require actually facing their armed enemies.

They are much better at killing unarmed innocents, much like those who commit suicide bombings.

Hamas’s leaders have taught their legions that Jews must be eliminated from the land, that is their religious duty to purge them. As Hamas declared in its “Covenant” of 1988, “Resisting and quelling the enemy become the individual duty of every Muslim, male or female.” It also declared: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

In 2017, Hamas restated and reaffirmed its principles. Among them: “Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.”

The documents pound home four themes, as explained by Georgetown University Prof. Bruce Hoffman:

— The complete destruction of Israel as an essential condition for the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of a theocratic state based on Islamic law (Sharia),

— The need for both unrestrained and unceasing holy war (jihad) to attain the above objective,

— The deliberate disdain for, and dismissal of, any negotiated resolution or political settlement of Jewish and Muslim claims to the Holy Land, and

— The reinforcement of historical anti-Semitic tropes and calumnies married to sinister conspiracy theories.

For years leading up to Oct. 7th, moreover, the leaders of Hamas have steeped their devotees — and their families for that matter — in hatred. They have idealized “the virtue of death-for-Allah,” as counterterrorism expert Matthew Levitt put it in a talk 17 years ago.

Levitt told of a suicide bomber’s mother who instilled in her son the desire for martyrdom and “brought them [her sons] up to become martyrs, to be martyrs for the name of Allah.” Her “martyred” son Muhammad’s old bedroom was adorned with posters of “martyred” Palestinians. The mother, the late Miriam Farhat, was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council on the Hamas ticket in January 2006. She claimed to be proud that three of her sons were killed in attacks on Israelis.

And yet many say Israel must seek a deal with such leaders. The country must agree to a ceasefire or other hostages — perhaps more than 60 still alive — will be murdered, as the six were. Israelis by the thousands have marched in protest of their government’s refusal — or inability — to make a deal for their release. Nonetheless, nearly three-quarters of Jewish Israelis think a deal is unlikely, according to an August survey by the Israel Democracy Institute.

But can or should Israelis deal with the terrorists? Can they deal with people who refuse even after 76 years to recognize the “Zionist entity,” who insist that “no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts,” who reject “any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”?

Yes, Hamas has traded some of the more than 240 hostages it took for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. About 109 were released as of the end of last November, as The Wall Street Journal reported. But another 70 died that day or since (in addition to the 1,200 killed in Israel), and Israeli officials believe 34 or more are dead. This leaves about 60 who may be alive in captivity.

In theory, Israel could trade more prisoners for the remaining hostages and the bodies of those being kept. But, so far, neither side has accepted terms that have been floated for such a trade — and it’s hard to see how the gulf can be bridged.

As suggested by the United States, the terms include a permanent end to hostilities and removal of Israeli troops from in or near Gaza. Hamas, for its part, has rejected any Israeli presence in the so-called Philadelphi corridor, an 8.7-mile strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel will not leave the corridor free for Hamas. To him, the tunnel-pocked corridor is a transit point for Hamas to rearm.

For his part, Netanyahu has been unmovable on the point that Hamas must be eliminated. In a recent speech, the prime minister repeated that Israel’s war goals are “to destroy Hamas, to bring back all of our hostages, to ensure that Gaza will no longer present a threat to Israel, and to safely return the residents of the northern border.” He also said “three of those war goals go through one place: the Philadelphi Corridor. That is Hamas’s pipeline for oxygen and rearmament.”

Is it unreasonable for Israel to insist that Hamas, an implacable foe that will never accept coexistence, must be destroyed? Can the group ever be trusted to not resume its fight, should a ceasefire be reached? Can a group that wantonly executes six innocents in cold blood — not to mention 1,200 earlier — really be trusted to live up to any commitments?

Hamas’s network of tunnels, some hundreds of miles long, allows terrorists such as the murderers of the six to escape and hide. Israel in mid-August destroyed some 50 such tunnels in a single week, some in the Philadelphi Corridor. Won’t the Hamas fighters just hold out in that network until they can emerge anew and threaten Israel? Will the group ever accept its own demise in a negotiated deal?

In theory, Israel could get back at least some of the hostages by agreeing to those terms and then, after a time, it could return to fight anew with Hamas. That would, of course, spare the lives of however many hostages could be released. But as Hamas trickled out those captives — and, no doubt, it would do so over months, if not years — it would rearm and Israel would be back in Gaza, fighting anew again. Moreover, little could prevent Hamas from trying to capture more hostages.

As New York Times columnist Bret Stephens put it in a piece headlined “A Hostage Deal is a Poison Pill for Israel”: “Whatever one thinks of Netanyahu, the weight of outrage should fall not on him but on Hamas. It released a video of a hostage it later murdered — 24-year-old Eden Yerushalmi, telling her family how much she loved them — on Monday, the day after her funeral. It’s another act of cynical, grotesque and unadulterated sadism by the group that pretends to speak in the name of all Palestinians. It does not deserve a cease-fire so that it can regain its strength. It deserves the same ash heap of history on which, in our better moments, we deposited the Nazis, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.”

Israel faces a classic Hobson’s Choice. There really is only one way to proceed, and that is to render Hamas incapable of ever attacking again.

The larger question, though, is what vanquishing Hamas would look like. Certainly, it would involve the death of the murderous leader, Yahya Sinwar, and his top ranks — with or without trial. But would it also involve thousands of fighters parading out of tunnels with white flags, renouncing the group they dedicated their lives to? Would that really happen, given their passion for martyrdom?

We may lack adequate models here. For Hamas to be defeated, its soldiers must be permanently disarmed or killed, but more that than, its ideals must be shattered. Gazans and Palestinians in general would have to renounce its aims and methods, much as Germans did with Nazism after World War II.

As many as 8.8 million Germans died in that war, including perhaps 3.27 million civilians, in a total population of 80 million. The population was subsequently impoverished, the German economy crushed. Will proportionately similar numbers of Gazans have to die for Hamas’s philosophy to be eradicated?

It seems like a monstrous idea. Some 2.3 million people live in Gaza, and 10% of them equals 230,000 people, men, women and children. Must that ghastly number be reached? As decent human beings, we must hope not.

And would it really change hearts and minds, much as German attitudes changed after the war? Would the economic rebuilding envisioned by the U.S. plan, in conjunction with Gaza’s Arab neighbors, give people hope, much as the Marshall Plan famously did for Germans? Can we root out the pernicious ideals that people like Farhat espoused, and how can we do so?

Tragically for the Palestinian people, thousands have died already in Gaza. They are also victims of Hamas. How long will it take for those who survive to realize that, even if the weapons that wreaked those horrors were Israeli? How many more must die for the survivors to put the blame where it belongs? Will we see the day when Palestinians disgusted by Hamas lead Israeli soldiers to the group’s redoubts, turning them in in hopes of achieving peace?

There are straws in the wind that suggest progress. A Palestinian on the West Bank, for instance, wrote a letter published by The Free Press.

“ For me, all lives are sacred,” he wrote. “I cried for Hersh and the other hostages just as deeply as I do for innocent Palestinians whose lives have been destroyed by this war. That some people react to the deaths of hostages with celebration or satisfaction is simply beyond my comprehension. It’s something I can’t digest or accept. But I also know how it happens: Kids here are taught from an early age to hate Israelis, to view them as enemies, as occupiers who shouldn’t be anywhere in this land. They live their entire lives with this hate and do not know anything else. I was lucky to have experiences in my life with Jews and Israelis that gave me a radically different understanding.

“I can’t speak for my people any more than a single Israeli can speak for all of you, but still I feel compelled to say: I’m sorry. Please accept my sincere apologies. I regret that we have failed you. I regret that my people have failed you. I may be just one voice but it’s important for me to say as a Palestinian, I mourn with you and stand by your side.” 

Soon, the Jewish holidays will be upon us. People will pray for peace. For my part, I will pray for the destruction of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their ilk, as well as for peace. Can one have the latter without the former? The morally repulsive killings of the six hostages — and so many others — argues for nothing less.