Tag Archives: terrorism

What Will It Take?

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How can the murderous ideology of Hamas be extinguished to let peace reign?

Source: Arab Center, Washington, D.C.

As the Hamas-controlled health authorities count the Palestinian deaths in Gaza, the latest figures total 28,775, an appalling tally that includes an unknown number of terrorists as well as men, women and children who have gotten in the way of Israel’s missiles and bullets. For their part, the Israel Defense Forces say they have killed some 11,000 Hamas members, in addition to 1,000 within Israel on the day this round of death began in the atrocities of October 7th.

Even allowing for wartime exaggeration and laid against the total Gaza population of 2.1 million people, the number of non-combatants killed in the Israel-Hamas War is loathsome. Add in the 1,200 innocent Israelis murdered when Hamas began these horrors – in the largest single terrorist attack since the state was established in 1948 – and the hostages taken by the terrorists, and one gets a sense of the enormous cost of this fight.

Now, as Israel plans to move in a major way on Rafah and some 1.4 million Palestinians try to flee this last bastion of Hamas, the world waits to see how much more bloodshed will occur. While many condemn these plans, the Palestinians cannot turn for help from fellow-Arabs in Egypt, who instead have shunned their embattled brothers and who plan to pen them into a concrete enclosure, should some break through the border. Surely, the behavior of the Egyptians is repugnant.

Of course, all these deaths – along with countless numbers of those wounded – must be blamed on Hamas. Israeli guns are delivering the devastation, but it was Hamas that knowingly and deliberately pulled the trigger with its savagery of early October. The murderous and suicidal group, a spiritual bedfellow of ISIS and other Islamist death cults, seems to take sadomasochistic delight in making victims of its own people and then proclaiming how it’s all Israel’s doing. The hypocrisy of Hamas and it supporters is mind-boggling.

As Israel plans to move forward in what could be a crucial turning point in the war – perhaps one that will lead to Hamas’s extinction as a military force – it’s difficult to remain level-headed and emotionless about it all. Innocents have been killed and more will be, even as Israel permits civilians to move out of harm’s way. How can one not feel for them? How can one not sympathize with widespread calls for a cease-fire, even if that were nothing more than dangerous naivete?

Sadly, as The Wall Street Journal pointed out, the fight must go on. “There’s no defeating Hamas and freeing the hostages without turning to Rafah,” the paper’s editorialists write. “Hamas hasn’t been toppled if it still governs territory. Hamas hasn’t been destroyed if its four Rafah battalions remain intact. Hamas can’t be destroyed while it has access to the Egyptian border and control of the flow of aid at Rafah.” Israel must deliver final crushing blows if it is to render Hamas powerless, especially in the eyes of the Palestinians, who need to be liberated from it both as a source of vile ideas and as a governing force.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, source: National Post

I’m reminded of the words of Mosab Hassan Yousef, a son of a founder of Hamas, Hassan Yousef. After engaging in Hamas activities that landed him in an Israeli prison, the younger Yousef repudiated the movement and began to work with the Israelis. He was granted asylum in the United States in 2008, but recently sat down in Tel Aviv for a conversation with a journalist for The Free Press. His take on Hamas is revealing. The group, he says, has created a generation of “people willing to destroy themselves. . . to cause the most destruction possible.” 

His language is unsparing about the atrocities of early October. “I was surprised not by Hamas’s brutality, but by the scale of the event,” Yousef says. “There is no human language that can describe the evil that took place on October 7. And that’s not just a war crime. It’s not just killing. It’s a genocide.” 

What makes such evil possible, asks The Free Press? The answer lies in the hate-filled beliefs that Yousef’s father helped spread. “Jihadists think that they are the sword of God on Earth,” Yousef says. “That they are actually manifesting the punishment against the Jewish people for being disobedient.”

This perverse ideology is one I saw in would-be recruits to ISIS in Minneapolis. These young Somali Muslim men, whose tales I recount in the book “Divided Loyalties,” yearned for martyrdom in Syria. They saw themselves as noble warriors defending innocent Muslims against various enemies, including the United States, and in their misguided religious zeal and post-adolescent immaturity they saw themselves as earning Paradise for themselves and their families. Like Hamas, they seemed to value death more than life.

In the case of some of the Somalis, it took the deaths of some of their friends and relatives in Syria – deaths that made their post-adolescent fantasies all too real — as well as stiff prison terms of up to 35 years, to change their minds.

The troubling question is, what will it take to destroy the bankrupt ideas that animated Hamas? How can the intellectual toxin of Jew-hatred be eradicated among the Palestinians? How can it be replaced with a longing for peaceful coexistence between two peoples, each with legitimate claims to the land? How can it be succeeded by desires for the sort of tolerance and harmony that some 1.6 million Arabs living within Israel’s borders now have with Jews there?

Post-war Berlin, source: BBC

Some have argued that one should look to the model of World War II with the ways Nazis and the supporters of Japan’s aggression were dealt then. There, it took such monstrous efforts as the firebombing of Dresden and the leveling of Berlin and much of the rest of the country, as well as the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to convince aggressors that they had been vanquished. Further, it took the Marshall Plan and long occupations of both Germany and Japan to pacify the people, to bring them into places where they would become the valued citizens of the world they are today. De-Nazification and its equivalent in Japan brought Germans and Japanese into civilization again.

It’s monstrous to think that something akin to that sort of destruction would be needed now in Gaza and in other Arab areas near to Israel. As many as 8.8 million Germans and 3.1 million Japanese died in WWII, and no one could stomach such numbers again, even figures proportionate to the smaller Palestinian population. It’s estimated that some 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, with the couple million in Gaza. What will it take to change the minds of those among them who support Hamas and kindred groups? Will 30,000 deaths make a crucial difference? Will that turn Palestinians away from the group that has brought them such devastation, so much suffering?

Even with many thousands of Hamas fighters dead, the U.S. estimates that up to 80% of their ranks remain. Will the capture of Rafah shrink that number dramatically? Will the survivors come to the senses and will they turn on their leaders? Will the battle of Rafah convince those remaining to lay down their arms, as German and Japanese soldiers did after their defeat? Certainly, we cannot expect the self-destructive leaders of Hamas to quit and Israel will likely not settle for anything less than their deaths.

In time, though, installation in Gaza of a government that includes peace-minded Palestinians and other Arabs – along with the rebuilding to come with something like a modern Marshall Plan – will likely be more effective than more bloodshed. As New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman suggests, the participation of Saudi Arabia and the U.S. likely will be essential in this post-war effort. It will also take a change in the leadership in Israel, something that the failure of intelligence in the country on October 7th makes likely anyway.

It’s tough in the middle of a war to see a way out of it. When so many are dying and being maimed, it’s difficult to see through the ugliness. And yet, with the destruction of Hamas and the eradication of its un-Islamic and morally bankrupt ideology, progress will come. Much remains for Israeli and Palestinians alike to do first.

The Media and the Mideast

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Journalists report on the horrors perpetrated by Hamas

Music festival attack aftermath, source: Wall Street Journal

It is so terribly difficult to write about the atrocities in Israel. For anyone who embraces idea of the Jewish homeland and her people, the horrors perpetrated by Hamas are beyond awful.

One hears echoes of the Gestapo in the maniacal, indiscriminate killings of hundreds at a music festival, in the raids on people’s houses all across the south, in the stealing of people from their children, in the stealing of children. In the rocket attacks, one hears the whistle of V-2s in London.

But even for non-Jews or those with no connection to Israel, the sheer monstrousness and inhumanity defies explanation. How could these terrorists be so heartless, so savage? Reared on hatred and propaganda, they acted like animals. And, as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said of the severe and growing Israeli response, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” 

Hamas officials not only bear the stain of killing hundreds in Israel but will now have blood on their hands for the noncombatant Palestinians killed or to be killed in response. As the organization’s leaders cower in bunkers and safe hiding places, they are in effect victimizing their own people.

Journalistically, covering all this has been a huge challenge. The counts of dead and wounded climbed almost by the hour in the first few days and surely will never be precise. It seems inevitable that the figures will rise over coming days, perhaps weeks. And conveying the ugliness without tipping into gory displays – the violence porn that is Hamas’s wont – is a difficult task.

Hamas flooded social media with gruesome images of killings and kidnappings, of dragging bodies of Jewish noncombatants through their streets. No doubt, in coming days it will fill the media with videos of hostages as the terrorists use them as bargaining chips or tools to demoralize Israelis. Their sadism seems to know no bounds; their sense of morality is nonexistent.

Meanwhile, Israelis desperate to learn the fates of such hostages are posting images of them in pleas for their safety. How can one not feel for such innocents?

Israelis kidnapped by Hamas, source: Yuval Cohen, Facebook

While most accounts so far reflect the revulsion most journalists seem to feel about the actions of these terrorists, it is likely that in coming days we will see efforts to be “balanced,” to attempt to be evenhanded. Journalists are trained, of course, to see all sides and to reflect all sides in their coverage, and that’s usually a good thing.

But this “bothsidesism” can be blind to the causes of news events and thus be misleading.

For instance, an editor at The Colorado Sun in an email to subscribers wrote: “… it’s hard not to ache for those in Israel and Palestine as we see footage of the increasing violence in the region. In this somber time as we mourn those who were killed, let’s get caught up on the Colorado news and hope for a quick resolution to the tragedy and horror half a world away.”

Aside from the saccharine sentiments and naivete revealed in hoping for a “quick resolution” to a problem over a century in the making, the “ache” for those in Israel and Palestine neatly masks the truth about who the aggressor here has been. And the reference to “increasing violence in the region” is a feeble way of making note of a mass murder by terrorists. The news outlet needs to tell it like it is, perhaps by reporting well on the reactions of Coloradans whose loved ones were killed or kidnapped by Hamas.

Yes, media must report the reactions of Palestinians, even of terrorist supporters. Yes, sympathy is appropriate in such accounts for noncombatant Gazans, many of whom have been and will now be killed thanks to the acts of the terrorists. But the perpetrators of these awful acts must be identified as the aggressors and their cruelty must be noted at each turn, even if only in the questioning of their sympathizers.

Philadelphia demonstration, source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Philadelphia Inquirer rightly gave prominence to the reactions of Jews to the monstrousness, even as it also covered Palestinian sympathizers. But it failed to probe and question the feelings of those sympathizers.

How could a couple hundred such sympathizers demonstrating for Palestine in Rittenhouse Square justify the murders of hundreds of innocents? Simply reporting their chants in favor of a Palestine “from the river to the sea” – a phrase used to deny Israel’s right to exist — and recording assertions by a spokesperson saying the demonstration “was about all oppressed people” was not enough. Why was she not pressed about the immorality of the attacks?

Straight and full reporting of the events will be criticized, although it’s essential. Heather Cox Richardson, a scholar and one of my favorite Substack commentators, did so in an Oct. 7 piece that simply recounted what had happened. She was criticized for that, writing in a more recent piece: “The volume of hate mail about last Saturday’s letter, pretty evenly divided between those accusing me of backing one side and those accusing me of backing the other, is about the highest I’ve ever received, but I was trying simply to present the verified events of Saturday alone, with a focus on how they affected the United States.”

As Israel moves against Gaza, the suffering of Gazans will be appropriately covered. And there will be analyses of the bloody history of both sides, including coverage of times when noncombatant Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers as they sought to root out terrorists. That is reasonable, as one shows all sides.

However, a crucial distinction must be made. The killing of civilians is not Israeli policy. Tragically, they get in the way at times. Tragically, there are mistakes – usually owned up to by Israel.

The difference is that, for Hamas, murdering Israeli civilians is an end in itself. That is what the group is about, as it seeks to drive Jews from the land. There can be no more stark illustration of that than its actions at the music festival and in the terrorizing of people in their homes, something Jews, the media and the world should never forget as this sad story unfolds.

Treason? WikiLeaks and the press

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Should some secrets stay secret? And is it treasonous for news operations to report on leaks of war documents when their countries are at war?

These questions arise, of course, because of the release of 92,000 documents about the Afghanistan war by WikiLeaks, in coordination with London’s Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel. The ugly affair raises still further questions about what constitutes patriotism, how the Net makes high-quality journalism tougher to practice, and what governments will now do to try to bury their secrets even deeper.

First off, did the papers act properly? At first blush, it appears that at least two of the organizations — the Times and Der Spiegel — were maneuvered into this joint release. The instigator, it seems, was The Guardian, which had learned that WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange intended to release the papers unfiltered on his Swedish-based Web site. The editors at the Guardian suggested the joint release, apparently persuading Assange that he would make a bigger splash that way. This, at least, is the account given to PBS.

The papers then faced some tough choices: first, do they release the documents, along with their own independent reporting and analysis, and, second, do they share the information with the White House, giving the government a chance to react? On the first count, it seems that the papers really had no choice. After all, the documents would be out on the site no matter what the papers did, and, most likely, they would appear in print (since none of the three competing papers could trust the others to hold back). In short, WikiLeaks held the cards in this high-stakes poker game and it played the papers against one another.

Then the question was, what should the editors do with the information? The New York Times contacted the White House and got its reaction – its take that there was nothing really new in the documents. The White House also did not ask that the Times hold back on publishing the papers (probably realizing the move would be futile). Instead, it got a chance to put its spin on the news, likely hoping to quash the whole matter by offering the “nothing new” take. Certainly, the troops wouldn’t be surprised (see Ed Stein’s cartoon above).

Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, laid out the issue nicely in a sidenote to the stories. He noted that the paper had a month to report out the story and that it sought to eliminate any references that could endanger the lives of Allied forces or Afghan supporters. He also suggested that the WikiLeaks folks had the mainstream media over a barrel, arguing “To say that it is an independent organization is a monumental understatement. The decision to post this secret military archive on a Web site accessible to the public was WikiLeaks’, not ours. WikiLeaks was going to post the material even if The Times decided to ignore it.”

Since then, of course, split opinion has emerged on just how problematic the release has been. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden told the folks at Politico that “We’re going to get people killed because of this.” And Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat who chairs an intelligence subcommittee, said the documents give the Taliban a hunting list: “There are names of State Department officials, U.S. military officials, Afghans and the cities in which they live in the materials.” By posting them online, she said, “we’ve just served up a target list and an enemies list to the Taliban. … Real people die when sources and methods are revealed.”

For his part, WikiLeaks’ founder Assange said on MSNBC that about 15,000 reports were withheld because they could have revealed the identities of Afghans who have aided U.S. forces and exposed them to “the risk of retributive action” from warlords or the Taliban. For a better sense of who Assange is and what drives him, check out an interview he gave to the folks at TED, the conference organization on the West Coast.

Seems to me there’s no doubt that the leak of the papers in the first place was treasonous. If proved to be the source, Pfc. Bradley Manning will likely spend the rest of his life in jail. The Army intelligence analyst, also suspected of leaking a video a few months ago of a couple Reuters photographers being killed in Baghdad, will be lucky – in other times, he’d be shot. Now, one would guess, the Obama Administration won’t risk making Manning, an impossibly baby-faced twenty-something in his AP photo, into a martyr. Some of Manning’s friends, too, may be implicated, and one wonders whether they had a duty to inform on him before his alleged leaks.

As for WikiLeaks, the legal situation will be tricky but it seems the U.S. can do little against it. Even if Swedish authorities try to muzzle the site, some there, such as Sweden’s Pirate Party, are already offering help. Of course, Assange might never again be able to travel to the U.S. or perhaps to his Australian homeland, since he could be picked up for various violations. Australia is part of the coalition fighting in Afghanistan. Indeed, one has to wonder just where he can go in the West without being pursued.

Some folks are saluting the leaks, praising the media outlets for publicizing the documents, and ignoring or rebutting questions of treason. “I’m more concerned about the troop threat caused by our nation’s involvement in a war that lacks the backing of the Afghan people or fiscal accountability for the $330 billion we have pumped into the longest war in U.S. history,” argues a colleague at Nebraska, Assoc. Prof. Bernard McCoy. “What do we have to show for this? With corrupt Afghan political leaders and insurgents who, according to our own intelligence reports, are as strong as ever, our troops remain at great risk.”

And comparisons to the Pentagon Papers abound. That secret history of the Vietnam war, detailing a wealth of information not revealed to the public and quite embarrassing to the politicians of the day, was published first by the New York Times and then the Washington Post, both in mid-1971. The papers were an official Defense Department study of U.S. activities in Vietnam from 1945-67. A former colleague at BUSINESS WEEK, Mark Ivey, says of the current leak, “Viet Nam, relived.”

But the new documents, including raw intelligence memos, were nowhere as well-researched or vetted as the Pentagon Papers were. The Afghan War documents may be rife with errors and could prove useful in the end only to vengeful Taliban. Joshua Foust, a contributor to Current Intelligence, argues, “If I were a Taliban operative with access to a computer — and lots of them have access to computers — I’d start searching the WikiLeaks data for incident reports near my area of operation to see if I recognized anyone. And then I’d kill whomever I could identify. Those deaths would be directly attributable to WikiLeaks.”

For my part, it seems clear that the leaks could not be stopped once insiders in the military or elsewhere in the intelligence establishment made up their minds to release the papers. If it hadn’t been for WikiLeaks, someone else in the anything-goes Net universe would likely have found a way to help them surface. At that point, the news organizations acted well in doing what savvy reporters do – they put the documents into context and fleshed them out.

Yes, the newspapers were played by Assange. But they gave the public a far richer and more useful account than he would have by releasing the documents alone. In the case of the New York Times at least, the U.S. government also had a chance to frame the discussion and attempt to minimize the damage.

Will anything change now? It seems some Afghans will be in danger. Pakistan’s intelligence service is likely embarrassed and angry. And the U.S. intelligence agencies will now seek stronger means to keep secrets under lock and key. But, unlike the Pentagon Papers, revelations seem few and there’s little in the papers even to strengthen the case of the antiwar folks.

President Obama’s war in Afghanistan has been messy from the start. Too few forces to begin with. A publicly revealed deadline for drawdown. A military leadership that was anything but politic. Unless his plans for military victory start paying off soon – with real gains against the Taliban and Al Qaeda — the WikiLeaks affair will go down as another troubling turn — probably a small one — in a painful, prolonged and maybe doomed battle against Islamist terrorism. This ethical contretemps pales before that ugly reality.