At Foreign Policy Marc Lynch asks, How badly did Gaza poison the well? (via memeorandum) Needless to say, Lynch opposed Israel’s effort to defend its citizens. But here’s one of his conclusions:
There’s no question that Gaza has weakened the hand of moderates and strengthened more extremist voices across the political spectrum.
No question? This is a mantra, supported by absolutely no evidence. It’s just an outgrowth of the “there’s no military solution to terrorism” faith.
Noah Pollak wrote in his Gaza post-mortem:
The political fallout among the Palestinians remains to be measured, but there is some anecdotal evidence that people in Gaza aren’t feeling terribly proud of the resistance as they wade through the rubble.
He also presents two reports that buttress his view.
Backspin links to a Der Spiegel story where it wasn’t difficult for the the reporter to find Palesitnians who were critical of Hamas in Gaza.
So there is a question as to whether Hamas and other extremists were helped by Israel’s war against Hamas. Remember Hamas that had boasted of its power, was powerless against Israel. Apparently even Hamas is now conceding its impotence.
Martin Peretz recently observed that in the Fatah controlled areas, the Palestinians have been successfully building a civil society. That wasn’t possible before the destruction of Arafat’s suicide factory by Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield.
There won’t be peace in the Middle East as long as terrorist groups are tolerated and accommodated. So Lynch rejects an action that has worked to reduce terror and instead advocates a policy that would strengthen Hamas.
If the Gaza crisis exposes the myths and vain hopes of the peace processors, it could push towards new approaches with a better chance of actually tackling the issues on the ground. That’s going to have to involve dealing with Hamas at some point, as most reasonable people increasingly recognize.
There’s nothing reasonable about his position. Like so much analysis of the Middle East, Lynch falls back on a few platitudes and ignores any evidence to the contrary.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
The basic issue on the ground is whether or not Israel is going to be destroyed. What sort of compromise does Lynch think somebody can come up with from that?
The whole “peace process” crowd simply does not understand the problem. They imagine that the Muslims want what they would want. They see the outer world as a mirror image of themselves. Look at Condi’s comments on what Palestinian Arabs want. It never occurs to them that the Muslims have their own way of looking at things, different from that of Western liberals. Only genocide will satiate the Muslims, for the war grows out of their vanity and their overblown, narcissistic self-love. The prospect of a bunch of wretched and despised people who should be dhimmis ruling their own state, however small, in the midst of the Muslim Umma is anathema to them. Only genocide will put those uppity Jews in their proper place, and assuage the insults to Muslim vanity they have caused.
Only massive killing of the jihadists like the Hamasniks will drain that boil, just as only massive killing of the Nazi faithful in WWII drew the boil of National Socialism. A whole lot of other people will be killed in the process too, and frankly I’d rather they were not Americans and Israelis. I’m a cold-blooded, flinty-hearted bastard, and prefer that those who are our enemies die, not those who are on our side.