Why Israel's approach to Gaza could backfire
war against the barbaric Hamas, while trying to reach out to moderate Palestinians. Biden, I know, tried really hard to get Israeli leaders to pause in their rage and think three steps ahead — not only about how to get into the Gaza Strip to take down Hamas but also about how to get out — and how to do it with the fewest civilian casualties possible.
While the president expressed deep understanding of Israel's moral and strategic dilemma, he pleaded with Israeli military and political leaders to learn from America's rush to war after 9/11, which took our troops deep into the dead ends and dark alleys of unfamiliar cities and towns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, from everything I have gleaned from senior U.S. officials, Biden failed to get Israel to hold back and think through all the implications of an invasion of Gaza for Israel and the United States. So let me put this in as stark and clear language as I can, because the hour is late:
I believe that if Israel rushes headlong into Gaza now to destroy Hamas — and does so without expressing a clear commitment to seek a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority and end Jewish settlements deep in the West Bank — it will be making a grave mistake that will be devastating for Israeli interests and American interests.
It could trigger a global conflagration and explode the entire pro-American alliance structure that the United States has built in the region since Henry Kissinger engineered the end of the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
Israel's endgame? No sign of post-war plan for Gaza
I am talking about the Camp David peace treaty, the Oslo peace accords, the Abraham Accords, and the possible normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi
