Kill one “terrorist” and you’ve created ten more. From Branko Marcetic at responsiblestatecraft.org:
Leadership in Tel Aviv claims that taking out Hamas will end its security problems. The evidence suggests the opposite
“The lesson is not that you can win in urban warfare by protecting civilians. The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently made headlines by warning.
“You see, in this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population,” he said. “And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.”
Austin’s remarks, made at the Reagan National Defense Forum in December, should be sobering for the sizable cohort of Israeli and Western officials and commentators who insist that a “military solution” to Hamas is the only way for Israel to ensure its long-term security. While the horrendous civilian death toll of Israel’s military campaign is regrettable, this line of thinking goes, the threat from Hamas means Israel has no choice but to prosecute the war until the group is eliminated, as long as it takes, and no matter the cost.
If it’s allowed to survive, it will simply choose another moment in the future to attack, and Israeli citizens will never know peace.
Yet Austin is only one prominent voice in recent months that has pointed out the faultiness of this logic, and reminded the world that when a state battling terrorism leaves a trail of human carnage in its wake, the resulting rage, bitterness and despair fuel the very problem it’s fighting, and many times over.
