LOS ANGELES.–Meeting in Tel Aviv, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Brown met with Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, concluding that “Iran’s aggression has reached an all-time high,” referring to proxy military attacks in Gaza and now Lebanon. Hezbollah retaliated for Iran in another throwaway rocket attack into Israel, allegedly for the July 31 assassination of Hamas leader-in-exile Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah Commander Fuad Shukr in Lebanon. “To counter this, we must work together to achieve and project groundbreaking capabilities in all arenas,” Gallant told Brown in Tel Aviv, at a meeting including Israeli Defense Forces [IDF] Chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi. U.S. officials have pushed for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza to stop the carnage but also give hostages a chance to come home. News media doesn’t report that of the 105 hostages left in Gaza, many are not Israelis.
Gallant discussed with Brown that Israel faces a multi-front war with Hamas in the South, Hezbollah in the North, and, of course, Iran orchestrating the proxy war against Israel from all sides. Gallant said Israel was at a “strategic junction,” hoping to avoid a wider escalation in the region, the reason cited most often in for foreign press for ending the conflict with Hamas. But Gallant made clear that Israel goals in Gaza were to remove Hamas from power, the main stumbling block to ceasefire negotiations. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar rejected current ceasefire proposals largely because they call for Hamas to release its own leverage, the 105 hostages, in exchange for a temporary ceasefire. Sinwar demands from negotiators in Cairo and Doha that Israel agree to a permanent ceasefire to leave Hamas in power to continue to rule the Gaza Strip.
Hamas was founded in 1987 by blind, wheelchair-bound Sheikh Ahmed Yassin to serve as the military wing of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO]. Arafat rolled the dice in 1967 orchestrating war to destroy Israel in 1967 with six other Arab states. When the dust settled June 10, 1967, the PLO and all Arab armies were defeated. Since then, the PLO worked with Hamas to force Israel into returning to the pre-1967 borders, something that never happened. Sinwar respects Hamas’s charter to destroy the Israeli state, promising future strikes when Gaza once against rises from its ashes. So, when it comes to completing the job in Gaza, Israel can’t leave with any deal that doesn’t remove Hamas from power. Sinwar understands that if he leaves Gaza, he has nowhere to go but exile or his own grave. He has no intent to signing any deal no matter how many Palestinians lose their lives.
Gallant discussed with Brown the current events in Gaza and “changing the security situation along Israel’s northern border so that the region’s communities may safely return to their homes.” Brown is well aware that all the casualty figures given by the Hamas Ministry of Health are designed to put maximum pressure on Israel to end the Gaza War. Hamas has embellished and exaggerated civilian casualties, suggesting that most killed have been women and children. Hamas doesn’t give any breakdown of the casualty figures designed to illicit maximum outrage from the international community. Whatever happens in Gaza, Israel faces a bigger challenge with Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Iran planned to attack Israel in retaliation for Haniyeh and Shukr’s assassinations. Brown and Gallant want to make sure the wars in Gaza and Hezbollah don’t spread to a wider war.
Hamas propagandists use war casualties to pressure the international community to stop Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. U.S. officials know that negotiating with terrorists is a losing proposition. If the U.S., U.N. and other Arab states said they would no longer support Hamas staying in Gaza, it would hasten the end of the conflict. U.N. officials have exaggerated the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, blaming Israel for preventing medicine and food from reaching poor Gaza citizens. If supplies don’t reach rank-and-file Palestinians, it’s because Hamas steals the supplies intended for Gaza residents. Israel doesn’t target civilians or deliberately try to prevent life-saving supplies from reaching Gaza civilians. Sinwar has said that as he survives in Gaza’s military tunnels, anyone on the surface are considered martyrs for the Palestinian cause of destroying the Jewish State.
Brown has no civilian leadership at the White House with a disabled commander-in-chief. Biden should have left office once it was determined at the June 27 debate that he was not fit for duty. Brown operates at the Pentagon to lend military support to Israel sending another carrier strike group to the Mediterranean to discourage Iran or Hezbollah from getting to ambitious in their effort to retaliate against Israel. Foreign journalists exaggerate the risk of a regional war, when, in fact, no other Arab state wants to come to Hamas or Hezbollah’s rescue. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows Arabs seek peace with Israel, not to continue Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran’s narrative that they must keep fighting Israel. All Arab donor states, responsible for funding Gaza’s reconstruction, want no part of Hamas, knowing how they’ve plundered the Gaza Strip for the last 17 years.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He/s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
