The Only Way Out Is Through
The Israeli invasion of Gaza, once started, has to be finished
The Israeli invasion of Gaza appears to be underway. As I anticipated, it’s developing gradually, in the manner of a rising wave. Rather than launching an all-out blitz, the IDF has armored task forces probing forward, probably to draw fire, thus pinpointing Hamas positions for artillery, missile and airstrikes. The advance is likely to proceed methodically for some days to come, crumbling the Hamas defense rather than breaking through it.
How long it will take for the IDF to neutralize Hamas militarily is anybody’s guess. No doubt the IDF command seeks as far as possible to minimize both Israeli and civilian Palestinian casualties—not that such caution will serve them well in the eyes of the so-called international community. All but openly, that community is siding with Hamas against the Jewish state.
According to “Palestinian authorities”—that is, Hamas—nearly 8,000 civilians have been killed in Gaza so far, 3,000 of them children. As usual, these figures are being credulously accepted by most of the media. But it can be taken for granted that they have no basis in reality, not least because Hamas neither knows nor cares how many civilians get killed. All that interests Hamas is the propaganda value of such claims, backed by images of devastation carefully selected to support its false and lying narrative.
On the Drudge Report this morning, the IDF attacks were described as “Israel’s Night of Rage,” a phrase appropriated from the (UK) Daily Mail. Here’s how that paper is reporting the story:
Trail of destruction left by Israel's night of rage: Hundreds of buildings in Gaza are turned to rubble by airstrike blitz with IDF troops still inside enclave in 'rolling start' to invasion as more tanks line up on border
The story goes on breathlessly to report that Human Rights Watch—conspicuously silent on October 7—fears that an information blackout imposed by Israel “risks providing cover for mass atrocities and contributing to impunity for human rights violations.” Well, of course. What other reason could there possibly be?
Various “humanitarian aid groups” with a presence in Gaza are demanding that the IDF must protect their personnel while doing nothing to impede their operations—in other words, Israel should stop the invasion.
Then of course there was that wretch, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who posted on X (formerly Twitter): “I repeat my call for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Middle East, the unconditional release of all hostages, and the delivery of life-saving supplies at the scale needed.”
Left unreported is the fact that “humanitarian aid” to Gaza primarily benefits Hamas, enabling that terrorist organization, supposedly the government of Gaza, to ignore the responsibilities of administration and concentrate on its campaign to destroy the Jewish state. Up to now, even Israel participated in the humanitarian aid charade, on the assumption that the threat from Gaza could be contained. The invasion now underway signifies a change of heart on that score.
Among anti-Zionist, i.e. antisemitic, groups in the United States and Europe, the fact that the IDF invasion of Gaza is now underway has probably not sunk in yet. But when it does, there will surely be an outburst of nihilistic rage, with a strong possibility of violence against Jews on campus and elsewhere. In the past, as I have written, “Prior to the foundation of the State of Israel, it may fairly be said that North America was, for Jews, the world’s safest haven. And with the passage of time American Jews have prospered mightily, in the process playing an important part in our national epic.” Sadly, I cannot say that today, at a time when Jews in America have good reason to be fearful.
But as Robert Frost put it, the only way out is through: What’s been started can’t be stopped. The war now underway must be fought to the finish, and it must end with the destruction of Hamas, whose tyrannical reign in Gaza, years of terrorism, and bloody pogrom in Israel have brought the Middle East to this point. And let it not be forgotten that behind Hamas looms the Islamic Republic of Iran, without whose support the October 7 massacre would never have happened.
The other day, I published an article about Bruce Catton’s Army of the Potomac Trilogy, his homage to the soldiers who won the most terrible of America’s wars. I wrote: “These men became, as Catton reminds us, the real saviors of the Union, the real liberators of the slaves. And the price they paid for those things was dreadfully high.” Something like that may be said today of the men and women of the Israeli Defense Forces. It all depends on them now. And the price demanded is likely to be high.
War is hell