End the Gaza War Now

After the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 Israelis, I opined that Israel would regret overreacting. Yet, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on pledging not just to weaken Hamas but to eradicate it severely. Such a maximalist goal could only have led to an Israeli military and humanitarian quagmire in Gaza.

In fact, Netanyahu broke the truce in March of this year and has continued the food blockade and military onslaught long past what his own army thought made sense militarily. This quagmire, in which almost 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, 92 percent of homes and 70 percent of Gaza’s buildings have been destroyed, and Israel has deliberately tried to starve the Palestinians into submission by severely restricting food supplies into the strip. That purposeful starvation, which Israel denies but is now readily apparent in televised media reports, is clearly a war crime, likely a crime against humanity, and maybe even tantamount to genocide.

The Israeli Right—whose support Netanyahu needs to stay in power to avoid a possible conviction—doesn’t seem to care about international public opinion or pressure, which has now built to a crescendo. For example, France, formerly supportive of Israel, has even recognized a prospective Palestinian state. The United Kingdom, too, has threatened Palestinian recognition unless Israel improves the humanitarian situation, agrees to a ceasefire, and revives the peace process.

Unfortunately, the United States has been complicit in Israel’s continued war in Gaza—all in support of Netanyahu’s attempt to recoup his image as a guardian of Israeli security and stay out of prison. The Joe Biden and Donald Trump administrations have put no credible pressure on Israel to end the war.

Although Biden warned Israel not to overreact after October 7 and repeatedly beseeched Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, Netanyahu all but thumbed his nose at him. Trump has not done even that. Neither one threatened to cut off the almost $4 billion in annual military aid in order to force a durable ceasefire, adequate provision of aid to Gazans, and a serious post-war governance plan.

What is good for Netanyahu in the short term is not good for Israel in the long term. Netanyahu has besmirched Israel’s standing in the world by turning Gaza into rubble, presiding over the intentional slaughter of civilians, and attacking Syria, which was in no way implicated in the original attack. Hamas’s initial attack on Israeli civilians must be condemned. Still, even more opprobrium should attach to the grossly excessive and cruel Israeli retaliation by intentionally attacking and starving Gazan civilians en masse.

Israel has acted myopically by seeking to attain tactical victories over its regional foes while losing sight of the larger strategic picture. One can and must condemn the Hamas terrorist attack against civilians and its hostage-taking, but also examine the underlying cause. Israel has long denied Palestinian statehood and continues to whittle away its prospects through illegal settlements in the West Bank.

As long as those policies continue, Palestinian groups and their allies will keep fighting with such deadly methods. Thus, the United States must threaten to cut off all military aid to and political support for Israel unless Netanyahu ends the war and revives the now moribund two-state solution for Palestine.