Hamas Delenda Est

People who study the classics know the phrase. Carthago delenda est. In English, it is-- Carthage must be destroyed. The longer version, for those Latinists out there, is-- Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam, which means, Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.

Pronounced repeated by a Roman political figure, called Cato the Censor, it was a call to destroy the North African city state, located in what is now contemporary Tunisia. At the moment Cato pronounced these words, the Roman senate demurred. But, once it found a casus belli, it mobilized and destroyed its competitor for naval dominance in the Mediterranean.

Today, a slightly less eloquent orator, and a slightly less politically significant figure, one Roger Simon, has declared that Hamas must be destroyed. Writing in the Epoch Times, Simon has called for the destruction of Hamas. The time has come to put an end to the charade, to stifle one of the most significant modern manifestations of anti-Semitism, and, dare we say, anti-Americanism.

But, what is the Palestinian cause really about? Surely, it is not about whether or not Israel fulfills or does not fulfill an ideal that the Palestinians have no use for. Surely, it is not about land rights, considering that the Israelites settled the territory in the time of Moses.

And besides, today’s Israel has nothing in common with the territory that the Palestinians were occupying before the establishment of the Jewish state. That state no longer exists. The right of return, so often touted by the pro Palestinian left, is a call to destroy Israel. In truth, from the psycho perspective we often use on this blog, it’s about shame and resentment.

Consider it all an approximation of a laboratory experiment. You take a singular piece of territory and you grant one group of people the right to conduct their lives and to build a nation on it. And then you give another group of people the same right to conduct their lives and to build a nation on the same piece of land. 

We will ignore for now the simple fact that the second group has never been allowed to conduct themselves peacefully, having been the object of military aggression since they founded their state. 

Nevertheless, if it should happen that the second group builds a prosperous and thriving state while the first group had produced nothing of the sort, we would reasonably conclude that the second group’s capitalist and democratic policies had won out in this chapter of the clash of civilizations. 

As I have been wont to repeat on several occasions, in the Middle East, Israel is the solution, not the problem. After all, wasn’t this the theoretical groundwork for the Abraham accords and for the increasing cooperation between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Naturally, the Biden administration, representing a return to the Obama era, what with its hatred of Israel, its hatred of those who have been more successful, and with its kowtowing to Iran and its support of the Palestinian cause.

Clearly, as everyone knows, Biden lit the match that produced the most recent conflagration.

Naturally, given today's leftist thought, the group that lost out in the new chapter in the clash of civilization feels bitterly resentful. How many of today's socialists are sounding like national socialists.

The Palestinians have been effectively shamed, and, dare we say, they do not know how to deal with shame constructively. After all, a culture that murders children in order to restore a specious sense of family honor is not exactly civilized. A culture that routinely hangs people for being gay is practicing barbarism. Does anyone care that the international left is supporting such misogynist and homophobic practices? Of course not.

Naturally, the international left is rising up against Israel and in favor of the butchers of Gaza-- because they know that Judaism was the religion of the patriarchs and that monotheistic cultures are the way out of the morass of multiculturalism. Didn’t Moses lead his people out of multicultural Egypt toward the promised land where there was one set of rule that applied to everyone? Multiculturalists hate Israel for the same reason they hate Judaism-- it is a living rebuke to their lust for pagan idolatry. For those who have not read it, I recommend Tara Isabella Burton’s book, Strange Rites, for a thoughtful and well written exposition of pagan idolatry in today’s America. 

These things begin considered, Roger Simon says, it is time to say, enough is enough. It is time to defeat Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, decisively and irrevocably.

It is time to put paid once and for all to the evil terror organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad that have been attacking the heartland of Israel virtually ever since Israel freely gave Gaza to the Palestinians, first to the Palestinian Authority and then to Hamas after they murdered the PA officials in a mini-civil war and took over the territory as a fanatical dictatorship.

Every few years Hamas (and their now-billionaire leadership) seizes on something, some issue on the Temple Mount, a neighborhood where, in their view, too many Jews are moving in, and start a missile barrage, aiming to hit as many innocent civilians as possible and ignite the “Arab street.”

The current barrage, thanks largely to Iran, is the biggest ever, with modern weapons that can reach the entire Jewish state with significant payloads.

Let us not forget, the money used to buy those missiles and to support the terrorist regime in Gaza came through Iran from the Obama administration. You recall the planeload of cash that Obama sent to Iran. Now you see the Obama policy at work. You see what it bought. Naturally, the Biden administration is now sending more money to Gaza, to feed the beast.

It is fairly obvious that Hamas would not have been sending missiles into Israel if Trump were in office. Trump would have happily let Israel destroy Hamas, while they expect that Biden will save their skin at the last minute. If they had not put their faith in Biden they would not have attacked.

Simon continues:

It’s too bad that life in the region had been improving so dramatically for all—Arabs and Jews—while the dreaded orange-haired man was in office, and almost the moment Joe Biden replaced him, things went immediately South, like everything else. (Was Hamas waiting for this? Probably.)

But recent as that was, that was then and this is now. We can’t be nostalgic, tempting as it is. With those lethal Iranian missiles—why is Biden negotiating with the mullahs now of all times, by the way… don’t get me started on that—in the hands of Hamas, the facts on the ground are overwhelming and must be dealt with.

Simon had favored a negotiated solution to the problem. Now he has learned that it is time for nothing less than victory:

I didn’t always feel this way. I supported negotiation and a two-state solution, even when it became apparent, unless your head was buried so deep in the ground it was coming out the other side, that the Palestinians had no interest in one. I also wanted the Israeli army to show “restraint,” at least to the degree possible.

I was proud the IAF was the only air force to “knock on the roof” of their target, phoning the occupants to give them a half hour to vacate the premises and save themselves, before the building was destroyed.

No longer. I don’t care how polite the Israeli armed forces are now. I only care that they win.

He concludes:

Israel, and those of us who support her—even some liberal Jews, if they can be shaken from their morally narcissistic lethargy—can ignore public opinion for once, it’s not going to get better anyway, forget this “light unto the nations” business that no one could live up to in the first place, and go full bore on the terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

No mercy, this time. Full Dresden—or enough Dresden for them to know for once you’re very serious, desperately wave the white flag and disarm the way Germany and Japan did.

If you don’t win a war, I mean really win it, as both the United States and Israel have seen to their detriments, you are going to fight it again and again and again.