The Rafah Crossing

Leave it to the French. Plato gave us philosopher kings. Slovenia gave us philosopher clown Slavoj Zizek. But the French have given us a celebrity philosopher, by the name of Bernard-Henri Levy, normally known by his acronym, BHL.

So, if one does not take BHL very seriously as a thinker, his self-promotion and inherited wealth suggests that we are right to do so.

Now, as though to make us look less than astute, BHL has written an interesting op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.

At a time when one side of the pathetic Biden administration is trying to save Hamas from a pending Israeli onslaught while another side is helping the Israelis to cause a minimum of civilian damage in Rafah, BHL explains the stakes. He does so as clearly as very many American writers, writers who are not even celebrity philosophers.

Anyway, given the drumbeat of anti-Israeli sentiment, led by New York Times columnist Tommy Friedman and New York’s Senator Chuck Schumer, it is not surprising to think that the administration is trying to bigfoot Israel into laying off the remnants of Hamas. Nor is it surprising that more and more Americans are allowing themselves to be influenced by administration propaganda-- and are turning against Israel. 

BHL explains:

It isn’t hard to picture an Israel that is sermonized, impeded and prevented from dealing with Hamas the way the U.S. dealt with Al-Qaeda and ISIS a few years back—an Israel forced into defeat.

What would happen if Israel relents under the Biden administration pressure campaign? 

If that came to pass, what would happen? Hamas would declare victory—on the verge of defeat, then the next minute revived. These criminals against humanity would emerge from their tunnels triumphant after playing with the lives not only of the 250 Israelis captured on Oct. 7, but also of their own citizens, whom they transformed into human shields.

This is so sane and sensible that it crosses the mind of a French celebrity philosopher. Why has it not made its way into the little gray cells of our foreign policy leaders?

The Arab street would view Hamas terrorists as resistance fighters. In Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—nations that signed the Abraham Accords or were leaning toward doing so—Hamas’s prestige would be enhanced. 

In the West Bank as in Gaza, Hamas would quickly eclipse the corrupt and ineffective Palestinian Authority, whose image would pale next to the twin aura of martyrdom and endurance in which Hamas would cloak itself.

After that, no diplomatic or military strategy would prevail against the iron law of people converted into mobs and mobs into packs. None of the experts’ extravagant plans for an international stabilization force, an interim Arab authority, or a technocratic government presiding over the reconstruction of Gaza would stand long against the blast effect created by the last-minute return of this group of criminals adorned with the most heroic of virtues.

Hamas would declare itself victorious. Overpowered and outgunned, it had survived. That would have been portrayed as a sign that its cause was just. Try dislodging it then.

And the dimwits who are lost in a reverie about the two-state solution would be exposed as the cowards they are:

Hamas would be the law in the Palestinian territories. It would set the ideological and political agenda, regardless of the formal structure of the new government. And Israel will never deal with a Palestinian Authority of which Hamas is a part. Goodbye, Palestinian State. Hope for peace harbored by moderates on both sides will be dead.

What is the BHL proposal? It is not all that different from proposals noted here:

Instead of putting all their energy into trying to get Israel to bend, leaders should push Hamas to surrender. The Biden administration should redirect the time it is spending in useless negotiations with the Qataris—experts in double-dealing—to calling the Qataris’ bluff by demanding that they push the “political” leaders of Hamas, whom they host and protect, to live up to their responsibilities.

It is not the least of the puzzles in this situation that the world, led by the American State Department is pressuring Israel, but not pressuring Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. And why is no one suggesting that the Palestinians stranded in Rafah might move to Egypt?

By now the world should have risen up against Hamas. BHL explains:

First, the release of all hostages. Next, the evacuation of civilians from the zone of imminent combat. When will the world recognize that Israel, having been forced into this war, is doing more than any army ever did to prevent civilian deaths?

In the end Israel should enter Rafah and put an end to Hamas.

And finally, in Rafah, the destruction of what remains of Hamas and its death squads. Without this military victory, the endless wheel of misfortune will begin to spin yet again, though faster. This is the terrible truth.

While we are bemoaning the flagrant incompetence of the Biden administration we should notice another story, from the Wall Street Journal, reporting that the Pentagon, on its own, is working with the Israeli military to improve the prospects for avoiding civilian casualties in Rafah. 

In two days of meetings between the Israeli defense chief and senior officials in the White House and Pentagon, discussions on Israel’s planned military operation in southern Gaza focused not on how to stop it, but on how to protect civilians during its rollout.

Obviously, this shows us an administration divided against itself, where one hand does not know what the other is doing. It is incoherent and incompetent, leaderless. Now you understand why Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin did not feel the need to inform his superiors of his hospital stay. 

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