Israel Held Hostage
By Tom Haughey
Advance News Journal
Recently, four hostages were rescued in Gaza. They were being held in a Palestinian home by both Hamas and Palestinian captors. During the course of the rescue,100 or more supposed non-combatants were neutralized (killed). A goodly portion of that contingent consisted of combatant non-combatants. For propaganda reasons, Hamas makes no distinction when listing casualties.
Meanwhile, also for public relations reasons, the Biden Administration speaks out against the invasion of remaining portions of Gaza and urges a permanent cease-fire. Hamas generally goes along with the American scheme except that the terrorists constantly attempt to change the terms.
At the same time, the American government and relatives of hostages are pressuring the Netanyahu administration to accept the cease fire. Hard-liners within Israel, however, are holding out for the final invasion and the total destruction of Hamas. They realize that if Hamas remains in control or even underground in Gaza, there will eventually be yet another holocaust such as what happened last fall.
The United Nations, whose agents support Hamas on the sly, accuses Israel of war crimes due to the number of non-Hamas individuals killed during the fight with Israel. Much of the rest of the world agrees, although Israel takes unprecedented steps to protect Palestinians. Somehow the world has forgotten the number of civilians killed during air raids on Germany during the Second World War. The allies are never criticized for blanket bombing and using incendiaries since both sides were using the same tactics.
We would all like to see the 120-odd hostages freed and turned over to Israel. Israel, however, must consider them as casualties of war and fight on. The taking of hostages must never be allowed to become a successful tactic used to win a war. If it ever became such, then both sides would continually be capturing hostages as a means of buying victory.
Israel would do well to write off the hostages while still seeking to free them through military means. The country would also be well advised not to enter into unequal swaps of criminal Palestinians for innocent captives. Terrorists freed are a danger to the body politic of Israel as well as to other Israelites who are likely to be murdered by said terrorists in the future.
Israel has no real choice but to continue fighting Hamas, even if the United States were to threaten withholding additional future munitions. Israel has the capacity to produce a good portion of its own military hardware, and it should never allow itself to be bullied by Joe Biden.
Ed. note: Anyone who supports Gaza in this war is welcome to submit a guest column to counter Mr. Haughey’s assertions.
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Haughey is Senior Advisor of the Texas Republican County Chairman’s Association.