NEWT GINGRICH: The Only Strategy For Peace In Gaza
Israel’s military effort to destroy Hamas is doomed to fail. There are simply too many Gazans willing to join Hamas. If the Israeli army wiped out all of them, there would be worldwide condemnation. There are an…
Israel’s military effort to destroy Hamas is doomed to fail.
There are simply too many Gazans willing to join Hamas. If the Israeli army wiped out all of them, there would be worldwide condemnation.
There are an estimated 2.1 million people living in the Gaza Strip. Before October 2023, Hamas had an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 fighters in its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
Hamas estimates between 6,000 and 7,000 members of its military wing have been killed in two years of war. Israeli and other estimates range from 8,500 militants killed (the Armed Conflict and Event Data Project) to 20,000 killed with 15,000 remaining, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The challenge for Israel and those of us who want a path to peace is to try to understand how many of the remaining 2,100,000 citizens of Gaza will be willing to help rebuild Hamas or a parallel Anti-Israeli organization.
In March 2024, theFoundation for the Defense of Democraciesreported on a poll in which only 7 percent of Gazans blamed Hamas for the suffering they were experiencing. Some 71 percent of all Palestinians supported Hamas’s decision to attack Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Some 70 percent were comfortable with the role Hamas has played in the war.
As a sign of popular militancy, in a hypothetical Palestinian election, 56 percent of voters in Gaza and the West Bank would support Marwan Barghouti, who is currently imprisoned for his role in the murder of Jews during the Second Intifada. Thirty-two percent would support Qatar-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (he was subsequently killed by the Israelis in a visit to Iran), and only 11 percent would support Abbas who the West tries to pretend is the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people.
The depth of radicalism among Gaza residents runs throughout the FDD report on Gaza. Only 5 percent of Palestinians said they considered Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack a war crime. This could be because 80 percent of Palestinians said they had never seen videos of Hamas’s brutal actions and 60 percent said the media they watched didn’t show them.