Cave in to Hamas?

Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl’s [picture] analysis of what’s going on in Gaza provides real insight on how liberals look at the world. Diehl writes:

The war against Hamas is proving — once again — that the Middle East's extremist movements cannot be eliminated by military means. . . Israel must choose [between] attempting to drive the Islamic movement from power (which would be costly and leave its troops stuck in Gaza indefinitely). . . or withdrawing without any assurance that rocket fire against its cities would cease. . . [Israel’s] larger fallacy is the persistent conceit among Israeli leaders that Hamas can somehow be wiped out by . . . force of arms.

Actually, as we saw earlier, Israel doen’t have to “wipe out” Hamas to “drive” it “from power.” Israel can degrade Hamas’ capabilities to the point where Gaza’s people prefer the Palestinian Authority’s more moderate approach to Hamas’ ineffective extremism. But warfare working would be a blow, it seems, for Diehl. In Diehl’s eyes, Israel must lose because Hamas embodies the will of the people, presumably as did the Vietcong in Vietnam, and as Shiite militias did in Iraq. (Oops, our side may have won there.) As Diehl says:

Hamas is not merely a terrorist organization but a social and political movement with considerable support. Its ideology. . . is shared by a considerable slice of the population in every Arab country from Morocco to Iraq.

And Hamas enjoys the support of the media. Perhaps since Diehl is of that power group himself, he sees the media’s role as decisive:

the anger generated by the endless, graphic and one-sided coverage of the Middle East's satellite television channels [means that e]very day this war continues, Hamas grows politically stronger. . .

Here’s the counter-argument on war. The world is full of bad guys who believe they can win if “good people” will do nothing. “Good people” prevented us from defeating Hitler in 1936-38, at much less cost. “Good people” agitated for an end of the Cold War in the 1950’s (“Ban the Bomb”), in the 1960’s (“Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh!”), and in the late 1970’s-early 1980’s (Nuclear Freeze), before we finally won in 1989. Nearly 70% of Democrats in congress (and 83% of senate Democrats) voted against liberating Kuwait by force in 1991. “Good people” agitated against invading Afghanistan in 2001, and “good people” proclaimed Iraq a disaster and demanded a withdrawal from 2003 to 2008.

So why listen to Diehl? Hope Israel doesn’t.