So how does Gaza end? The New York Times’ Tom Friedman, whose first expertise is the Arab-Israeli conflict, saysAmerica’s goal — has to be a settlement in Gaza that eliminates the threat of Hamas rockets and opens Gaza economically to the world, under credible international supervision.
Friedman wants an end to the Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, in exchange for Hamas’ ending its rocketing of southern Israel. Some NATO-type peace force will enforce the settlement.
As the West enforced peace with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006? Israel's unlikely to repeat that mistake.
O.K., something else. I like the proposal of Bret Stephens, a Wall Street Journal writer who edited the Jerusalem Post in 2002-04, when he was 28-30 years old. Stephens says
• Israel can prevent Hamas rockets smuggled in from the south from reaching their current launching places in the north.
• Israel can weaken Hamas over time by avoiding a frontal assault on Gaza's urban areas but killing or capturing Hamas's leaders, destroying arms caches and rocket factories, and cutting off supply and escape routes.
• Israel can indefinitely occupy Gaza (outside urban areas) by standing firm against the global hypocrisy aimed at it.
• Israel should match every single rocket launched against it with an Israeli missile sent to a carefully selected Gaza target.
Israel’s goal wouldn’t be Hamas’ destruction. It would be reducing Hamas to ineffectiveness, so that the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority could replace it.
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