President Obama, obviously looking for a way to help Israelis and Palestinians, can start by setting a long-term goal: Demilitarize Gaza.
That’s a better aim than sending Secretary of State John Kerry to the region to work out an Israel-Hamas cease-fire.
“Armless in Gaza” has a ring to it. It’s a goal right up Obama’s alley, involving far-sightedness, international diplomacy, disarmament — each one of Obama’s claims to fame. He can call it a followup on the success in removing Syria’s chemical arms.
It might even restore some of Washington’s lost respect.
Consider: Kerry’s first instinct as Hamas-Israeli violence escalated this week was to fly to Cairo so he could help negotiate a cease-fire. But both Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu politely advised him to stay away.
America’s Mideast allies these days would rather bet on mediators like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, or even the United Nations. They fear Kerry would screw things up.
Back in Washington, the administration endorsed Israel’s right to defend itself, but also pointedly noted that America opposes an incursion into Gaza.
Sorry: After 10 days of rockets and missiles, the extremely cautious Netanyahu decided he had to ignore that advice, and send in the ground troops.
US mediation and kibitzing are both out, in other words.But Obama can still start rehabilitating his lost prestige in the region.
The “most important step for the international community to insist on” is “the demilitarization of Gaza,” Netanyahu told Italy’s foreign minister, Federica Mogherin, on Wednesday.
The goal is perfect for Washington: Congress can pass a resolution. Obama can speechify. Kerry can confer with world leaders. UN Ambassador Samantha Power can draft a Security Council resolution.
America, in short, can get its arms around a worthy cause.
But wait, don’t Gazans also have a right of defense? To “resist the occupation,” as Hamas calls it?
The Gazans might well — but not Hamas.
In 2005, the Israeli Defense Forces left Gaza after forcefully evacuating all Jewish settlers from the area. Gaza was to become a model statelet, with a similar IDF evacuation of the West Bank — and formal Palestinian statehood — to come next.
The world applauded.
Former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn raised funds to assure that greenhouses built by the settlers would remain intact for Palestinian use, even tossing in a half-million out of pocket so the tulip and tomato hot-houses could remain and help start a Gazan economic boom.
Oops: With the Israelis gone, radical Gazans burnt the greenhouses to the ground.
Two years later, Hamas took over, killing or exiling all its Palestinian enemies. The Islamist terrorists didn’t even promise Gazan prosperity, but to eliminate Israel.
Seven years, three Hamas-Israel wars and 1,500 dead Palestinians later, Israel is doing just fine.
Of course, no country can or should withstand the missile and rocket barrage that Israelis have borne the whole time, and more intensely these last two weeks. But for now, Israel’s Iron Dome has blunted the Hamas threat.
So Hamas has failed to seriously harm the Jewish state, let alone make it an Islamist one, while inflicting much despair, misery and death on Palestinians in Gaza. And it’s fast losing what legitimacy it had in the region.
It’s time for a new paradigm: It’s nobody’s business if Gazans want to be ruled by a fascist, nihilist organization (or, closer to the truth, are too fearful to resist it); but ensuring that Hamas can’t use Gaza to threaten its neighbors and get Gaza civilians killed is in everybody’s interest.
If the policy succeeds, America can present it as a model for solving other disputes involving armed Islamist fanatics.
Of course, defanging Hamas won’t be easy or fast.
After a week-long heavy air bombardment, Israel isn’t even close to destroying all of Gaza’s deeply-dug missile arsenal; hence the ground invasion. And once a cease-fire finally lasts, the smuggling and home-grown manufacturing of new rockets will resume.
So the task will take time and a lot of international cooperation and diplomacy. But first is first: Set an arms-free Gaza as the goal.
Is any of this achievable?
Put it this way: It’s more realistic than Kerry’s vainglorious year-long attempt to push a peace treaty on the less-than-enthused Israelis and Palestinians.