The World Is Better Off Without Hamas — But Not Like This

Ten months into Israel’s war with Hamas, Israel is still nowhere near achieving its stated goal of eradicating Hamas and is harming civilians at rates that are far from acceptable.

According to widely-confirmed estimates, Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, mostly civilians, and has displaced most of the 2.3 million people living there.

Still, there is no end in sight.

It has gotten so bad, that, in Israel, the ones who are leading the protests against Netanyahu’s war cabinet are actually the families of Israeli hostages who were taken by Hamas on October 7.

I believe that the pro-war position is not fully reckoning with the reality of violence and Netanyahu’s interests in the region.

As I have written about elsewhere, Hamas wants the war with Israel to continue. Iran-backed militia groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and others rely on war to receive backing from Iran. Their popularity directly hinges on war. In the words of one Hamas media advisor in The New York Times:

I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us.

The “pro-war” camp in Israel, and those who support abroad, should remember this. Hamas’ entire legitimacy rests on a violent Israel. That fact should dictate Israel’s military policy in Gaza and the region. But it…