The horrifyingly large number of Israelis, Jews, and foreign nationals slaughtered by Hamas terrorists in Israel was not yet known — indeed, it is still rising — when some of the Democratic Party’s most dedicated advocates of “social justice” called on Israel to stand down.
“An immediate ceasefire and de-escalation is urgently needed to save lives,” read a statement produced on Saturday from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Representative Cori Bush echoed this call for the Israeli government to acquiesce to the butchery of its people. “[A] military response will only exacerbate the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis alike,” she bemoaned. “We need a way to end this deadly violence that is killing and traumatizing generations of Israelis and Palestinians alike, Representative Jamaal Bowman insisted, “including the blockade of Gaza.” In calling for “de-escalation and ceasefire,” Representative Ilhan Omar warned,“Senseless violence will only repeat the back and forth cycle we’ve seen, which we cannot allow to continue.”
If, as appears likely, Israel goes ahead with a ground invasion of Gaza designed to neutralize Hamas as a military threat, dissolve the illegitimate regime in the Strip, end this costly experiment in terrorist statehood, and liberate the Palestinians who suffer under its yoke, that would not be “senseless violence.” Indeed, it would be quite purposeful violence — a morally righteous and strategically sound act of self-defense justified by any conception of the laws of war.
The so-called “Squad” is giving voice to a pernicious and false moral equivalence. It assigns agency only to the Jewish State and absolves those who murder Israelis of their actions. But theirs is a rump caucus within the Democratic Party. It’s not unreasonable to assume their depravity is not shared by Democrats in positions of leadership. Or, at least, it was until Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared to second their prescription.
Following what must have been a charged call with Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan, Blinken announced in a now-deleted social-media post that he “encouraged [Turkey’s] advocacy for a cease-fire and the release of all hostages held by Hamas immediately.” We can assume that the deletion of this ill-advised comment is indicative of the secretary’s better judgment, but we can also take Blinken at his word that an immediate cessation of hostilities is what he is emphasizing in calls with his regional counterparts. His office is party to ongoing negotiations in Qatar over the status of the hundreds of hostages in Hamas’s custody — negotiations Hamas and its Iranian sponsors hope will culminate in the release of Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons. Blinken’s ill-advised remark represents an expression of the terms that the murderers are demanding.
Hamas wants to trade civilians for terrorists. Hamas wants a ceasefire to prevent the dissolution of its regime in the Strip. Hamas wants Israel’s partners in the West to get cold feet and demand that Jerusalem abandon its central mission: avenging attacks on Jews for being Jews, hunting down the pogromists wherever they hide, and deterring future bloodshed. That is what calls for a ceasefire now are designed to do. They are an effort to prevent Israel from imposing unacceptable costs on a government or a people who sponsor the murder of Jews.
It’s no rhetorical stretch to accuse those who demand that Israel forego any proper response to its defilement and learn to accept the inevitability of attacks like these of advancing the interests of Hamas. Their advocacy certainly doesn’t promote anyone else’s interests, including those of the United States. It’s par for the course for the so-called “Squad” to retreat into their own egos and evaluate this horror — the worst single-day massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust — at a level of abstraction that reduces people to statistics and their murders to automatons carried along on the tides of history. To see Blinken echoing, if not their rationale, their preferred outcome does, however, suggest that the Biden administration views that sort of amorality as a useful geopolitical tool. It isn’t.
The time for a ceasefire will come when Israel has achieved its strategic objectives. Premature efforts to tie Israel’s hands today are little more than veiled expressions of support for the blood Hamas terrorists shed on October 7. They should be regarded with all due contempt.