Dubious Advice from reckless Friends

The editors of the Wall Street Journal predict: “Hamas will keep attacking Israel until it pays a fatal price,” and you are reminded of the old saying that comes in the form of a question: Is this a promise or a threat? So you read the editorial for which that prediction serves as a subtitle. The title itself being: “The Next Gaza War,” the piece was published in the Journal on July 9, 2014.

So you read it to determine what exactly the editors mean when they make the bold prediction that Hamas will keep attacking Israel, and that it will pay a fatal price – presumably because Israel will try to exact that price, and succeed in doing it. But all you find which relates to this matter is the following: “Hamas believe[s] it can repeatedly go to war against a militarily superior foe because Israel has never exacted a fatal price.” And you still wonder if that was a promise or a threat.

You keep reading the editorial till you hit this passage: “Our advice to the Israelis is that if they want to avoid having to go to war over Gaza every three years or so, they will need to destroy Hamas as a political entity and military power.” Okay, that says something. Yes, it says something but what is that something? Well, you'll have to dismiss it being a promise because it stands as an advice. And you cannot take it as a threat either because it sounds like a plea made by the editors of the Journal to the military of Israel.

Given that it is neither one thing nor the other, what the hell could it be? You want to know but you still cannot consider it a piece of analysis written by the editors of a newspaper for the benefit of their readers because they do make a serious prediction that has dire consequences. That's not what journalistic analysis stands for, thus it must be something else.

Unable to find a straightforward explanation for their reasoning, you try a method you know has always worked when figuring out what Jews are up to. What you do is look for accusations they may be throwing at someone else because you know that this would be the way they see themselves. And sure enough, you find the following passage: “Now Hamas seems to have decided that starting another war will be politically opportune … Hamas may figure it can use the murder of a Palestinian boy to ignite an uprising against Israel.”

Eureka! That's exactly what happened … but it happened in reverse. Hamas was minding its own business when three Israeli boys were killed in the West Bank, and Israel automatically accused Hamas of being the culprit despite the denials offered by Hamas. Still, Israel did not wait for the truth to come out, and started bombarding Gaza even though the accusation that it was making pertained to the West Bank and not Gaza.

And so you rewrite the words of the editors while placing the word Israel where you see Hamas, and doing the other necessary adjustments. This is what you obtain: “Now Israel seems to have decided that starting another war will be politically opportune … Israel may figure it can use the murder of three Israeli boys to launch an assault against Gaza.” Perfect. It fits like hand in glove.

There is no doubt now that this is what the Israelis have been up to. But what does all that mean to the American contingent of the Wall Street Journal? Their thinking being heavily influenced by the Jews among them, the question remains: would their interest in this matter be an American interest or a Jewish interest? You think about it and conclude that American Jews being the most fanatic of all, it stands to reason that they would want the war to resume, and to go on till the matter is completely resolved.

But what about the non-Jewish Americans? Well, the suspicion has always been that they too want to see a definitive resolution of the matter, but they want to see it resolved in a different way because what they have in mind is something else. Those who speak about the subject bluntly will tell you they want to see the Jews vacate America and go to Israel or somewhere else, or have a prolonged war with the Arabs till they are finished off.

It's a theory alright, but where is the evidence? Well, if you use the method of reverse logic you employed earlier, you may find that the editorial offers a clue.

You will find talk about addressing “the cause of the problem rather than treat the symptoms.” The cause being Hamas according to the editorial, reverse logic says it should be replaced with the word Israel. This makes sense because after being kicked out of Gaza, Israel instituted a blockade against the territory; an act of war that required Hamas to defend its people.

And given that the editors are advocating: “This will require a campaign that destroys Hamas's ability to wage war” because “peace has no chance as long as Hamas is seen as a strong and legitimate player,” their real intent must be the following: “This will require destroying Israel's ability to wage war because peace has no chance as long as Israel remains strong and legitimate.”

Wow, anyway you look at this subject; it always reduces to the principle that Israel should never have been created. And the thing to do to fix the problems it has brought with it is to delegitimize it and destroy its ability to bother its neighbors. Case closed.

Even the Wall Street Journal seems to say so – translated through the customary reverse logic, of course.