Immorality and Delusion: Two Bad Tastes That Are Particularly Bad Together

This, from Benny Morris, is amazing:

What should we do next time? The answer is clear and well known. All that’s needed is the courage to start down this path and the determination to finish the job. It won’t be either easy or quick. We’re talking about reoccupying the entire Gaza Strip and destroying Hamas as a military organization, and perhaps also as a political one (it’s reasonable to think that destroying Hamas’ army will badly weaken Hamas as a political movement).

This will require months of combat, during which the Strip will be cleansed, neighborhood by neighborhood, of Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives and armaments. It will exact a serious price in lives from both Israel Defense Forces soldiers and Palestinian civilians. But that’s the price required of a nation like ours, which wants to live on its own land in a neighborhood like ours. After gaining control of Gaza, it must be hoped that some moderate Arab power, perhaps the Palestinian Authority, will take over the reins of government.

Advocating the re-occupation of Gaza is bad enough (surely the “cleansing” language gives away the show here.) But what’s worse the the pragmatic punchline. After an incredibly bloody and destructive occupation of the Gaza strip by the IDF, we could reasonably expect…a more moderate Palestinian government? Can anyone possibly believe that? In fairness, he did say “hope for”; I guess we could “hope” that if Roe v. Wade is overturned congressional Republicans would vote en masse to repeal the Hyde Amendment and a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a woman’s right to choose, a result that is similarly likely to what Morris is asking us to consider.