All those who love peace feel a heavy heart at the current situation in Palestine and Israel. In particular, Israel's most recent decision to send its troops into Gaza will mean much more death and destruction in a territory that has already suffered too much.
Yet, I support that decision and I believe that it is unfortunately necessary for the long-term good of the people of Palestine, Israel, the Mideast, and the world.
I am not a pacifist. I supported the U.S. military in World War II as well as in its efforts to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan. Indeed, the latter case is of interest, because (a) the Taliban is obviously much weaker than the U.S. government and military, and (b) the Taliban had never directly attacked the U.S. at all, even with a single rifle shot. However, by openly hosting an international terrorist group, I believe that Taliban had lost its legitimacy and it needed to be overthrown to promote international peace and justice.
The contours of an Israeli-Palestine peace agreement are well known. Israel gives up almost all the territory seized in 1967, except for some minor land swaps. Palestine gets most of East Jerusalem, with some international protection for major religious sites. Israel accepts a token number of Palestinian refugees into its territories, with the remainder getting some kind of economic aid for international organizations and settling in Palestinian territory. Rabin could have made such a deal before he was killed. Clinton, Arafat, and Ehud Barak got close to such a deal. And Obama, Abbas, and a center-left government Israel can reach such a deal in the next few years.
Unfortunately, it will be impossible to reach such a deal with Hamas. Hamas's raison d'etre is the destruction of Israel. Hamas makes no distinction between Ramallah and Tel Aviv -- both are considered occupied territories by Hamas from which the occupiers must be expelled.
Some people have been fooled by statements by Hamas leaders indicating that they might consider a long-term truce with Israel if Israel were to withdraw from the 1967 territories. However, there were several important conditions on this statement that made it meaningless. For example, one condition attached was that Israel must simultaneously agree to accept into Israel ALL Palestinians and their descendents (some 10 million plus people) -- and not even in exchange for a peace treaty, but only for a truce! This is only one of several points that renders this suggestion of a truce completely meaningless.
Hamas had agreed to a unity government with Abbas/Fatah, but soon after militarily seized control of Gaza, throwing Hamas leaders off of buildings in the process. Prior to this occurrence, there was much greater international trade across the Gaza borders, because they were controlled by the Palestinian authority. However, with Hamas now controlling the Gaza borders, and with both the stated goal and actual practice of Hamas being to import as much weaponry as possible into Gaza in order to more successfully kill Israelis, it is understandable that Israel placed restrictions on the borders. Egypt did the same, also believing that Hamas's coup in Gaza was illegitimate and that Hamas could not be trusted with control of the border.
At the same time, as long as Hamas functioned more or less peacefully vis-a-vis the outside world, it had to be tolerated, just as the Taliban had to be tolerated. But Al Qaeda's attack on the World Trade Center made the Taliban intolerable. And Hamas's decision to renew large-scale rocket attacks on Israel in December 2008 made Hamas intolerable. It had to be deterred or, better yet, removed.
Israel's minimal goal is to deter Hamas's attacks -- to force Hamas to stop attacking Israel, to harm Hamas's ability to attack Israel, and to prevent Hamas from getting more and more weaponry to attack Israel. It is true that Hamas has not yet killed large numbers of Israelis, but even its attacks so far have severely disrupted life in the southern part of the country. And just because somebody is not very successful in killing you, should you let them keep trying, and keep getting more and more sophisticated weaponry to do so? What if in a couple of years from now they are able to get greater range and more accurate missiles that could kill thousands of people throughout Israel? Or, G-d forbid, a suitcase dirty bomb or even a suitcase nuclear bomb?
In this case, though, what is in Israel's interest is also in the long-term interests of the Palestinians, whether they know it now or not. (And yes, many people support leaders and movements that are not in their own long-term interests -- think how much popular support fascist movement and governments in Europe had.) Because with Hamas out of the way, there is a good possibility that a peace treaty could be achieved between Israel and Palestine, leading to peace and social and economic development in the region. But no such agreement can be concluded with Hamas, because their ideology is opposed to the existence of Israel or to any permanent compromise with it.
The Palestinian Authority has made clear that they are ready to resume leadership in Gaza. It would be difficult for them to do so directly on the heels of an Israeli assault. But some people have suggested that an Arab/Turkish peacekeeping force could take control in Gaza temporarily. After that, the Palestinian Authority could resume control, paving the way for an eventual peace agreement between the PA and Israel, fully supported by the Obama administration.
The chances of this happening may not be great, but they are the best that the world can hope for. Allowing Hamas to continue undeterred in its military attacks on Israel will only bring greater suffering to both the Israeli AND Palestinian people.