I originally posted this at Politico‘s “Arena” blog in response to the question of the day, which was “The Gaza war: What should the U.S. do?”

America should provide all of the support we can to Israel in their attempt to root out and eliminate the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza, just as we asked our allies to do when we retaliated against al Qaeda in the wake of 9/11/01. Much like our efforts in the global war on terror, Israel’s actions against the terrorists in control of the Gaza strip are an entirely legitimate effort to secure their own nation — something which cannot be done while Hamas is using the area to the Jewish state’s south as a launching point for attacks on the sovereign Israeli homeland.

The fact that this conversation is even taking place shows the folly of the age-old “land for peace” solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict offered by so many liberal elites and foreign policy naifs.

“Land for Peace”

In August 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip, forcing over 9,000 settlers from their homes and abandoning the plot of land to Israel’s immediate south which had until that point been serving as a geographic buffer against attack. His good-faith attempt to concede land to the Palestinians in exchange for an end to violence was repaid in blood and blasts: since Sharon’s withdrawal, terrorists in Gaza have fired over 6,300 rockets over the border into southern Israel, wounding nearly 800 civilians in cities like Sderot, where hospitals, schools, and playgrounds must be covered with concrete umbrellas to prevent their being destroyed, and the historic coastal city of Ashkelon.

The majority of these rockets are of the homemade Qassam variety, constructed of water pipes Palestinian terrorists dig up from under their streets and homes (while publicly blaming Israel for their lack of infrastructure like running water), fitted with rebar, and filled with gunpowder and ball bearings (the latter for the purpose of causing as much destruction to human flesh as possible). They are fired by the dozens at civilian towns and, ironically, at the southern Israeli plant that provides the Strip with most of its power (though inhabitants of Gaza once again blame Israel for the rolling brownouts that result from their attacks on their primary source of electricity).

Ceasefire Violations by the Thousands

Despite their supposed agreement to a cease-fire with Israel — which it has used to resupply and rearm itself — Hamas has unleashed over 3,000 rockets on the tiny Levantine state in 2008 alone. It has also persisted in tunneling under its northern and southern borders, into Israel — where Hamas terrorists ambushed an IDF watchtower in June 2006 and kidnapped Corporal Gilad Shalit, who to this day has still not been returned to his homeland — and into Egypt. Hamas is continuously rearmed and resupplied through the latter, as Egyptian sympathizers and Iranian benefactors ensure that the terror group, despite an Israeli blockade of the strip, remains well armed and supplied.

The EU is currently attempting to broker yet another ineffective “cease-fire” between Israel and the terrorist group to its south, thus making the dual mistake of (a) believing that concessions to terror groups can bring about peace and (b) conferring legitimacy on Hamas as a soveriegn equal of Israel’s in the international community. The claim that Hamas, despite being elected by Palestinian voters as a protest vote against the corrupt Palestinian Authority, is a legitimate governing organization is in itself farcical; after all, let’s not forget how they seized power in the Gaza strip: by throwing their political opponents, members of the corrupt and similarly terroristic Fatah party, off the roofs of high rise buildings in Gaza City.

Peace Not a Goal for One Side

Hamas’s goal in this process is neither peace nor sovereignty, though it does enjoy the legitimacy such negotiations confer upon it. What Hamas really seeks is two-fold: (1) the PR victories it earns every time it responds to Israel’s warnings to Palestinian civilians that a strike on a terrorist location is impending by filling that target with women and children whose bodies are later paraded on international television, and (2) the time yet another cease-fire would provide them to rearm and make further progress on their tunnels and their plans for future terrorist attacks on Israel.

Every time Israelis or Palestinians die, Israel loses and Hamas wins — and both know it full well. For the latter, this is the barbaric truth of terrorist operations: friendly and enemy deaths are both acceptable on massive scales, because each serves a different, but equally important, purpose. The fact that women and children are used as human shields is a source of pride for Hamas and its ilk. We have “created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine,” said a member of the Palestinian Authority’s legislative council earlier this year, “as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: We desire death as you desire life” (contrast that with Israel’s actions, which have included eschewing tactical surprise to warn civilians of impending attacks and sending well over 100 truckloads of humanitarian aid into the strip after ground troops entered this weekend). As Israeli foreign policy scholar Barry Rubin wrote over the weekend, “even the Nazis didn’t put ammunition dumps in houses and use human shields — and up until now the blame for doing so would fall on those who deliberately and cynically sought to create civilian casualties in order to gain support for themselves.”

Hamas Deserving of Same Treatment as al Qaeda

The fact that they take pride in doing so, taken with the fact that their response to Israel’s striking of terror leaders, ammunition stores, and illicit cross-border tunnels was to declare the beginning of a new campaign of suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, demonstrates that Hamas deserves to be treated not as a legitimate political entity or as an opposition military force, but as an illegal and inhuman terrorist organization on the same level as al Qaeda and other groups and networks the U.S. and her allies have been fighting to destroy since 9/11.

Much to the chagrin of some of his most ardent supporters, President-elect Barack Obama has said that, if it were his country being affected, he would “do everything in his power to stop” attacks like those Hamas has subjected Israel to. We must hope that this position, unlike so many others formerly held by the incoming president, does not come with an expiration date. Support for Israel (like any other U.S. ally) in its effort to eradicate a direct terrorist threat to its homeland must be a sine qua non of American foreign policy. Rather than continuing the current Secretary of State’s stated commitment to arranging yet another one-sided cease fire between Israel and the human shield-using terrorists who want innocent Jews and Palestinians dead, the policy of the outgoing and incoming U.S. administrations should be to provide Israel whatever support and assistance it needs to take the fight to the barbaric terrorist group Hamas until there is nothing left of them to fight — just as we would expect of our allies in our current struggle against al Qaeda and other groups who engage in terrorist acts worldwide.