A peace deal that only days ago had national leaders applauding seems to be turning to cinders and ash. Hamas, within hours of the agreement being signed, sealed, and delivered, started visiting vicious reprisals on their own people. The crux of the issue is something that people familiar with that part of the world already knew: Hamas cannot be trusted.
President Trump has already reacted, indicating in an interview with Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo that the United States may become involved in dealing with Hamas, now that they have shown they have no intention of disarming.
Read More: President Trump Speaks on China, Democrats, Hamas and More
And that's the nub of the issue. Hamas never had any intention of disarming. Hamas never had any intention of abiding by any peace deal. They are returning to form, within hours of the peace deal supposedly being done.
The problem is that the rest of the world, including the United States, is dealing with Hamas as though they were civilized people. They are not. These are people who, only two years ago, planned and executed one of the most horrific attacks on a civilian population in modern history. These are people who murder pregnant women and children, along with other atrocities that we have seen described all too many times, and which I see no need to repeat here; they are burned into the collective consciousness of anyone who actually has a conscience.
Hamas never had any intention of abiding by any deal. They will do as they and their ideological ilk have always done: Use any respite to retrain, recruit, rearm, and plan their next atrocity.
So, what happens now?
Read More: State Department Warns of Imminent Ceasefire Violation by Hamas Targeting Gaza Civilians
Hamas Refuses to Disarm, Will Keep Control of Gaza, and Says The 'Peace Deal' Is Only a Cease-Fire
It's tempting to point out that one obvious solution is to wipe Hamas off the map. Israel could do this, but the operations to date in Gaza City have not been the easiest. Urban warfare is the most difficult kind of fighting for any military forces, and Israel has always taken extra steps to prevent civilian casualties to a degree never before seen. That makes the whole process harder. Add to that the difficulty that many Hamas fighters will simply drop their weapons and blend into the population at large when things aren't going their way. These are not military forces of a nation-state; they are armed irregulars, franc-tireurs, who, as recently as World War 2, would have been executed on capture by the military forces of any nation-state.
That presents another problem. We have seen cheering crowds in Gaza, watching as the resurgent Hamas carries out executions. What of these people? We are forced to remember that Hamas was voted into power initially in Gaza, and there is an unknown but probably not insignificant number of Gazans who support Hamas. Since Hamas took power in 2006, as well, the Gazan education system has literally drilled hatred for Jews and the West into Gaza's children.
How does the civilized world deal with a problem like this? Shall we use the approach Tacitus described of the Roman Army, where they "made a desert, and called it peace?" Will the civilized world - meaning, Israel and (perhaps) the United States - just raze Gaza to the ground? And in so doing, possibly provoke a much larger, much nastier regional war? This doesn't seem like a realistic option.
The big question for us here is this: Will the United States get involved? President Trump, in his interview with Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, indicated that the USA would have "no boots on the ground" in any operation against Hamas. But what about wings in the air? Could the USA commit to maintaining air cover? If so, how will the other nations in the region react?
Hamas operates by freely committing atrocity after atrocity. We've seen this over and over. And atrocity can breed atrocity; sometimes, the only way to deal with a group like Hamas is simply to remove them all from play.
In July of 1209, during the Albigensian Crusade, the crusaders were laying siege to the city of Béziers, in France. The city had a large population of Cathars, which the French Catholic forces saw as heretics. The commander of the crusade, Arnaud Amalric, was informed that there were Christians in the town he had ordered destroyed; he reportedly replied with a Latin saying that would become famous, "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" or, "Kill them, for the Lord knows those that are His" - commonly repeated today as "Kill them all, let God sort them out."
The civilized world no longer employs such methods. The problem is, we face an enemy who does.
Something has to be done. Hamas literally broke the peace agreement within hours. They clearly intend to keep all of Gaza under their boot. They clearly have no intention of abiding by any peace deal, ever, at any time, at any place. And it's only a matter of time before they try another Oct 7th-style attack - maybe, this time, in the United States, or in Europe. Here in the United States, the non-enforcement of immigration law by the Biden administration has allowed an untold number of unknown individuals into the country, some of whom we know now were actually involved in the Oct 7th attack, and Europe has, for years, literally thrown open the doors and invited the Middle East in.
Whatever is done, whoever will do it, it still holds true today, as it has for some time: There will be no peace in Gaza until Hamas is no longer a factor.
