Hamas
By now you have read and heard much about Hamas’s murderous attack on Israel. I prefer to write about local issues, but I am losing patience with American idealists who think they can easily frame what the problem is, assign blame, judge, and do Monday-morning quarterbacking or backseat driving. I do not want to get into the nexus of the “neo-con versus isolationist” debate either. Also, this is not like the European war between Russia and Ukraine over land and borders.
The central question is: are Arabs and Muslims capable of forming a Republic, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, with a representative democracy? Arab leaders have played to the extremists and to reformers simultaneously while avoiding both. Arab leaders fear democracy would put extremists in power, and the actions of Hamas have verified their fears.
The Oslo Agreement gave Gaza a level of autonomy. Instead of using such autonomy to improve the lives of the people, they elected Hamas, a religious, bloodthirsty murderous cult. All the dictators of the world can laugh at the Western world and point to Hamas's rule over Gaza and say: ”Ha, ha! That is what democracy looks like!” So now, the idea of a Two-State solution is dead (https://www.meforum.org/64947/the-death-of-the-two-state-solution).
As for Arabs and Muslims of the Middle East, they have yet to figure out how to educate and change a culture to one fostering goodwill to all and improving the lives of people. Americans, on the other hand, need to drop their idealistic notions as being easy to implement. The murdering rampage of Hamas was not about politics. Hamas sees itself as killing “devils” and therefore winning eternal salvation in heaven, yet they are murdering innocent Israelis. They are a religious cult similar to but much more dangerous than the Jim Jones cult (https://www.britannica.com/event/Jonestown). Hamas has no logic or rationale so negotiating with them is pointless. Israel has no choice but to wipe Hamas out of existence.
Years ago, I knew a Jordanian mother. She was a devout atheist and declared; “religion is the root of all evil.” Ayn Rand would agree with her. Anyways, she told her son to come home from school with straight A’s or you don’t eat. She was serious and he excelled in school. Such determination and discipline are needed to change culture. This is the sort of action which is needed to defeat murderous extremists.
For more insights, see these sites. Daniel Pipes (https://www.danielpipes.org) has researched the Middle East for decades and helped form the Middle East Forum (https://www.meforum.org/). If you want to help Israel, donate here https://www.fidf.org/