Years ago, after the 1956 Suez Crisis, British Prime Minister Harld Macmillan was asked by a journalist what would determine his government’s course. His reply was to the point. “Events, dear boy, events.” Indeed, events propelled Mr. Macmillan into office. Anthony Eden was Prime Minister during the ham-handed scheme that the United Kingdom and France devised in response to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s threat to nationalize the Suez Canal, a waterway built by the French and controlled by the British since 1882. Neither European power was willing to jeopardize the transit of commerce and oil through the canal. They invited Israel to participate; Israel had its own grievances against Nasser, among them terror attacks from the Gaza Strip.
Israel would attack. The British and French would call for a ceasefire that they were certain Nasser would reject. That would in turn justify the European powers’ intervention, stop the war, and secure the canal. A perfect plan. Europe secures the waterway and Israel settles geographic and aggression scores with Nasser. Just one problem. This event drew opposition from US President Dwight Eisenhower who demanded the all the attacking parties withdraw. The humiliation eventually brought down Mr. Eden’s government. Events indeed.
There would be more events. In 1967, the Arabs launched a retaliatory war. They were soundly defeated. That was followed by the 1973 Yom Kippur War, again launched by the Arabs in an effort to settle up with the Israelis. The Arabs lost again. And Israel advanced its control over the region, beginning several years of relative calm.
Five years later there was yet another event when Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorists launched an amphibious attack from southern Lebanon against Israeli civilians north of Tel Aviv in what would be called the Coastal Road Massacre of March 1978. That incident saw the cold-blooded murder of 38 Israelis, including thirteen children, and the wounding of 71 other civilians. The attack, planned and executed by the PLO faction Fatah, outraged Israel, which decided it was time to push militant Palestinians out of southern Lebanon to positions north of the Litani River, a natural boundary that flowed from the Beqaa Valley in east central Lebanon to the Mediterranean coastline. Israel succeeded. But attacks would continue over the years.
In 1982, after several years of shaky ceasefires—actually fragile periods of attenuated violence—Israel grew increasingly frustrated and decided to attack again after assassins dispatched from Iraq attempted to take the life of the Israeli ambassador to the UK, Shlomo Argov. He was shot and gravely wounded. Israel blamed the PLO, although it was more likely retaliation by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein for Israel’s bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1982.
Israel launched Operation “Peace for Galilee” that coincided with an on-going Lebanese Civil War. That event would be very costly. While the PLO was pushed out of Lebanon, Israel suffered many losses. But so would the American-led Multinational peacekeeping force. Some 220 US marines, 18 sailors, and 3 soldiers would die in a terror bombing by Iran’s Hezbollah terror allies. Worst yet, when Israel withdrew, Hezbollah filled the PLO void in southern Lebanon. They would fight Israel again in 2006. More deaths on both sides.
Meanwhile, another event took place. The terror organization Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean Coast in 2007. And over time, its attacks on Israel would become more violent and numerous. Despite the Palestinians, Israel and Arabs began peace overtures that would result in the 2020 Abraham Accords. I noted Hamas’s predisposition in August 2020.
“It seems that some Arabs have decided that the legacy of geopolitical missteps vis-a-vis Israel should cease. Realpolitik is at work. Israel is not going away. But there’s also another certainty. The Palestinians will assuredly blunder in responding to this latest peace agreement. Indeed, radical Hamas, the Palestinian cabal that runs the Gaza Strip, is already fulminating. We should not be surprised to see acts of violence against Israel by militant Palestinians to provoke Israel into retaliating, thereby disrupting the peace agreement.”
And on 7 October, acting in ways that Hitler would admire, Hamas murdered over 1,100 innocent Jews. Its bloodthirsty pogrom would include the slaughter of infants, seizing hostages, and killing Israeli children while their parents watched. In one act of unmitigated barbarism, Hamas proved itself worthy of extinction.
Now it falls on Israel to irradicate the problem. The events since 1956 have not secured the peace Israel deserved in both wars won and conflicts that fell short. But the events of 7 October have determined a course for both Israel, who must destroy Hamas, and the US who must stand indefatigably by the Jewish people. Indeed, let us also hope that the events of last week determine a course for mankind that dispatches Hamas to perdition forever.
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