The fight against the Iranian regime and its bloodthirsty proxies will not be won in the White House. It will be won by resilient Israeli soldiers and officials.

By Paul Telle, JNS

Oct. 7 remains one of the darkest days in Jewish history. The horrific Hamas invasion of southern Israel across the border with Gaza caused death and devastation on a scale that is still hard to fathom. Now, a year after that attack, and with the growth of the wider conflict in Lebanon and beyond, it is time for the war on Israel to end. It is time for the Iranian regime and its evil, proxies in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere to immediately and unconditionally surrender. It is the only way peace will be achieved.

Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks claimed 1,200 lives; displaced as many as 200,000 Israelis; injured thousands; and took captive some 250 men, women and children into the Gaza Strip. It was the deadliest terrorist incident per capita and the third-deadliest overall since data collecting began. And it was the deadliest attack on Israel since its modern-day founding in 1948. Even more ghastly, of the 764 civilian fatalities, 14 were children under 10 years old, and 25 were seniors over the age of 80.

Brutal murders of this nature are the logical outflow of the Hamas covenant. Hamas is institutionally opposed to any sort of peaceful solution to the present conflict. Article 13 iterates: “Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. … There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

A year in review

This murderous ideology has driven Hamas’s actions on and since Oct. 7, and it stands in sharp contrast to the military strategies of the Israeli Defense Forces. Hamas has repeatedly flouted international norms and basic morality. It has a track record of exploiting innocent civilians for use as human shields. This terrorist organization is stockpiling arms in, and conducting military operations from, schools, hospitals and places of worship. It has hijacked U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) trucks and attacked UNRWA distribution centers. This strengthens Hamas’s stranglehold over Gazans, as the organization induces starvation as a means to recruit fighters. Additionally, UNRWA is being charged by the U.N. Watch for complicity with terrorism.

Even worse, Hamas has also literally weaponized humanitarian aid, converting donated water pipes into rocket systems. In addition to converting civilian and cultural infrastructure into military command centers, Hamas has carried out missile strikes from protected humanitarian zones.

Israel, by contrast, has conducted its response with respect to Just War principles, sometimes to the detriment of their own operational efficiency. Unfortunately, they have not received credit for their commitment to morality. Media outlets have condemned Israel’s military operations in Gaza, falsely claiming that the IDF has not taken measures to preserve civilian lives, but they fail to acknowledge Hamas’s role in exploiting Gazans. Israel has, more than once, air-dropped pamphlets in civilian zones announcing their intention to launch military campaigns. Media outlets that attempt to put a negative spin on the Rafah offensive miss the obvious fact: Israel is making an effort to diminish civilian casualties even if it limits their own efficiency.

The data shows that Israel has a historically low civilian-to-militant casualty ratio. This low casualty ratio can be credited to the intensive precautions Israel has taken. Israel uses highly advanced precision-guided munitions to carry out strategic strikes against Hamas; these missiles are extremely accurate, minimizing the collateral damage that Hamas craves.

The ultimate example of Israel’s precision targeting of terrorists was the pager operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon, a synchronized set of small explosions that allowed Israel to reduce collateral damage in a massive strike against the terror group to its north. The useful idiots in the Western media, however, complained that the operation wasn’t sufficiently targeted since a handful of civilians were killed as well.

Much reporting on the war has missed the political dynamics of the Palestinian side. Palestinian civilians participated in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, have helped hide hostages and have facilitated supply lines to the terrorists. Public opinion polls from Gaza reveal that 67% of Gazans supported armed attacks against Israeli citizens in Israel prior to the Oct. 7 massacre. Israel should not abandon its extremely successful system of discriminating between militants and innocents; on the contrary, Israel should be proud to proceed on the side of moral virtue. However, analysis of the conflict must take these hard truths into account to fully appreciate the circumstances that Israel is facing.

U.S. role and a vision for peace

America has historically accepted the idea that peace at home is a result of strength abroad. If the United States shies away from its alliances and caters to the preferences of wicked terrorists, widespread suffering in Europe, Asia and the Middle East will swiftly follow. Our widespread net of alliances should be seen as a proactive step towards quelling tyrants abroad. The American-Israeli alliance is the perfect example. If the threat of Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies is not enough to convince us that we must stand with Israel, perhaps regard for our own self-interests will.

In the heat of this present moment, it can be easy to forget that our long-standing relationship with Israel transcends war. We should remember that the top imports and exports between the United States and Israel are pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, machinery and medical instruments. It would be wise to maintain the political environment that enables this trade to continue.

Within the military context, Israel helps the United States with missile defense against an Iranian government that hates America and seeks to destroy it. Iran has its fingerprints all over Hamas’ role in this war. But it is not just Hamas. Hezbollah is the premier Iranian-backed military group, which began launching missiles and rockets at Israel shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks. Similarly, the Iran-backed Houthis have stated that their goals include “death to America, death to Israel” and “a curse upon the Jews.” The extent of Iranian involvement in this war far exceeds the common-sense benchmark required for Americans to agree that we must respond. And indeed, respond we have. Since the onset of the war on Israel, the United States has provided Israel with $6.5 billion in security assistance. Other sources suggest that the United States has actually provided Israel with upwards of $12.5 billion in military aid since the start of the war. Approximately 78% of Israel’s arms imports have come from the United States. Additionally, Israel has had access to a strategic weapons stockpile that the United States has maintained in Israel since the 1980s.

The Iranian regime and its proxies are unequivocally evil, indisputably at fault, and must be eliminated or at least permanently subdued if there is to be any hope of peace. We must not fall prey to the lie that because the proxies’s ideology will live beyond the war, it is a useless enterprise to fight towards their elimination. Ideas do not squeeze triggers, bomb children or torture hostages; that is the work of human agents. Even if Israel cannot eradicate the philosophy of terrorists, we should support its efforts to save the innocent from those threatened by Hamas indoctrination.

The anniversary of this tragic day coalesces with a consequential election in American politics. While Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has avoided providing many substantive answers about what her administration would look like, it is safe to assume she would not be the ally Israel deserves. A recap of her approach to the conflict makes this overt:

• She was open to discussing an arms embargo with the Uncommitted National Movement, a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel group, following her campaign rally in Detroit in early August.
• She berated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not accepting a peace deal that would cripple Israel’s ability to defend itself.
• She has gone out of her way in speeches to chastise the Israeli government and sympathize with Gazan Palestinians while expressing no condolences for the hundreds of thousands of suffering Israelis. When asked about domesticpro-Palestinian protests, Harris said the protesters “are showing exactly what the human emotion should be as a response to Gaza.”

But the fight against the Iranian regime and its bloodthirsty proxies will not be won in the White House. It will be won by the resilient Israeli soldiers and officials who deserve the support of the United States and other nations who profess to love freedom. On this tragic anniversary, we must let the past inform the future. We must not heed the siren song of artificial ceasefires. We must instead use this one-year marker to demand the terrorists waging war against Israel lay down their arms, hand over all of the remaining hostages and fully surrender. Only such a surrender makes long-term peace possible.

Above all, we must continue to stand with Israel