On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that the Biden administration’s opposition to Israel invading Rafah is support for an approach that allows Hamas to emerge “surviving, competent, and, frankly, victorious.” And thus would kill any possibility of a two-state solution or repairing the economy of Gaza.
Brooks said, “I think the Biden administration is right on a couple of things and wrong on one big thing. They’re right to demand a ceasefire or to try to get a ceasefire so that there can be humanitarian aid to go in. They’re right to pressure Israel to take moral responsibility and strategic responsibility for the Gazans, for the people who are there. They’re also right that Israel has to have a day-after plan. And so, all [those things] I think the administration is absolutely correct to be pressuring Israel on.”
He added, “Where I differ is on their new policy this week that Israel should not go into Gaza in the way they think they have to. Now, there — according to the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, there are 6 to 8,000 Hamas fighters in there. You can’t leave Hamas in power after this. There’s no possibility for a two-state solution, there’s no possibility for economic reconstruction, there’s no possibility that foreign NGOs — if Hamas emerges from this surviving, competent, and, frankly, victorious. So, Israel can’t go into Rafah the way they went into Gaza City, with that massive destruction and doing [insufficient work] to get those civilians out of there, but, in my view, they — it’s terrible, but they have to go into Rafah because they have to eliminate Hamas to have a decent future.”
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