Thanks for sharing a thoughtful and considered opinion on the current crisis in Israel and Gaza. Also, thanks for sharing JoAnn and Michael’s article. I served for several years on the board of Americans for Peace Now with them and respect them as I do you. That said, let me try to outline my concerns and observations about the Gordian knot that I believe prevents the course of action you and they propose.

First, as of last week, which does not include at least 1000 additional aerial bombardment attacks by the Israeli Air Force, 60,000 homes had been destroyed by the bombing. Given the population density and family size that probably means up to 500,000 people, or slightly more than 20% of the population of Gaza, now have no home to which to return. In addition, a UN agency estimated that 1.4 million Gazans are now displaced, that is more than half the population and the WHO and UNRWA have made clear that there is an immediate crisis for civilians.

Second, the right to self-defense is not at issue, although I think it is far more complicated than the way it is used in this situation. However, planning self-defense while also dealing with rage, mourning, fear, and at some level an interest in revenge is not a great way to make policy. Such efforts usually also fail to answer the critical question “What happens next?”.

Third, in any planning or analysis of policy one must consider the option that there is no simple course of self-defense. For decades we have seen unfolding an endless cycle of incidents and revenge, incidents and revenge in which both sides have acted with excessive disregard for their adversary and disregard for establishing a basis for peace. On each side, and within the United States, there has been a movement to resolve the conflict through a negotiated process which at different points has been called land for peace, a two state solution or a one state solution. All of these formulations recognize that the current occupation of Palestine denies the rights of the Palestinian people and creates periodic explosions.

Fourth, the presence of more than 200 hostages requires placing a priority on freeing the hostages. This means the process of negotiation and a major commitment to restraint and taking the time necessary to work out a solution. If we believe that the murder of innocent civilians on October 7 was wrong, then we must act to both enter a process to free the hostages while at the same time assuring humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. While it is not popular among policy wonks, rational people on both sides, with the urging of other nations, the relatives of hostages and other interested groups might push for an exchange of hostages for Palestinians in Israeli jails, at least 1000 of whom are held without charges. We might save lives and we might get the belligerents to sit down and talk about a mutual interest.

Fifth, for at very least five decades of occupation we have seen an extraordinary imbalance in military capability that to this day shows that Israel dominates militarily. This should have by now taught us that such dominance actually may not make negotiations easier but does impose a higher burden of restraint on the part of the dominant party.

Sixth, the options of moving south or taking refuge along the coast are not workable for a significant portion of the population of Gaza. For the old, sick, disabled, the very young and many of those suffering from PTSD such movement is not possible. In addition, the lack of any system of transportation makes moving large numbers of people even more difficult. Having worked on planning systems of evacuation during times of natural disasters I can say that beyond those problems mentioned there is the problem of leaving behind one’s possessions, one’s pets – all the things that make your home your home. Further, there is extensive experience that when Palestinians leave their homes, they are denied the right to return. Therefore, going to Egypt seems a one-way ticket. Perhaps if the offer had been made to go to the Negev there might have been a better response because then there would be an assumption that some right of return would exist.

In this context, given the history, given the imbalance of power, given the dispersed location of the Hamas fighters, given the hostages, and given the need to break the cycle of incidents and revenge in favor of taking risks for peace I would suggest that:

• There is no just war out here. Just wars are defined after the fact by victors. I cannot take any comfort in the twists of logic that defines a just war. It is just war.
• Each side has committed war crimes,
• The process of aerial bombardments and proposed movement of people constitutes ethnic cleansing, and,
• Without an immediate cessation of violence and a commitment to look for an alternative way forward, even though this means not avenging the deaths of loved ones (whatever that would mean) there will be more atrocities and more violence for many years to come.

Military action will not destroy Hamas, although it could cause such pain and destruction in Gaza and the West Bank to create new generations of whatever follows Hamas. No matter what makes sense in game theory there is no justice in destroying Gaza to destroy Hamas. Gaza will not be able to rebuild. Hamas will. We have decades of experience that reinforce this reality. No matter how painful, the perpetrators of the ugly, vicious, criminal attack on Israel will survive this moment (although they will spend a great deal of time looking over their shoulders from this time forward). They are not the issue. The people of Israel and the people of Palestine are. And the only way to mourn the dead and comfort the living is to seek justice and abandon the notion that Israel can destroy Hamas’ military capability with minimal impact on civilians even though that impact will involve tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of displacements. No just war. No justice without risks for peace and abandoning the false justice of punishing self-defense. We must do better.