Needed: Balanced Statements by Obama Officials on Israel-Gaza Conflict
Senior U.S. officials need to choose their words much more carefully on the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.
President Obama yesterday called for an immediate cease-fire in the Israeli-Gaza conflict because “we don’t want to see any more civilians getting killed.”
Secretary of State Kerry was caught on a hot mic during a break in a Fox News Sunday appearance making comments that mocked Israel’s efforts to limit civilian casualties during the Gaza operation by sarcastically telling an aide, “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation.”
Such biased and naïve comments play into the hands of Hamas leaders who have staged this war to isolate Israel internationally by sacrificing Palestinian women and children.
The Obama administration cautiously supported Israel’s invasion of Gaza and should have known this operation was certain to result in large numbers of civilian casualties because of Hamas’ practice of using women and children as human shields. Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz calls this Hamas’ “dead baby strategy” which entails Hamas fighters deliberately firing rockets from densely populated civilian areas in Gaza, using hospitals, disability centers, mosques and schools as launching sites. According to Dershowitz, this forces Israel to choose whether to allow these rockets to endanger Israeli civilians or to attack the launch sites, thereby risking civilian casualties among Hamas’ human shields.
This Hamas practice amounts to a war crime. Obama and Kerry should be speaking out to condemn it as such.
Obama and Kerry also should be stressing that the Israeli invasion of Gaza would not have occurred if Hamas joined Israel in agreeing to an Egyptian cease-fire plan last week.
Israeli forces have found far more Hamas tunnels to infiltrate Israel and store weapons than expected. In a related development, Israeli forces reportedly destroyed a warehouse in Sudan over the weekend storing a large number of long-range Iranian missiles that were en route to Hamas fighters in Gaza.
This is why Israeli leaders made the difficult decision to invade Gaza and why they intend to stay until Israeli forces have substantially reduced the threat from Hamas rockets and tunnels. President Obama and Secretary Kerry should be talking about this and cease making statements that place most of the blame for this conflict on Israel and attempt to pressure Israeli leaders to halt the Gaza operation before its objectives are met.
Fred Fleitz served in 2018 as a Deputy Assistant to President Donald Trump and Chief of Staff to National Security Adviser John Bolton.
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