During debate over one of the Reconstruction bills, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner opined that more radical members of the Republican party, of which he was one, should temper their hopes regarding what Reconstruction might achieve. The fact was, Sumner noted, the South was simply riven with racism. While he supported a thorough Reconstruction, he believed it would take the passing of an entire generation to see any demonstrable effect. Federal support for legal equality and strong enforcement of that equality were necessary, but time must do its part.
I think of Sumner’s warning often regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially post-October 7th. Sumner’s words are even more prescient in recent days as we learn the tragic fate of the Bibas family. One tries to block from one’s mind images of what horrors were likely visited upon Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir. Israeli officials report that Hamas murderers killed Ariel and Kfir, ages four and nine months when taken hostage, “with their bare hands.” Seth Mandel eloquently expresses the outrage at this atrocity and the shame of Westerners, including many of high cultural profile such as members of Congress, celebrities, and university professors, who continue to defend the monsters who kill babies with their bare hands.
When turning over the bodies of Ariel and Kfir to the Israelis, scores of Gazans turned the event into an occasion for celebration. They were proud of their murder of a mother and her young children. Of course, we now know that Shiri Bibas’s remains were not turned over. The body Palestinians claimed was Shiri was actually that of a Gazan woman. There are only two possible explanations: either the Palestinians purposefully withheld Shiri’s body in a mockery of Israeli suffering, or they simply cannot find it. One can imagine Hamas terrorists being legitimately confused over which body was which. After all, they have murdered so many while caring so little. Either scenario, however, covers Hamas and their Gazan supporters in shame. It is worth remembering that the kidnapping and holding of the Bibas family, as with so many others, was done not in spite of Gazan civilians but often with their full cooperation.
The kind of hatred that was endemic in the American South in the Civil War era (and beyond) exists in Gaza in heightened degrees. At least American slaveholders didn’t wallow in bloodlust. It is sometimes said that Hamas and Palestinian leadership in general have turned Gaza into a large murderous antisemitic death cult. Hamas is an organization that produces children’s television promoting Jew-hatred and terrorist martyrdom. Generations of Palestinians have been raised in an environment that celebrates and promotes the most horrific violence, including rape and murder, all in the cause of fighting the so-called Jewish menace.
There is no deal, then, that could possibly resolve the conflict. There can be no real peace between the two sides. Israel, whatever its faults, is basically a peaceful, democratic, open, and tolerant society. Hamas-run Gaza is an armed Nuremberg rally posing as some sort of political entity.
What Gaza needs is Reconstruction, the problem being no one is well-positioned to actually effectuate such a thing. Like with the American South, such a policy would require conquering and occupying Gaza. Given the depths of Hamas’s depravity, control over all levers of power would have to be even more thorough than the apogee of American Reconstruction. In short, such a Gazan Reconstruction could not be gentle. Yet there is no other option—that is, no other option other than resigning ourselves to periodic horrors inflicted by Palestinian terrorists operating out of Gaza with the full support of Hamas and the civilian population.
Outlandish as it may sound, Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza is not a bad place to start. Yes, the notion that we are going to displace all current Gazans, raze the territory, and turn it into resort property is, to say the least, far-fetched. But at least it is a step toward recognizing that there is no real “deal” one can make with Hamas. Trump’s plan at least recognizes that Hamas and its Gazan supporters are incorrigible. There is no peace to be had with them, as the only terms they will accept are the end of the Jewish state of Israel and the murder of every Jew within its borders.
One wishes it didn’t have to be so, but at some point, reality has to slap us in the face. Perhaps the brutal murders of the Bibas family members represent that slap. Nothing short of a total reconstruction of Gaza will bring about a stable peace. Such a reconstruction must of necessity be severe. That is unpleasant. But not as unpleasant as an entire society that cheers for the murder of children.