Our two greatest presidents — George Washington and Abraham Lincoln — demanded complete, unconditional surrender from the enemies they fought against — Great Britain and the South — because they knew that that was the ONLY way to assure that peace would be restored and the soldiers could go home.
The leaders of those presidents’ enemies were honorable men — George III and Robert E. Lee — and so they agreed to surrender rather than keep fighting and destroy their own people.
If Benjamin Netanyahu emulates our greatest presidents, he, too, will demand complete, unconditional surrender from Hamas. The fact that the leaders of Hamas are not honorable men like George III and Robert E. Lee, but instead bloodthirsty terrorists, is Hamas’s problem and that of its poor Palestinians subjects.
Israel would not have gotten into the mess it’s been in for the past 20-plus years if it had refused to negotiate with terrorists — that is, if it had refused to get involved in the endless peace processes that America’s presidents, starting with Bill Clinton and his obsession with building a presidential legacy and winning a Nobel Peace Prize, pressured them into taking part in.
Twenty-years ago, in the pre-Iron Dome era when Israel was completely dependent on the U.S. for its defense, Israel had no choice but to let itself be used as a pawn in U.S. presidential legacy-building.
But those times are over. There is no excuse now for Benjamin Netanyahu not to take his place beside America’s Washington and Lincoln as a great leader who refused to stop fighting until his enemy completely surrendered so that a genuine peace could be established.
great post Bluestocking!