The common defense of the Israeli attacks seems to be that they "needed" to do something in response to Hamas's provocations. A legitimate government cannot allow its people to be fired upon. But this is an odd justification indeed. They didn't "need" to do anything. Not if the only options were making the situation worse. And this will make the situation worse. Hamas is an entity that feeds off of Palestinian hatred towards Israel. Can anyone seriously claim that Israel's attacks will not amplify Palestinian anger? Will they not be strengthened by pan-Arab, and even international, solidarity? As Spencer Ackerman writes, "Israel is acting astrategically to Hamas's provocations, isolating itself even further internationally, and driving the Palestinians of Gaza -- and, who knows, maybe the West Bank -- into the hands of Hamas, all in the service of unachievable military objectives and delivering unconscionable collective punishment to Palestine." Indeed, I've actually not yet heard a compelling defense of this on strategic grounds. Hamas engages in asymmetric warfare against Israel. Israel is destroying Hamas's conventional -- which is to say, symmetric -- capacities. They are obliterating Hamas-as-governing-authority and strengthening Hamas-as-popular-terrorist-group. It's mindless. The broader aim seems to mirror that of the blockade: Cause enough pain to the Palestinian citizenry and they will eventually reject Hamas. It's a strategy that has not worked, and will not work. Ask yourself if Abbas is stronger today than he was a year ago. Which brings us to the final justification: Israel needed to do something, and this is something, so they needed to do this, and thus we should support it. But they didn't need to do this. It was a choice. And in three months, when the retaliatory attack comes, and 87 Israelis perish, then Israel will "need" to do something again. This is why it's called a "cycle of violence." What Israel "needs" to do is break it.
