On Oct. 7, Hamas fighters crossed the Israeli border in multiple places and systematically murdered men, women and children, resulting in more than 1,400 fatalities, thousands more wounded, and the taking of more than 200 hostages. This assault was as unexpected as it was appalling. Israel’s response, beginning with air strikes and now moving into sustained ground operations in Gaza, has been widely criticized for cutting off humanitarian supplies and a rapidly growing number of civilian casualties in Gaza. Global opinion is split between those who view the Hamas attack as an unjustifiable act of terror, those who see it as a natural response to decades of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians and those who can thread the needle and see that horrors have been committed by and to both parties.
This conflict can be seen as another episode in the regional cycle of violence that has followed a predictable pattern for decades. Israel is attacked for simply existing, and is also attacked in response to the dire conditions of the Palestinian people. Israel responds with increasing levels of force, fueling hatred and motivating would-be terrorist recruits across the region — and the cycle starts again. Israel’s stated objective in the current conflict is to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth, likely not an achievable task but one that ensures many more thousands of civilians are likely to die. Hamas’ intentions, as recently explained by Hamas’ leadership and as stated in the organization's charter, are clear enough: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
