Ross: What will the fighting in Gaza actually achieve?

What’s the point of demonstrating over fighting in Israel? Whose mind is that going to change? Demonstrations are just an opening for people who want to bring the fight here. No thanks.

All the arguments about history and debates over how many people have died on each side (which sounds like a depraved attempt at keeping score) — miss the point.

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The real problem here is that there’s a Hamas government that punishes all dissent, leaving no voice for moderates, and an Israeli government that allows all sorts of dissent but decided that walls and fences could contain something like half a million radicalized young men.

And whoever may hold the moral high ground, the reality on the actual ground, based on what I hear from people who know and study this area, is that Gaza is going to be invaded and subdued.

And it sounds like no matter how careful Israel intends to be, there will be a lot of what we politely call “collateral damage.” This tells me that the rational thing for Hamas to do would be to surrender. Right now.

You got your vengeance. Surrender, disarm, accept Israel’s existence, invite the journalists in to witness it, and see what happens. If there were a genuine surrender, with the whole world watching, the justification for further retaliation would evaporate.

The choice now is between continuing to fight over what can’t be changed because it’s in the past or swallowing hard and doing whatever it takes to stop the killing of innocent people in the present.

I’m under no illusions that Hamas will make the rational choice.

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