Netanyahu said it best, as this is Israel’s 9/11. I hope they handle it better. George Bush was right in many ways. We had to harden our defenses at home. And we had to go after terrorism abroad. These were right responses. But the nearly 20 years (2001 to 2021) of fighting the Taliban yielded little. We did not want Afghanistan to be a haven for terrorism. Noble causes sometimes do not end like we want.

We really have to detach emotions, and the desire for easy solutions to get an appropriate response. We are a nation of enormous power, when we chose correctly. But, when we act high and mighty to the rest of the world, and join with Israel in their brutal revenge, we lose our own integrity and independence.

Josh Paul is a State Department official who resigned yesterday over our military response to the attack by Hamas. He had served in the State Department for 11 years. As reported in CNN today:

“Let me be clear,” Paul wrote. “Hamas’ attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities. I also believe that potential escalations by Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a further cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy. But I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people – and is not in the long term American interest.”

Paul goes on:

Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security, nor to peace. The fact is, blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides.

Link: State Department official resigns over Biden administration’s handling of Israel-Hamas conflict

Stay tuned,

Dave