It is so dangerous and troubling that Israel’s best option, when all is said and done, might be to leave a rump Hamas leadership in power in Gaza. I argued in October that Israel was making a terrible mistake by rushing headlong into invading Gaza, the way America did in Afghanistan after 9/11. I thought Israel should have focused first on getting back its hostages, delegitimizing Hamas for its murderous and rapacious Oct. 7 rampage, and going after Hamas’s leadership in a targeted way — more Munich, less Dresden. That is, a military response akin to how Israel tracked down the killers of its athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and not how the U.S. turned Dresden into a pile of rubble in World War II. That approach would have won the support, funding and, I think, even peacekeeping troops of moderate Arab states like the U.A.E.

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Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden, Israel, “ Organizations: U.S, Hamas, Hamas Palestinian Authority, West Bank, Palestinian Authority Locations: Israel, Gaza, Afghanistan, Munich, Dresden, U.S