Hamas crossed every red line in their diabolical rampage in Israel – and now, as with Iraq, we have a war nobody can win
WHAT is a “proportionate” response to the murder of babies in their beds, some of them reportedly beheaded?
Or to the mass machine-gun slaughter of 260 people attending a music festival?
Or to the kidnapping of an elderly lady who survived the Holocaust, along with 198 other hostages?
Or to the killing of another grandmother, and then posting the video of her death to her Facebook page so her family would see it?
Watch Piers Morgan Uncensored weekdays on Sky 522, Virgin Media 606, Freeview 237, Freesat 217 or on Fox Nation in the US
Or to burning alive parents and their children as they cowered in their homes?
READ MORE FROM PIERS MORGAN
What could possibly be deemed “proportionate” to the hideous, gut-wrenching evil that Hamas terrorists inflicted on Israel on October 7?
Honestly, I don’t have the answer to this question. But it’s one that Israel must ask itself as it prepares to invade Gaza from land, air and sea.
Let me be clear: Israel has an absolute right to defend itself and its people after the monstrous attacks ten days ago which killed 1,300 people and constituted the deadliest assault on Jewish people since the Second World War.
Global war
Hamas crossed every conceivable red line with their diabolical rampage, and most reasonable-minded people will surely conclude that the terror group must now be eliminated just as IS were when they showed the same callous disregard for human life a few years ago.
Most read in The Sun
Peace in the Middle East’s most enduring and painful conflict will never be possible now so long as the perpetrators of those horrors remain in control of the Palestinian people.
But what happens in the next few days and weeks will determine whether Israel retains or destroys the huge support it has rightly had since October 7.
And whether this current situation escalates into a much wider and more dangerous global war.
I’m seriously concerned that Israel may fall into the same trap America, and its allies like Britain, fell into after 9/11.
To avenge the appalling attacks on US targets including the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we illegally invaded Iraq — which had nothing to do with the real culprits, Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network — and it was a total disaster.
More than a million people died, Iraq became a breeding ground for IS and the spurious excuse for the war, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, turned out to be a big, fat, credibility-slaying falsehood.
The situation now is different, but the potential perils are the same.
There is no dispute that Hamas committed the terror attacks, because they have brazenly, repulsively boasted about it.
But a full-blown invasion of Gaza to get rid of the terrorist group will be a horribly difficult military exercise.
As retired four-star US general David Petraeus, who commanded Allied Forces in Iraq, told The Sunday Times, it will be an “exceedingly daunting task”.
Why?
He explained: “You’re going into a very densely populated area. You have high-rises, not just multi-storey flats or houses.
“You know you likely will have to clear every building, every floor, every room, every basement . . . this extensive tunnel system they’ve built . . . (Hamas has) had months to prepare for this, they are as creative in the defence as they were in the attack . . . there are going to be fiendishly difficult ambushes — rooms rigged to blow up.”
And, of course, it won’t just be Hamas terrorists who die in the ferocious battles that rage.
Palestinian authorities claim that more than 3,000 civilians have already been killed by Israeli air strikes since October 7.
That civilian death toll will sky-rocket with any ground invasion, and every image of dead Palestinian women and children will pile more international pressure on Israel to show more restraint, to be more “proportionate”.
On my show Piers Morgan Uncensored last night, Muslim YouTube commentator Mohammed Hijab asked me whether I condemned Israel’s air strikes given how many children are dying from them, and I replied that I defended Israel’s right to defend itself after what happened on October 7.
But Israel mustn’t now abuse that right.
At what point does “self-defence” become “collective punishment”, where the line between genuine innocent Palestine civilian, and Hamas terrorist, is so blurred as to be non-existent?
Where Israel, through its actions, deems them all equally responsible and accountable?
How far can Israel go with its food, water and energy blockade of Gaza before the world says: STOP!
I agree with those like President Biden and Prime Minister Sunak, who have expressed the need for urgent humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians who have suffered so much for so long.
As we saw with Iraq, the moral high ground can quickly morph into global opprobrium if the world senses the punishment outweighs the crime.
And what happens if Israel does end up taking control of Gaza?
General Petraeus revealed how when the battle of Najaf, in Iraq, ended on April 3, 2003, after days of brutal urban warfare, he radioed his commander, Lieutenant General William Wallace, and told him: “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is we control Najaf.
Recipe for mayhem
“Yes. What’s the bad news?”
“The bad news is we control Najaf.”
It turned out we had no plan for occupying Iraq, and deadly chaos reigned for years.
It is a warning Israel would do very well to heed.
Just at the point where it has forged friendly new relationships with many Arab countries, levelling Gaza, killing God knows how many Palestinians in the process, and occupying all those who survive is a recipe for mayhem and could trigger a much bigger war with the likes of Iran.
There will be no winners in this war.
Israel may well wipe out Hamas in the end, but the cost will be incredibly high.
And for me, the bottom line is this: If you feel no sympathy for innocent Israelis murdered or kidnapped by Hamas terrorists last weekend, you have no humanity.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
If you feel no sympathy for innocent Palestinians killed in Israel’s attacks on Gaza, you have no humanity.
As this hellish war unfurls, be human.