Goldberg gets it right (and wrong) in the Times

When it comes to expertise on Hamas, there are few writers in American journalism as authoritative as Jeff Goldberg, the only Jew in the world who has spent years having all his self-loathing done for him, by the terrorist leadership, directly to his face. (He has, if nothing else, proved that their was nothing shy or polite about Rantisi or Rayyan when it came to bashing Jews.)

His op-ed in the New York Times yesterday serves as a great counterpoint to those of us advocating for a lifting of the siege on the grounds that it might moderate Hamas. Key graphs:

"There is a fixed idea among some Israeli leaders that Hamas can be bombed into moderation. This is a false and dangerous notion. It is true that Hamas can be deterred militarily for a time, but tanks cannot defeat deeply felt belief.

The reverse is also true: Hamas cannot be cajoled into moderation. Neither position credits Hamas with sincerity, or seriousness."

This is a great point, and worth remembering. As much as those of us hoping for a moderate Hamas like to write off their charter as mere bombast, the fact remains that the entirety of Hamas's spiritual leadership, and a substantial portion of its secular leadership, continue to be committed to the destruction of Israel. The idea that a more lenient policy would dissipate their dedication is largely fantastical. It's easy to forget this simple fact, and I'm glad Goldberg is taking the time to remind us.

I do, however, think he fails to do justice to the basic argument for a blockade lift, which isn't about the Hamas leadership at all, but about the lowest tier of Hamas members, and the citizens of Gaza generally. We're arguing for a change in Israeli policy to change the minds of those not totally committed to the ideology of Hamas, a not-small segment of the Gazan population. In that quote above, Goldberg is right on both counts in and of themselves. But he sets up a false equivalence by suggesting that, because neither option is a complete solution, they are both equally bad.

It should be an Israeli objective, not only to weaken Hamas, but to weaken popular support for Hamas. As we have seen, punishing Gazans economically for their stale election does nothing but further entrench this Islamists. But I continue to have hope that an easing of the blockade, if it does not soften the Hamas leadership, will nonetheless soften their popular support. And even if Goldberg disagrees, it's certainly no longer possible to claim that the siege is doing Israel any good. At the very least, a conditional opening of border crossings would discontinue the damage that Israel is doing to itself, if not immediately begin healing the political bent of Gazans.

Goldberg's other line of reasoning, that as long as Hamas is in thrall to Hizbullah, it will never renounce violence, falls short of the facts today; it's telling that his background on Hizbullah is mostly from 2006. To read the op-ed, you would never know that, since the 2006 war, Hizbullah has been fully integrated into and in many ways controls Lebanon. You might also not know that, despite a few minor incidents, Hizbullah has remained almost entirely quiet in the north. Nasrallah, of course, hasn't missed a TV appearance to threaten and intimidate Israelis. But Hizbullah hasn't launched an offensive, despite being armed, ready, and verbally committed. Did anyone, in 2006, believe such a miracle would be possible? Is there any chance that sudden governing responsibility is helping Hizbullah grow up? Goldberg doesn't address these questions, but his argument requires that they be answered.

Sometimes, I think Goldberg and top journalists like him are victims of their own success. He has unprecedented access to the Hamas leadership -- and that access seems to have helped him forget that opinions on the nature of the resistance within the lower tiers of Hamas may be very different. (What's particularly unusual here is that Goldberg makes precisely this point with regard to Hamas's perception of Hizbullah and Iran, without extending it all the way to what Hamas's resistance might mean to the "working-man terrorist.") His brief description of the Gazan rocket team is incredibly compelling, but I wish he had taken a moment to ask those men whether they thought there could have be a permanent end to hostilities with Israel.