Is the Israel-Hamas war Israel's Vietnam? - opinion

• Published date: 14 March 2024
• Author: DOUGLAS BLOOMFIELD
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The former US Information Agency Building in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) became the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes until our two countries established diplomatic relations. Now it is the War Remnants Museum, with an emphasis on American war crimes and atrocities

I also went to the countryside to see some of the tunnels and traps in the jungle and B52 bomb craters. That was where the mightiest and most technically advanced army in the world was defeated by a much smaller force both on the battlefield and in global media. Remember the village that had to be destroyed in order to save it and pictures of children with napalm burns? The superpower, hobbled by arrogant leadership, suffered a humiliating defeat.

I couldn't avoid seeing parallels to the war in Gaza.

Hamas's brutal attack on October 7 terrorized a nation, exposed the weakness of the region's preeminent power and its leadership, and killed more Jews than any day since the Holocaust. And worse.

Hamas's immediate goal was to derail Israel's normalization with the Arab world, notably Saudi Arabia, on the verge of an American brokered deal that would give it the upper hand in the regional rivalry with Hamas's patron, Iran.

Hamas also put the Palestinian issue back on the international agenda. The issue had been shelved by the Abraham Accords when moderate Arab states, weary of Palestinian maximalist demands and refusal to compromise, made their own peace with Israel. They wanted to focus on their own economic and security interests, offering little more than lip service to the Palestinian cause.

After October 7, the Saudis said Palestinian statehood was a prerequisite to full diplomatic relations with Israel, but they've begun backing off, talking instead about seeing progress toward that goal.

At this writing, Israel has reportedly agreed to an Egypt-Qatar-US brokered ceasefire of about six weeks and a hostage-for-prisoner exchange, but Hamas refuses even to identify the hostages while it keeps raising the ante, indicating that it feels it is winning and sees no need to give Israel what it wants most.The terror organization has one great advantage over Israel. It is willing to sacrifice thousands of Gazans to advance its cause because it is confident that Israel will bear the blame in the eyes of world opinion. The grim pictures of starving children, the growing pressure on Israel to stop the fighting, and the accelerating conflict between Israel and its friends, all work to Hamas' advantage...