Letter: The case against an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza which could prove disastrous

The thirst for revenge for this extremely provocative Hamas offensive is understandable but an Israeli invasion could prove to be disastrous. Gaza is a very densely populated area - a military operation within the small narrow strip, which has an equivalent area to the Ards peninsula, will inevitably lead to the death of many innocent civilians. Recruits for Hamas will increase and Israel will lose international sympathy and support.

Hamas is physically well dug into this area with a series of underground tunnels and is embedded within the local population which they seem willing to use as a “human shield” against Israeli attack. It is said that Hamas use people to protect their missiles rather than missiles to protect their people. Driven by a fanatical death-cult theocracy they seem more interested in warfare than the welfare of their community.

Furthermore, it is a poor general that allows his enemy to choose the battlefield. This urban battleground is totally inappropriate for the use of Israeli tanks and other sophisticated weaponry. It thus neutralises their military advantage over the Hamas guerrilla fighters. This will increase Israeli casualties and make the question of how Israel will extract itself from this quagmire more problematic. How will it determine when it is “mission accomplished”?

There is also the danger of the conflict escalating into a conflagration across the whole Middle East. Iran sponsors a number of proxies of which Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon are the most important. It also has a burning desire to destroy the state of Israel and may have played a leading role in the Hamas pogrom.

Most troubling of all is the humanitarian crisis emanating from the exodus of the civilian population from northern Gaza. This could have truly catastrophic consequences and could be considered to be criminally insane. It will only benefit the fanatical Hamas fighters as it will render Israel a belligerent pariah state on the world stage. Israel must somehow be persuaded to hit the pause button. Jews should understand, from their own traumatic history of pogrom, displacement and diaspora, that the displaced Palestinians have had a similar tragic experience.

The Palestinians are seeking their own “promised land” - an economically viable state within the Palestine territory. Israeli Zionists must be told by their US sponsor that they have no divine God-given right in relation to the allocation of the Biblical Holy Land. Their territorial rights emanate solely from a purely secular source - namely the 1947 UN resolution 181 for the partition of Palestine. Furthermore, Zionists should also note that the UN has deemed Israeli expansion via settlements to be illegal. The US mist reign in their recalcitrant protégé.

Negotiations on the basis of the two state “land-for-security” trade-off should be resurrected by the UN. This process could hopefully belatedly grant the Palestinians their long deferred homeland, endow the Israelis with the precious gift of security, and exorcise the nihilistic ideology of Hamas from the Middle East.

George Workman, Donabate, Co Dublin