- Bret Stephens, a Pullitzer-Prize winning New York Times columnist and former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, said in an interview with The Hub that "anguish is competing with fury" in the hearts of Israelis as details continue to emerge from a bloody weekend that saw over 1,200 Israeli civilians killed and 150 people believed to be taken hostage in Gaza.
- "Israel cannot obtain an unconditional victory because they’re never going to get an unconditional surrender. It’s never going to be a surrender ceremony on the Battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. But what they can do is achieve an unequivocal victory," said Stephens.
- Stephens compared the war in Gaza with Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and placed it in a broader context of a global battle between open and closed societies. "We can’t afford to simply turn our back on the world and imagine that it will turn its back on us. We can try to do that, but eventually it comes back to haunt us," he said.
OTTAWA — Israel needs to achieve an “unequivocal victory” over Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the wake of a deadly surprise attack by Hamas terrorists on Saturday, said Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, in an exclusive interview with The Hub.
The death toll continued to rise on Wednesday as the details of Saturday’s massacre came into focus, with estimates rising to 1,200 dead Israeli civilians and 150 people believed to be held hostage in Gaza.
Stephens, who writes about foreign policy for the Times and was previously the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, said that “anguish is competing with fury” in the hearts of Israelis as details continue to emerge from the bloody weekend.
Israel is massing tanks and soldiers along the border with Gaza and firing retaliatory missile strikes into the coastal territory controlled by Hamas and Stephens said the world could be looking at the first stage of what will be a “very protracted, very bloody war.”
“Israel cannot obtain an unconditional victory because they’re never going to get an unconditional surrender. It’s never going to be a surrender ceremony on the Battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. But what they can do is achieve an unequivocal victory,” said Stephens, speaking to The Hub‘s executive director Rudyard Griffiths on the Hub Dialogues podcast.
“That’s important because if Israel can achieve an unequivocal victory, it restores deterrence. And it might give the Palestinians room to think, ‘We never want to do that again. We have to move down a different path,'” he said.
In the interview, Stephens said the attacks come at a time when many leaders in the Arab world were growing weary of Hamas and looking to normalize relations with Israel.
Just weeks ago, during a meeting in New York, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden marvelled at the possibility of a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
“If you and I—10 years ago—were talking about normalization with Saudi Arabia, I think we’d look at each other like, ‘Who’s been drinking what?’” Biden said to Netanyahu at a subsequent media availability.
The Abraham Accords, which were kicked off during the Trump administration, saw the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco recognize Israel’s sovereignty in exchange for diplomatic concessions. Saudi Arabia was expected to follow those countries, in a sign that the Palestinian cause was less salient in the Arab world than in previous decades.
Many experts see the attack by Hamas as a deliberate effort to sabotage the ongoing effort in the Arab world to normalize relations with Israel. Stephens said leaders in Saudi Arabia would happily see Hamas lose power in Gaza, enough though they can’t say it publicly.
“They see Hamas as a cat’s paw for Iranian power, and they wouldn’t mind seeing Hamas defenestrated, or at least not literally, but thrown out of power in Gaza because it’s a threat to them. Even though Hamas, of course, is a Sunni organization, they’ve essentially become an arm of Shiite power which they fear,” said Stephens.
Stephens compared the war in Gaza with Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and placed it in a broader context of a global battle between open and closed societies.
“We no longer live in a world where our oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific, are our moats. We can’t afford to simply turn our back on the world and imagine that it will turn its back on us. We can try to do that, but eventually it comes back to haunt us,” said Stephens.
In the wake of the tragedy, Stephens said the key thing holding Israel together is its sense of community and solidarity. He told the story of a retired general who, after receiving a panicked call for help on Saturday from his son and his family, drove out to rescue them. The former general picked up wounded soldiers along the way and ultimately ended up fighting his way into his son’s home to rescue the family.
“Say what you will about Israel, in a society where that happens, that society, in the long run, is going to endure, and we should be looking, and Israel will be looking, for examples like that to remind itself that it is still a country worth fighting for, still a country worth loving, still a country worth having,” said Stephens.
