by Aaron B. Cohen
JUF News Executive Editor
Chicagoans watching the ugly scenes unfolding in the Middle East may wonder what's driving the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Why can't the two sides just get along? Isn't despair driving the extremism?

An engine of determination not one of despair lies under the hood of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Hamas cannot have despaired of making peace with Israel; it never wanted to. From the outset it determined to wage jihad according to its Islamist credo. Destroying Israel and replacing it with a greater Islamic state of Palestine always has been its goal; terrorism always has been its tactic.

Israel in contrast hasn't despaired of accommodating Palestinian statehood based on mutual recognition and an end to hostilities and claims. But it is determined to prevent Hamas from continuing to rain rockets and missiles on Israeli civilians.

Nearly four years ago Israel withdrew completely from Gaza, determined to exchange land for the possibility of peace. The world witnessed incredible scenes of Israelis evicting Israelis from homes and farms and villages.

Hamas, especially since violently overthrowing Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, seized on Israel's withdrawal to intensify rocket fire on towns and villages near the border. For eight years Israeli civilians in the Hamas/Islamic Jihad target zone have lived under a hail of thousands of rockets indiscriminately fired. Only thanks to an ingenious warning system do citizens--mothers with infants, toddlers, schoolchildren, the elderly--have 15 seconds to get to a "safe" room. Israel's efforts to protect its civilians as opposed to the Hamas strategy of waging war from among civilians, has saved hundreds of lives.

Despite the unending provocations all these years Israel declined to attack Hamas all out, in large measure for the sake of Palestinian civilians, whom Hamas uses as human shields. Hamas in contrast singled out as terror targets the crossings for fuel, goods and people between Israel and Gaza, and used the subsequent (and always temporary) closure of those crossings in its ceaseless--and hate-filled--anti-Israel propaganda campaign.

When Hamas came to power it refused to meet the three conditions the international community demanded: recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence, and commitment to previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. It chose instead to maintain its rejection of Israel's right to exist (which it code-names "resistance"), smuggling weapons from its Iranian patrons into Gaza and firing rockets into Israel.

What happens next?

Hamas is taking a pounding, as it expected and wanted. It's gaining street cred. It's not about to change its stripes. Instead of mutual recognition Hamas will continue to preach Israel's destruction and embrace martyrdom.

Having exhausted all other possibilities during the past eight years, Israel sees no choice but to fight hard.

Who will remain standing and what will be the nature of the peace that someday will come?

There is hope. It's no secret that Israel is the country in the region with the most robust rule of law; the strongest democratic institutions; and the greatest academic, scientific, and economic achievements. It's a cultural powerhouse. It has accomplished it all despite being a nation of embattled survivors and refugees.

The best outcome for the Palestinian people would be to emulate that model, to build rather than to seek to destroy. One of the signs of promise of the peace process of the 1990s was budding cooperation between those Israelis and Palestinians, who, people-to-people, were ready to make peace and to do business.

That's the best chance people have to learn, to create, and to achieve a normal life.

Israel will not abandon its rights to self-determination and self-defense. Will a Palestinian leadership free of the Hamas ideology be prepared to make peace with Israel, end the conflict, and bring the Palestinian people a better life?

No one relishes the heart-rending scenes of civilians caught in a war--especially a war instigated by a fanatical, terrorist group for no other purpose than to erode the existence of a sovereign state.

Despite our sadness we Chicagoans who support Israel do not despair. Israel is determined to prevail.

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