My must read of the day is "Free Gaza," by Matthew Continetti, in the Washington Free Beacon:
Want to end the war? I am not asking if you want to end Operation Protective Edge. I am asking if you want to end Hamas’ war on Israel. And if that is what you want, then the answer is simple: Free Gaza from Hamas. [...]
Why? Because the terrible price in human life is already being paid. It is being parceled out in increments. It is death on an installment plan: a killing here, an act of retaliation there, a mortar attack on one day, an airstrike the next, a war for three weeks, another one three months after that.
Collapse the tunnels or collapse Hamas. Lives will be lost either way. The difference is in the end state. Leave Hamas in charge, and you guarantee the war will resume, and more lives will be lost. Topple Hamas, and you remove the source of the conflict, the first cause of the death and destruction. Lives will be saved over time. Want an example? Casualties spiked during the Iraq surge in 2007. Then both American and civilian casualties plummeted. They remained low for years—until America withdrew.
It's easy to look at what's happening in Gaza and say "but too many Palestinian civilians are dying" or "this fight has a heavy cost." Of course it does and no sane person wants to see civilians die, but every single death is because of actions taken by an evil, murderous, terrorist organization. Hamas does not care about its people. It only cares about destroying Israel, that is after all their official mission, and they will never stop trying to do that. Regardless of the cost.
Israel doesn't have the privilege of a simple, clear-cut choice in Gaza, but when we consider the question of Israeli goals (reforming and weakening Hamas, or regime change) Continetti's take is an important position to consider.
Hamas is never going to stop. Even if they were significantly weakened, they would take any chance to rebuild and start their attacks again. What potentially comes in to replace them may be scary, but Hamas’ track record suggests that there will never be an end to this as long as they still exist. Maybe it’s better to go the route of the unknown to actually get rid of Hamas and stop their attacks and the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis. At the very least, we shouldn’t dismiss the idea.