Newt Gingich, on George Stephanopoulos’ Sunday program, compared Hamas to the Third Reich, and said that like the Third Reich, Hamas has completely forfeited its right to exist.
Gingrich said: “Hamas wants to eliminate Israel. … We’ll say, ‘Let’s have a conversation,’ they’ll say, ‘Terrific, we want to destroy Israel.’ We’ll say, ‘Now that we are having a conversation, let’s have respect for one another.’ They’ll say, ‘Terrific, we want to destroy Israel.’ … This area (Gaza) has forfeited any right to self government, for the near future. We didn’t say to the Nazis, ‘Gosh we’re a little irritated with the 3rd Reich and we think we should negotiate a little right now.’ We basically said to the Nazis, ‘We’re going to eliminate your right to exist.’ ”
To compare Hamas to the Nazi regime is amazing. But if you are willing to think of Hamas in Nazi terms — a urgent, demonic and horrible threat — certainly it is a small step to conclude that Israel is well justified to rain down unspeakable violence on Gaza. It is easy to conclude that Israel is justified to kill over 900 fellow humans, including 300 children, entire families; justified to destroy mosques, schools, homes.
Gingrich made his Nazi comments as part of Stephanopoulos “Roundtable.” None of the other “Roundtable” participants challenged Gringrich’s wild comparison. The other participants were: George Will, Peggy Noonan, Thomas Friedman and, of course, George Stephanopoulos. Not a peep from anyone.
No-one on the “Roundtable” asked Gingrich the logical follow up question: Is Israel, therefore, justified in pursuing any level of violence against Gaza? Is there any limit to the level of violence against the Gazans that Gingrich would see as unacceptable?
It sounds like Gingrich’s likely answer would have been: “There is no limit to the measures Israel should take to destroy Hamas, just like there was no limit to the measures we were willing to take to destroy the Nazis.”
Gingrich’s thinking excuses state terrorism, and is a thinking common to war mentality: Our enemies are so evil, we are justified in taking any measures, however evil, to destroy them. Gingrich on the “Roundtable” advocated thinking that has always been the rationale used to justify, during war, inhuman levels of violence and unspeakable war atrocities. And the other panelists made not a peep in response to Gingrich.
Someone on the “Roundtable” should have raised the issue of State Terrorism by quoting Bill Moyers to Gingrich. Moyers said “Yes, every nation has the right to defend its people. Israel is no exception, all the more so because Hamas would like to see every Jew in Israel dead. But brute force can turn self-defense into state terrorism. It’s what the U.S. did in Vietnam, with B-52s and napalm, and again in Iraq, with shock and awe.”
