FP: How would the PA feel about seeing Hamas brought down?
KE: What does it mean to bring it down? You can kill all the leaders, which Israel has done. Remember back in the early 2000s, they killed the no. 1, 2, and 3 in succession, and there will always be someone to replace them. I don’t think you can just erase a political movement or political idea, whatever you may think about it.
This is another reason why I’m frustrated: There are no grown-ups in the diplomatic world who are calling for some reasonable, measured response and not falling into emotional reactions to everything.
FP: But if I may push back there, the nature of these attacks feels like it was designed to provoke an emotional response.
KE: Yes, of course. And that’s normal. We’re human beings. My hope is that once cooler heads have prevailed, after that initial shock has worn off, you need to sit down and think about rational responses.
There needs to be pushback, to say 2.3 million people—civilians in Gaza—did not have responsibility. They’re not responsible for the carnage that happened over the weekend in Israel. Otherwise, we’re just kind of buying into the same logic as the terrorists.
FP: What are you hearing from your contacts in Gaza right now about what the situation has been like there over the past 48 hours?
KE: The situation is horrific. Most people I know in Gaza are fleeing their homes to relatives’ homes where they think there’s less likelihood of being attacked. But there’s really nowhere to go, because nobody knows what the targets are. The targets are very malleable. And we’ve seen apartment buildings, all kinds of civilian infrastructure—anything and everything can be a target.
Israel doesn’t have a very good track record of protecting civilians. And now, given the rage in Israel, it has much less appetite to think about any red lines. They are still human beings. When you hear the Israeli defense minister refer to 2 million Palestinians in Gaza as human animals, we should be afraid of that. We should be concerned by that. Because they will act on it. When you dehumanize your enemy, then anything and everything is possible.
FP: How would the PA feel about seeing Hamas brought down?
KE: What does it mean to bring it down? You can kill all the leaders, which Israel has done. Remember back in the early 2000s, they killed the no. 1, 2, and 3 in succession, and there will always be someone to replace them. I don’t think you can just erase a political movement or political idea, whatever you may think about it.
This is another reason why I’m frustrated: There are no grown-ups in the diplomatic world who are calling for some reasonable, measured response and not falling into emotional reactions to everything.
FP: But if I may push back there, the nature of these attacks feels like it was designed to provoke an emotional response.
KE: Yes, of course. And that’s normal. We’re human beings. My hope is that once cooler heads have prevailed, after that initial shock has worn off, you need to sit down and think about rational responses.
There needs to be pushback, to say 2.3 million people—civilians in Gaza—did not have responsibility. They’re not responsible for the carnage that happened over the weekend in Israel. Otherwise, we’re just kind of buying into the same logic as the terrorists.
FP: What are you hearing from your contacts in Gaza right now about what the situation has been like there over the past 48 hours?
KE: The situation is horrific. Most people I know in Gaza are fleeing their homes to relatives’ homes where they think there’s less likelihood of being attacked. But there’s really nowhere to go, because nobody knows what the targets are. The targets are very malleable. And we’ve seen apartment buildings, all kinds of civilian infrastructure—anything and everything can be a target.
Israel doesn’t have a very good track record of protecting civilians. And now, given the rage in Israel, it has much less appetite to think about any red lines. They are still human beings. When you hear the Israeli defense minister refer to 2 million Palestinians in Gaza as human animals, we should be afraid of that. We should be concerned by that. Because they will act on it. When you dehumanize your enemy, then anything and everything is possible.