Allen H. Lipis’ Rosh Hashanah Message for 2025

To the People of Israel:

We know the Israel Government strategy. Israel won the war in Gaza and expected Hamas to surrender unconditionally, just as the Germans and Japanese did when they lost the war in World War II. But Hamas refuses to surrender and continues to fight.

If Hamas refuses to surrender no matter how decimated their war effort is, then what must Israel do to get Hamas to stop fighting and give up its commitment to destroy Israel? The US and other countries around the world have failed to convince Hamas to negotiate for peace. The only approach that seems left for Israel is to make the people in Gaza suffer enough so they push Hamas to negotiate a peace treaty. That suffering is taking the form of less land to live on, a minimal amount of food for survival, no support for their economy and no reconstruction effort for the existing wide scale destruction. Israel’s strategy is to make the Palestinian people relieve their suffering by pushing Hamas and other Arab countries to negotiate for peace, but no one knows how long Hamas will let the suffering continue.

After World War II, the winning countries controlled both Germany and Japan until a new government in each country was formed under ally control that operated with peaceful intent. Eventually the people there elected their own leaders. That is a long way off so long as Hamas refuses to negotiate for peace.

For this coming New Year and beyond, we Americans will support your efforts and pray that Hamas eventually concludes that its only way forward is to negotiate peace with Israel. Only then will it make sense to establish a Palestinian State and then the European countries will be able to support a new Palestinian state, but that time is way off and is totally dependent on Hamas.

Allen Lipis is a freelance writer for the Atlanta Jewish Times.