Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) expressed that Israel initially heeded the Biden administration’s advice to proceed slowly and devise a better plan before invading Gaza.
However, he noted that Israel seems to be doubling down on the same tactics and may not be listening to the U.S. now.
Moulton emphasized the importance of eliminating Hamas for Israel’s security and Palestinian freedom but expressed concerns that current tactics may not achieve this goal. (Trending: Assault Weapons Ban Set To Take Effect, Here’s What To Know)
He highlighted the need to avoid excessive civilian casualties and suggested that Israel’s success is dependent on changing their tactics based on lessons learned from insurgency conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“They delayed the invasion based on administration advice to take it more slowly, to devise a better plan before they went into Gaza. But it’s hard to say that Israel is listening to us now. They are clearly doubling down on these same tactics,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) said.
“I think there was good evidence that Israel was listening to the administration at the beginning of the war. In fact, we in Congress were briefed in a classified setting that the invasion would start much sooner than it did,” Moulton said.
“They delayed the invasion based on administration advice to take it more slowly, to devise a better plan before they went into Gaza. But it’s hard to say that Israel is listening to us now.”
“They are clearly doubling down on these same tactics. But all of us, including the veterans in Congress who wrote this letter, want to see Israel succeed in its mission to eliminate Hamas.”
“Hamas has to be eliminated if Israel is ever going to be secure and if the Palestinians are ever going to be free. Let’s not forget, Hamas is an organization with the destruction of Israel written into its charter, an organization that uses its own people, the people of the Gaza Strip, as human shields in this conflict.”
“So, we want to see Israel succeed in getting rid of Hamas, and we’re concerned that their current tactics are not going to achieve that goal, that you can’t win what is fundamentally a counter-insurgency fight just by killing your way out of a solution.”
“Because every time you kill innocent civilians — and we know that Israel has done a lot of that — you help recruit terrorists to the cause. So, my hope is that ultimately Israel will see what we’re trying to tell them.”
“We’re trying to share a bunch of lessons that we learned, painfully, over years of fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our hope is that Israel will finally see that their success is dependent on their changing their tactics.”
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