Letters to the Editor: Israel will do the Palestinians and itself a favor by wiping out Hamas

To the editor: Removing Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip is the best gift that can be given to the poor, suffering residents of this crowded enclave. For a decade and a half, the focus of the Hamas government was on arming, tunneling, bunker building and training for and executing war with Israel. (“Invading Gaza, but to what end? Netanyahu’s incompetent government has no answers,” Opinion, Oct. 13)

While it is popular to blame Israel for “imprisoning” the residents of Gaza, recall that in 2005, Israel uprooted all of its settlements there, seen as the major obstacle for peaceful coexistence.

Gaza needs a different government, one focused on the well-being of the population. Removing Hamas may open the door for democratic election of a government with the people’s well-being as its goal.

On the Israeli side, we also need to deal with the extremists who have successfully derailed any hope for peace. They are gaining political adherents every time Hamas fires rockets into Israel.

Removing the extremists from power, in this case Hamas, will go a long way toward renewing hope and trust on both sides.

Shaul Rosen-Rager, Hemet

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To the editor: As Israel contemplates its response to the barbarous acts of Hamas, it must consider the costs of the collateral damage of an invasion.

How many Palestinian children must it kill in order to eliminate one Hamas fighter? Will it be one? Ten? One hundred?

And calling it collateral damage will not assuage the anguish of Palestinian parents. Do Israeli parents want to have Palestinian parents suffer as they do?

Hamas is a disease that must be eliminated, but not at the cost of destroying our humanity.

John Williams, Burbank

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To the editor: The tragic events now unfolding in Israel have starkly exposed the folly and incompetence of its far-right government.

It plunged the country into an unprecedented political crisis in order to keep Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu out of jail. The ensuing institutional disruptions in the Israel Defense Forces must have been a major reason why Hamas launched its murderous rampage at this time, and why the IDF failed to anticipate the onslaught and why it was slow to respond.

Now the government seeks to destroy Hamas in Gaza, which is leading to untold suffering among its population.

Much of the world was shocked and horrified by what Hamas did and continues to do. But global opinion could well turn from sympathy to massive outrage with deleterious consequences for Israel.

As Uriel Heilman asked in his op-ed article, “Are there no other, more effective ways to neutralize Hamas that Israel hasn’t yet tried?”

Thomas P. Bernstein, Irvine