The recent American airstrike on the Afghan city of Kunduz, which hit a hospital and left 22 people dead, reminded one American journalist of a similar incident during last year’s Gaza war, as the editors of the New York Post write:

[The] Associated Press reporter Matt Lee caught the deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner by surprise at a briefing this week. . . . Lee recalled Israel’s August 2014 shelling of a UN school in Gaza—which the State Department immediately labeled “disgraceful,” adding: “The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians.”

Lee asked: Does that policy still hold?

Toner was at a complete loss . . . and begged Lee to “give [him] a pass [and] wait for the investigation to run its course.” That’s a pretty reasonable position, actually. But it flies in the face of last year’s instantaneous criticism of Israel—made long before any investigation had even begun.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.