Hamas is a Taliban State...

Another good piece by Marty Peretz...

A cease-fire can sometimes be had between civilized governments. But why isn't anyone pressing the United States and its allies in Afghanistan into a cease-fire with the Taliban? A stupid question. Because the enemy is the Taliban, and the Taliban could as easily convert to Christianity as agree to an armistice with its opponents. Maybe they'd agree to what the Arabs call a hudna, a pause, a lull, but only on tactical grounds.

The fact is that Hamas is a Taliban state, as one Israeli diplomat put it. This is almost an epiphany, a clarifying truth. Hamas operates against its Palestinian enemies like the Taliban does against its Afghani enemies. Imagine a Hamas squad enters a kindergarten in a kibbutz. Neither the Taliban nor Hamas strive for earthly aims. Armed with instruments of death, they each fight for a heavenly design. But on earth. Yes, what a heaven that would be. Death is their own blessed comrade. Go ahead, establish a cease-fire with one of them. America before Israel.

The Taliban is not an analogy to Hamas. It is identical, equivalent. A cease-fire with Hamas is a delusion. Engage with whom?

Israel has shown more than enough restraint through years of provocation. Or, as my friend Bret Stephens has written, "No ingenious conceit can disguise the fact war offers no outcome other than victory or defeat. This is one big thing that Hamas understands." Let us hope that Israel grasps this, too. And the new administration, as well.