Infrequently Asked Questions: Amid Misery in Gaza, Some Things Don't Compute -- Part 2

Jeff Robbins on Aug 12, 2025

On CNN last week, analyst Scott Jennings asked Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, like many a critic of Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to fully occupy the Gaza Strip, if Rogin had an alternative to militarily removing Hamas from power in Gaza. Rogin's recommendation: "You can steer (Hamas) toward better governance, but that will require working with it."

Now, there are plenty of reasons to be deeply skeptical of Netanyahu's plan, including the fact that Israel's own military strongly opposes it. But the proposal of Rogin, whom the Washington Post regards as a foreign policy expert and who doubtless regards himself similarly, that the smart response to Hamas' genocidal invasion of Israel, its mass slaughter of Israelis and its pledges to repeat it if permitted, to "steer (Hamas) toward better governance" isn't merely inane. It's breathtakingly naive, almost childlike.

But it raises this question: Is he kidding?

He isn't.

The virtually universal judgment that Israel is to blame for the indisputable suffering in Gaza since Hamas sent 5,000 gunmen into Israel to stage a massacre raises too many questions to keep up with.

Here's some more.

Israel's "fundamental error," commentators like Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus Richard Haass instruct, was not having a "day-after plan" for Gaza before responding to Hamas' Oct. 7 invasion.

Out of curiosity, was Franklin Roosevelt out of line prosecuting our war against Japan after its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor without first having in place a "day-after plan" for the administration of Japan after -- God willing -- we defeated it?

And how, precisely, could Israel have a "day-after plan" for the governance of Gaza after Hamas was defeated in the wake of a surprise attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, the proportional equivalent of about 40,000 Americans? Wasn't Priority No. 1 actually defeating Hamas, immensely challenging given (1) the massive military infrastructure, complete with hundreds of miles of underground tunnels beneath residential neighborhoods, it had constructed; and (2) given the preceding point, the fact that there was no way to defeat Hamas without actually killing Gazans indiscriminately en masse -- which Hamas actually wanted?

It's much easier making guest appearances on "NewsNight" than dismantling a genocidal regime committed to annihilating Israelis and consigning Gazans to death.

Was a satisfactory "day-after plan" occupying Gaza in the same way the United States occupied Germany and Japan after World War II, to set up plans to administer them? Evidently not. Was a satisfactory plan standing aside to permit the Arab states to step in, fund Gaza's reconstruction and try to administer Gaza? Problem is that those states have evinced no interest in doing anything of the sort. After all, Gaza has been a hell for generations, for reasons that have nothing to do with Israel. Is the Arab world's ardent desire to avoid responsibility for Gaza Israel's fault?

Last month, the 22-member Arab League, along with the European Union and other countries, publicly called upon Hamas to disarm and relinquish control of the Gaza Strip. Big news and great to hear.

The obvious question: How is that supposed to happen without Israel making it happen? How can one simultaneously declare that Hamas must disarm and surrender control of Gaza and casually condemn Israel for trying to do it? Who else is going to do it -- the Tooth Fairy?

Then there's the "these-cannot-both-be-true" category of questions. Earlier this summer, the media reported widely that an internal USAID memo had concluded that there was "no evidence" that Hamas "systematically" intercepted humanitarian aid in Gaza, sharply contradicting Israel's assertions. But last week the United Nations itself issued a report stating that between May 19 and Aug. 5, of the 2,600 or more humanitarian aid trucks crossing from Israel into Gaza, 2,309 were "intercepted," a diplomatic way of saying "stolen." That's nearly 90% of the humanitarian aid.

Ninety percent seems pretty systematic. And if it wasn't Hamas that was doing the "intercepting," who was it? The Amish?

There's quite a cocksure narrative that has taken root when it comes to Gaza. Hamas is whitewashed; Israel is blamed. But there's plenty of reason to question it. It's time for those questions to be asked.

Jeff Robbins' latest book, "Notes From the Brink: A Collection of Columns about Policy at Home and Abroad," is available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books and Google Play. Robbins, a former assistant United States attorney and United States delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, was chief counsel for the minority of the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. An attorney specializing in the First Amendment, he is a longtime columnist for the Boston Herald, writing on politics, national security, human rights and the Mideast.