At a UN Security Council meeting on Sunday, U.S. Amb. Dorothy Shea offered an indisputable observation about the ongoing conflict in Gaza: "This war could end today if Hamas would let the hostages and all of Gaza go free."
France, Britain, and Germany, as stalwart American allies, backed her up.
I wish that were true.
In fact, the envoys from these three countries condemned Israel's plan to take on the Hamas forces still controlling Gaza City, asserting that such action will "worsen an already catastrophic situation."
So, they proposed an alternative approach.
I wish that were true, too
About 20 Israeli hostages are believed to be still surviving, most likely in the subterranean fortress Hamas built with money and material provided by the "international donor community."
In exchange for freeing them, Israel has been offering, through American presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, to release thousands of convicted terrorists from Israeli prisons and guarantee safe passage out of Gaza to Hamas leaders who want to leave.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week noted: "The talks with Hamas fell apart on the day [French President Emmanuel] Macron made the unilateral decision that he's going to recognize the Palestinian state."
Similarly, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the UK will recognize a Palestinian state in September unless there's a ceasefire. Again in Mr. Rubio's words: "Well, if I'm Hamas, I've basically concluded let's not do a ceasefire."
Also last week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that his government was suspending "any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice."
No one doubts that the war that Hamas began and refuses to end has brought terrible suffering to Gazan civilians.
To say that Hamas leaders don't care would be incorrect. On the contrary, Hamas leaders want to give as many Gazan civilians as possible the gift of "martyrdom" in the jihad they are waging against a nation they regard as an outpost of a despised civilization with roots in ancient Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem.
Hamas is no longer a formidable military machine but only an insurgency, funding itself by stealing and selling food. The UN acknowledges that 88% of the aid it brings into Gaza is stolen by Hamas or other armed groups.
But Hamas continues to wage an effective propaganda war. A key asset is its wholly owned subsidiary, the Gaza Health Ministry, which provides the media unsubstantiated casualty figures, never distinguishing between fighters and civilians, and always adding the dubious claim that most casualties are "women and children."
The New York Times, the BBC and other outlets recently featured a photo of what they identified as a starving Palestinian baby. It turns out the child suffers from a terrible genetic disease. That he was not a victim of famine was obvious because his healthy brother was standing nearby. But that boy was cropped from the published photo.
Hamas recently posted a video of one of the hostages kidnapped more than 22 months ago from Israel: Evyatar David, 24, as emaciated as an Auschwitz inmate, was shown digging his own grave in a Hamas tunnel.
In response, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said – or rather sent out his deputy spokesman, Farhan Haq, to say – that he was "very shocked." Remind me: What purpose does the UN serve?
The plan approved on Friday by Israel's security cabinet for taking control of Gaza City may necessitate moving roughly a million Gazans out of likely combat areas to safe zones.
Food aid is to be massively increased, and additional distribution centers are to be established and run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an unfairly maligned American-Israeli project.
In an interview on Fox News last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out the plan's goals: "We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free, and to pass it to civilian governance."
Israelis are divided over the wisdom of the plan. Many think they've reached a point of diminishing returns militarily and should strategically retreat to security buffer zones.
What about Gazans? Are they divided? Or would most prefer that Hamas release the hostages and seek a truce – or at least resume negotiations that could lead to delaying Israel's Gaza City plan?
Gazans who say such things publicly are likely to be summarily executed with the Hamas-obedient international media giving scant coverage to either their courageous dissent or their untimely deaths.
The Trump administration's position was clearly articulated by Vice President J.D. Vance last week: "Number one, we want to make it so that Hamas cannot attack innocent Israeli civilians ever again, and we think that has to come through the eradication of Hamas. Second, the president has been very moved by these terrible images of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, so we want to make sure that we solve that problem."
I wish Germany, France, and Britain were saying the same.
They're adamant that Mr. Trump work with them to support Ukraine, a fledgling European democracy defending itself against a revanchist dictator.
Does it not follow, as a matter of principle and self-interest, that they ought to work with Mr. Trump to support a mature Middle Eastern democracy defending itself against a terrorist proxy of the Islamic Republic of Iran whose goal is openly and even proudly genocidal?
I wonder if Messrs. Merz, Starmer, and Macron understand how tough they are making it for Atlanticists like me to push back against the growing number of Americans who regard West Europeans as fair-weather friends, always there for us when they need us.