FP: Kenneth Levin, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Levin: Thank you Jamie.

FP: Let’s begin with your thoughts on the aftermath of the Gaza War.

Levin: Predictably, there has been much criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war in the wake of its ending.

The shrill denunciations of Israel’s seeking to force an end to incessant bombardment of its towns and villages go on virtually unabated, led by that bizarre alliance of Islamist Muslims and Western "progressives" that has become all the rage in Europe and is in vogue as well on many American campuses and in other American venues.

Hamas’s explicitly genocidal agenda and its war-crime use of civilian shields goes unmentioned, while Israel is denounced as "Nazi-like" because there were civilian deaths in Gaza, some due to unintended incidents that figure in any armed conflict - Israeli forces killed a number of their own in such incidents - more due to Hamas strategy and tactics.

But criticism of the war’s conduct is heard as well from various commentators who supported the campaign but feel that Israel erred in not pursuing it to what they argue was an achievable, more comprehensive, victory entailing the destruction of Hamas.

FP: But could Hamas be “destroyed”?

Levin: Hamas, in fact, could not be "destroyed" in any operation that did not have the IDF remaining in Gaza in an open-ended way, something very few in Israel desired. What may have been achievable was a weakening of the organization to the point where Mahmoud Abbas’s PA would have been better situated to regain control of Gaza. But, beyond questions of whether the PA, given its weakness and unpopularity, would indeed have been able to capitalize on a more prostrate Hamas, there is the larger question, as I’ve suggested in earlier discussions, of whether PA control of Gaza is in Israel’s interest.

FP: Is it?

Levin: Again, the PA, like Hamas, is dedicated to Israel’s ultimate annihilation, promotes this goal in its media and mosques, and educates its children to it in its schools. Yet it is deemed "moderate" in much of the world, including throughout the West, and its ascension to control of Gaza would inevitably, and quickly, increase pressure on Israel to make concessions to the PA, and render itself more vulnerable, in the interest of "peace."

FP: So is there a legitimate criticism of Israel conduct of the war?

Levin: Well, a more nuanced criticism of the war’s conduct concerns Israel declaring its unilateral ceasefire before achieving more in terms of degrading Hamas’s rocket, missile and other weapons inventories, killing more of its leaders, and destroying more of its Rafah tunnel network for smuggling in arms.

But whether more should have been done in these areas is less significant than how Israel conducts itself in the wake of the war.

However degraded Hamas’s inventories, the organization would still have retained some capacity to resume its rocket and mortar assaults on Israeli communities. And whatever the damage done to the Rafah tunnels, Hamas would inevitably have been able to reconstitute its smuggling system and resume bringing in rockets and other arms.

Despite much being made of consultations with Egypt and Western states on stopping the smuggling, few expect it to end. Egypt has never indicated a preparedness to take the steps necessary to close down the smuggling system and, for all its own concerns about Hamas, still seems to see its interests as weighing ultimately against effective interdiction. The talk of a European presence on the border to reinforce an interdiction program is essentially meaningless; there is no precedent in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict of such a presence serving its intended end, and, in any case, Egypt has stated explicitly that it would allow no foreign force on its side of the border.

One could argue from this that Israel’s greatest mistake in the war was not seizing the Phildelphi corridor along the Gaza-Sinai border, retaining a force there and itself preventing reconstitution of the tunnel smuggling system.

But here, too, more significant than any such specific step in the conduct of the war is what Israel does in its wake. Israel must diligently and emphatically continue to hammer away on the international stage at the necessity of the smuggling being stopped and at the threat posed by its resumption. If, as most observers expect, wholesale smuggling does resume in short order, then the state - having given Egypt and the Western powers an opportunity to stop it, having witnessed and exposed their failure to do so, and having conveyed the gravity of the failure - can and should exhibit zero tolerance to the rearming of Hamas and should then move to end it, perhaps at that point seizing the Philadelphi route. Similarly, whatever Hamas retains of its rocket arsenal, most important is how Israel responds to a resumption of Hamas firing into Israel. Israel’s obligation to its citizens requires that it exhibit zero tolerance of Hamas fire.

The depleting of Hamas’s resources, and the deterrent effect of the beating meted out to the organization, the gains of the war, will either be lost as Hamas is allowed to rebuild its resources and resume its attacks, or will be built upon as Israel adopts and sustains a policy of not allowing either.

But it is not simply subsequent military policy that will determine if the gains of the war are sustained and built upon or frittered away. There is also the matter of diplomatic policy and the response of Israel’s elected officials and foreign service to attacks on the state vis-à-vis the war.

FP: Tell us about the international pressure.

Levin: Various foreign leaders, officials of international organizations and NGO apparatchiks have attacked Israel in a manner that amounts to seeking to deprive it of the right to defend its citizens. They have condemned the nation in the crudest terms either for its exercising its right of self-defense or for its conducting the war in a manner that, in fact, would more than compare well to the conduct - particularly regarding efforts to protect innocent lives - of any other military faced with comparable challenges.

Israeli officials, in the course of the war, did a better job than during previous hostilities in effectively pointing out the provocations from the other side, reiterating the months and years of assault on its civilians that had provoked the campaign, noting that few other states, certainly few Western states, would have tolerated such attacks for as long as Israel had, and emphasizing that the nation had an absolute right, indeed obligation, to defend its citizens. It also performed better than previously in countering false claims regarding events in the field such as assertions of unprovoked attacks on civilians.

But defusing efforts to, in effect, delegitimize any Israeli resort to force in defense of its people no matter what attacks they are subjected to, efforts that - when not sharply countered - can have an inhibiting impact on Israel’s exercise of its basic rights of self-defense, requires more. It requires an ongoing, and more pointed, response to the state’s defamers.

Defamations from whatever quarter should be countered, and on a level consistent with the nature of the attack. For example, Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey in the course of the war characterized Israel’s operations in Gaza as a "crime against humanity" and called for Israel’s expulsion from the UN. Erdogan has acted in various ways over the years to weaken what had long been very positive relations between Israel and Turkey, and his government, not least via such remarks by the prime minister, has whipped up domestic anti-Israel sentiment.

It does not serve Israel to hold back from forcefully responding to such attacks, acting as though Israel is the supplicant in the relationship and must absorb the verbal assaults without high-profile response. At the least, Israel’s prime minister should have noted that Turkey would never have tolerated attacks on its people such as those to which Israel had been subjected and that Erdogan’s claims bear no relation to reality and effectively ally him with purveyors of terror even as he seeks understanding for Turkey’s own struggle against terrorist assaults.

Crying out even more for forceful high-level response are the defamations of Israel repeatedly spouted in the course of the war by UN operatives, most notably those affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), responsible over the last six decades for Palestinian refugees and their families. UNRWA officials repeatedly demanded that Israel be investigated for "war crimes" in its conduct of the Gaza campaign. Israel should point out that the UNRWA is itself guilty of crimes against humanity and insist, no less publicly, vociferously and emphatically than its accusers, on effective investigation and actions against the perpetrators of UNRWA offenses. Among their crimes are employing known terrorists as UNRWA functionaries, including as teachers, allowing the use of UNRWA schools for promotion of genocide, and facilitating the recruiting of children into terrorist cadres.

FP: In other words, Israel’s self-defense is inter-linked with its defense of itself in the diplomatic war.

Levin: Yes. Just as the gains of the war will be built upon or lost according to how Israel responds militarily to subsequent threatening Hamas activities, so too the ultimate effectiveness of the war will be shaped by how forcefully Israel’s elected leaders and foreign service operatives counter in political and diplomatic spheres the defamations of the state and efforts in the international arena to hobble Israel’s freedom to defend itself.

FP: Kenneth Levin, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

Levin: My pleasure Jamie.