New Delhi: In an interview to discuss whether Israel should ‘invade’ Gaza to smash and obliterate Hamas or whether that would incur costs and consequences that would be intolerable not just for Gaza’s Palestinian population but also terrible for Israel itself, the country’s former justice minister has said that in his eyes, there is no alternative to invading Gaza.

Yossi Beilin says this may not be the desired solution, but it is clearly the only one available. As he put it, what other option does Israel have?

In a 15-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Beilin said that he has no doubt that when the people of Gaza are allowed to return to the strip they will have a strong sense of grievance and injury and look for revenge but, he adds, he hopes Israel would be able to contain and prevent this.

He spoke specifically about helping the “recovery” of Gaza and its people and believes that Israel’s allies, particularly its Western friends, will help and assist.

The most important part of this interview is that Beilin made clear the trouble and even mental agony that people like him have gone through to come to the conclusion that there is no option for Israel other than to invade Gaza. The mental struggle in coming to this conclusion is very apparent in this interview and one reason why you should see it.

Yesterday (Friday), we presented an interview with the internationally acclaimed Israeli columnist of the Haaretz newspaper, Gideon Levy, who believes that after expelling over a million people from Gaza if Israel were to invade, it would be the worst ever war crime committed by the country.

Beilin, who is a friend of Levy, disagrees and presents a different view.

You now have in these two interviews both sides of the argument, so you can judge the issue for yourself.

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