Israel has no choice but to wage war on Hamas Those who believe Israel has alternatives are just plain wrong. Here's why.....
Ian Cooper: Israel has no choice but to wage war on Hamas
Those who believe Israel has alternatives are just plain wrong. Here's why
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After Hamas’ horrific attack on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, Israel has declared total war. Israel’s stated goal is to eliminate the terrorist organization’s military capabilities. The crisis faced by Gazans caught in the midst of the conflict is heartbreaking and likely to get worse, but Hamas has left Israel with no other choice.
Those who believe Israel has other alternatives tend to hold two assumptions that are patently false. First is the belief that Hamas is not thoroughly committed to the violent destruction of Israel as a non-negotiable article of faith.
The Hamas Covenant is a pure antisemitic screed that, among other things, claims “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it,” and that jihad is “the individual duty of every Muslim.”
For those who seek a negotiated peace, Hamas has the following advice: “The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf (holy possession) consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day. No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it.” It calls the 1978 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel “treacherous.”
Hamas’ metaphysical ramblings even include a dash of murderous magic realism in which inanimate objects get their chance to help slaughter Jews: “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’ ”
Not exactly Thomas Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration of Independence.
Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas, put an exclamation point on these ideas through his words and deeds. Intelligent, charismatic and knowledgeable about Israeli history, Yassin managed both to control his terrorist group from an Israeli prison and maintain cordial relations with his captors.
During a December 1992 interrogation related to the kidnapping of an Israeli police officer, he told a Shin Bet officer bluntly: “There will never be peace.… We’ll take what you give, but we will never give up our armed struggle. As long as I, Sheikh Yassin, am alive, I shall make sure that there will be no peace talks with Israel. I do not have a time problem: 10 more years, 100 more years — in the end you will be wiped off the face of the earth.”
The following year, Hamas began its campaign of suicide bombing attacks against Israelis. The first was in April 1993, and the apparent target was a group of soldiers near a West Bank settlement.
After Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the U.S.-brokered Oslo Accords, setting a course for peace and an eventual Palestinian state, Yassin and his thugs ramped up their suicide bombings.
They expanded them beyond the Palestinian territories and into Israel’s internationally recognized borders, largely targeting civilians on crowded commuter buses. Israelis across the country were thoroughly terrorized.
Either Arafat was unable to stop Hamas from murdering Israeli civilians, or he was unwilling. In either case, giving peace a chance was not working out well for the Israeli side.
The Americans tried to broker a final peace agreement in July 2000. Many commentators were shocked at the concessions being offered by the Israelis. Yet Arafat refused the deal, and what followed was another round of suicide bombings.
The Israelis decided they had had enough of Yassin and assassinated him in March 2004. The decision proved a short-term blow to Hamas, but in the long run it hurt Israel’s security position.
Although Yassin and the leaders of Iran’s Muslim dictatorship shared a disdain for Jews, Yassin viewed the Shiite Iranians as heretics, and was therefore squeamish about working with them. After his assassination, Hamas moved further into Iran’s orbit, and it is now effectively a terror proxy of its Iranian financiers.
The second mistaken assumption many make is that the Palestinian people oppose Hamas. In the January 2006 Palestinian legislative election, which was judged by international observers to be free and fair, Hamas won 44.5 per cent of the total vote and 74 of 132 seats. The outcome surprised foreign governments, and 17 months later, Hamas seized sole control over the Gaza Strip.
There has not been an election since, but the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research provides a window into the current state of politics.
Its most recent poll, conducted last June, found that, although western leaders continue to express their commitment to a two-state solution, in Palestine, “two-thirds of the public do not believe that Israel will celebrate its centenary (in 2048), and a majority, albeit a small one, believes that the Palestinian people will, in the future, be able to recover Palestine and return its refugees to their homes.”
Only 28 per cent of Palestinians support a two-state solution, while 70 per cent oppose it. Moreover, Palestinians have little faith in the Palestinian Authority (which controls the West Bank), with half hoping for its collapse and 71 per cent supporting the formation of independent armed militias.
Sixty-nine per cent of the population would like to see an election, and if one were held, 56 per cent of them would vote for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and only 33 per cent for the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas. In parliamentary elections, Hamas would also beat Abbas’s Fatah party, but by a more narrow 34-31 per cent margin.
Most alarming for those hoping to achieve peace, 53 per cent of Palestinians support a return to an armed intefadeh, with only 47 per cent supporting the kind of peaceful resistance that, for example, helped Mahatma Gandhi achieve Indian independence and Nelson Mandela end apartheid in South Africa.
The overall picture is of a population that rejects Israel’s right to exist, believes the best way to achieve a Palestinian state is through violence, and assigns a high probability of success to this project in the next 25 years.
These sentiments were echoed in an Oct. 14 interview that CNN’s Michael Holmes conducted with Ghada Ageel, who was born in Gaza and is a visiting professor of political science at the University of Alberta.
Holmes all but begged her to say Hamas is not supported by Gazans, but Prof. Ageel claimed (incorrectly) that 75 per cent of the population elected Hamas, that it was the “legitimate government,” and went on to blame Israel for this month’s massacre.
Prof. Ageel is teaching six courses at the University of Alberta this academic year. One can only hope her students are not mere sponges.
Concern about minimizing Palestinian suffering from the Gaza war is laudable. However, like any nation, Israel has the right to defend itself against a terrorist organization that has proven repeatedly just how serious it is about murdering Israeli citizens and wiping the country off the map.
In order for Israel to have more palatable options than its current military strategy, Hamas will either have to surrender, or the civilian population it uses as human shields will have to turn on the terrorist organization rather than continue to come along for the apocalyptic ride.
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