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Hamas Plays Off Mounting Civilians Casualties
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
July 19, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Continuing their futile rocket war against Israel,
Hamas hopes to give Israel a black eye in world opinion by keeping civilian
casualties in the headlines. Firing
rockets at Israel invited Israel’s air-strikes that morphed July 17 into a
ground invasion to destroy Hamas’s smuggling tunnels, rocket stockpiles and
launchers, deeply buried in Gaza’s crowded neighborhoods. Hamas runs a Mafia-like operation,
plundering millions in foreign aid for digging tunnels and arming its battle
against the Jewish State. Now that
Hamas joined April 23 79-year-old Ramallah-based Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian
Authority their rocket war with Israel takes on new meaning. Abbas can’t say that Hamas has run
amok, now that he’s part of the same group.
Whether the U.S. and European Union think Abbas was a more amenable peace
partner, joining 54-year-old Gaza-based Ismail Haniyeh proves otherwise.
Raining rockets down on Israel, Hamas hopes to win sympathy from the
Jew-haters in the Arab world and beyond.
Deeply rooted in Hamas’s charter is the same racist jingo as Adolf
Hittler’s Third Reich. Constant
references—like Hitler in his best-selling book Mein Kampf—to the Protocols of
the Learned Elders of Zion, one of the most viciously anti-Semitic forgeries in
world history—tells everything you need to know about Hamas. They’ve been at war with Israel
since its founding in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. By firing rockets at Israel, forcing
Israel to respond militarily, highlights all the civilian casualties gives Hamas
the best PR war against Israel.
Their willingness to put Gaza’s beleaguered population into a war zone shows how
Hamas plays ball. Gaza’s civilian
population becomes Hamas’s convenient martyrs in the propaganda war against
Israel.
Uncovering a dozen or so tunnels near the Gaza-Israeli border shows the
extent to which Hamas uses its foreign aid for serving its primary mission of
destroying Israel. Hamas’s main
argument against Israel is that it exists at all. Their leaders, especially
55-year-old leader-in-exile now living in Doha, Qatar Khaled Meshaal, seek only
Israel’s destruction. Uncovering numerous tunnels on the Gaza-Israel border is designed only to infiltrate
Israel to inflict civilian casualties.
“I think finding 13 tunnels in such a short time is a great achievement,”
retired Brigadier Gen. Shimon Daniel told Channel 10 TV. When 13 Hamas militants emerged from
a tunnel awaited by an Israel smart-bomb, Israeli Defense Forces decided to
launch a ground invasion focused on destroying Hamas tunnels into Israel. Egypt destroyed numerous smuggling
tunnels from Gaza into Egypt since el-Sisi came to power June 4.
Campaigning for reelection in Ankara, 60-year-old Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza an act of
“genocide.” Since [Israel’s
creation] in 1948, we have been witnessing a systematic genocide everyday, every
month,” said Erdogan. “But above
all, we are witnessing this attempt at genocide every Ramadan,” showing how low
thing go in Turkish campaigns.
Erdogan is the first to threaten to break off diplomatic relations with the U.S.
or European Union for officially recognizing Turkey’s 1915 genocide of 1.5
million Armenians. Historian
Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide in 1943, applied the word to the
Turkish massacre of Armenians during WWI.
Pandering to Turkish street, Erdogan shows his ruthless political side,
not admitting his brutality against the Kurds he routinely attacks near the
Turkish border.
Whether the Islamic world likes it or not, Israel won’t sit idly by while
a terror group fires rockets across the border.
Whatever the blockade in Gaza coming from Israel and Egypt, no sovereign
country can do business when rampant arms smuggling and extremists flood across
borders. If Hamas wants its border
reopened, the terror group needs to disarm, renounce violence and stop arms and
militant smuggling across the border.
Hamas rejected Egypt’s July 14 ceasefire because Egypt didn’t capitulate
to their demands to open Egypt’s Rafah and Israel’s Erez border crossings. No sovereign state would open up its
border to arms smuggling and terrorists.
When Egypt’s Abdel Fatah el-Sisi arrested Mohammed Morsi July 13, 2013
and outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas lost a close friend. Hamas now looks to Turkey, Qatar or other sympathetic states for a cease fire deal..
Spewing more propaganda than Iraq’s former mouthpiece Baghdad Bob,
Hamas’s official media wing Al-Aqsa TV & Radio keeps telling the public daily
about their great victories against Israel.
Al-Aqsa won’t admit Israel has already invaded Gaza and is currently busy
destroying illicit tunnels. “The
Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip will not surrender to the enemy and will
not raise the white flag,” Ziad Nakhala, a leader of the Islamic Jihad militant
group told Al-Aqsa Radio & TV.
Hamas’s military wing must keep lying to the public about Israel’s intent but,
more importantly, their great battle against the Jewish State. To rank-and-file Gazans, Hamas is
close to the long-awaited and victory to destroy Israel and return Palestinians
to their lost homeland. Whatever
Hamas’s agenda—including springing Abbas’s heir apparent Marwan Bargouti from
Israeli prison—it’s not even close.
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