|
Hamas and PLO Sacrifice Gaza Civilians
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
July 24, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Complicating a Gaza ceasefire, 79-year-old
Ramallah-based PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas joined with Hamas April 23, allowing
Hamas to start a new war with Israel to end a crippling Israeli and Egyptian
blockade. Abbas admitted July 23 to
Secretary of State John Kerry that he agreed with Gaza’s rocket attacks on
Israel to break the deadlock that isolates the densely populated Mediterranean
seaside Palestinian enclave from the outside world. Blackmailing Israel into making
concessions by refusing to end the rocket fire, Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled
Meshaal speaking in Doha, Qatar insisted that Hamas will never disarm. Sacrificing Gaza’s civilian
population plays right into Hamas’s hands, broadcasting on the nightly news the
carnage of womenm children and Palestinian infrastructure. With all the hatred toward Israel,
the world can’t see Hamas’s callous brutality.
Hiding in underground bunkers, Hamas’s leaders have no intent of sticking
their necks out above ground where Israeli bombs and tanks await them. It’s a supreme understatement saying
that Hamas uses civilians as human shields.
It reality, they’ve brainwashed the population to believe that martyrdom
for the cause of liberating Palestine rises above anything else. While Hamas’s leadership remains
safe, Gaza’s densely packed civilians take the brunt of Israel’s onslaught. Pundits like to complain of Israel’s
collateral damage in Gaza, but there’s too little attention paid on Hamas’s
deliberate attempt to sacrifice the civilian population to achieve a political
agenda. With all of Hamas’s
military buildup in Gaza, demanding that Israel and Egypt undo the blockade
makes no sense. No sovereign state
can permit that kind of dangerous arms’ smuggling within striking distance.
Hamas keeps the media focus on civilian casualties not its charter that
calls for the destruction of Israel, citing the Jews, much like Hitler did
during WWII, as the scourge of the planet.
Hamas’s charter borrows heavily from Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, the most racist pieces of anti-Semitic
literature of the 20th Century.
White House officials led by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John
Kerry seek a ceasefire at all costs, they pressure Israel into making
concessions to one of the most racist groups on the planet. No matter how much U.S. officials
want to believe there are differences between Hamas and the Ramallah-based
Palestinian Authority, Abbas made it clear he backs Hamas. “We will not accept any initiative
that does not lift the blockade on our people and that does not respect their
sacrifices,” said Meshaal in Doha.
Obama and Kerry face stiff headwinds in the U.S. Senate trying to
pressure Israel into making concessions to Hamas. White House officials operate in a
pre-Sept. 11 mindset, dealing with terrorist groups like Hamas as if it worked
toward Mideast peace. Sen. John M.Cain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
point out that any concessions to Hamas compromise Israel’s national security,
doing the same to the U.S. Since
Sept. 11, Israel has been as seamless ally in the war on terror. Meshaal rejects current
Egypt-brokered ceasefire deals because they don’t force Israel to release more
prisoners and end the blockade on Gaza.
If Hamas fired its missiles into Egypt, they’d find out quickly their
relationship to their Arab brothers.
With Hamas a remote division of the Muslim Brotherhood, Meshaal knows
they’ve been banned under Egypt’s new president Abel Fattah el-Sisi.
Pushing for a ceasefire to save Gaza’s civilian population, Kerry walks a
fine line pandering to a sworn enemy of Israel.
Whether they hold the Gaza population hostage or not, the U.S. can’t push
Israel into compromising its national security by ending the Gaza blockade. Without assurances that Hamas
disarms, Israel would be inviting Hamas to build more tunnels and smuggle more
rockets and war materiel into Gaza.
Finding rockets in U.N. schools and other civilian sites show that Hamas uses
its foreign aid to fight its war with Israel. Firing what’s left of its rocket arsenal, Hamas thinks only about its PR war, not the
bleak reality to managing a beleaguered population suffering from its war with
Israel. Hamas officials believe
that its war with Israel wins it more sympathy and cash in the Arab World. Despite all the condemnations of
Israel, not one Islamic state has stepped up to help Hamas.
Condemning Israel as “murderous state,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khamenei, called on Sunni world to eradicate the Jewish State. Unlike Iran, other Sunni nations
know the consequences of going to war against Israel, especially Egypt, whose
vaunted leader and national hero Gen. Gamal Abdel Nasser died in shame a few
years after the 1967 Six-Day War.
It’s easy for Hamas that has virtually nothing to lose to provoke a war and
sacrifice Gaza’s civilian population.
Hamas’s leadership in Gaza and Doha believe enough civilian deaths will
force Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into acquiescing to Hamas’s
demands. Calling flight
cancellations at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport a “great victory,” Hamas looks
for any token to prove their madness was worth the price. Only Gaza’s beleaguered population
suffers to advance Hamas’s political agenda.
|
