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Hamas-Backers All Talk, Little Action
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
July 25, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
From Iran to Lebanon, from Turkey to Saudi Arabia,
the Arab world has given support to Gaza’s Palestinians believed in an epic
struggle to destroy the Jewish State.
Inside the Jew-hating capitals, it’s all solidarity with Hamas’s rocket
attacks and newly discovered tunnels designed to infiltrate and ultimately
destroy Israel. Iran’s 75-year-old
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called for an end to the “murderous” Jewish State. One of his client terror groups,
Hezbollah in Lebanon, also expressed support to their Palestinian brothers,
currently battling Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.
Showing why Arabs can’t get beyond internecine warfare, Iranian-backed
Hezbollah guerrillas current battle Palestinians in Syria committed to toppling
Damascus. Al-Assad graciously
hosted Palestinian leader-in-exile 58-year Khaled Meshaal in Damascus for nearly
20 until radical Palestine joined the battle against him.
Throwing his support to Gaza, Hezbollah’s reclusive 53-year-old leader
Hassan Nasrallah, asked Palestinians to forgive differences in Syria to join
hands opposing their archenemy in Tel Aviv.
“From here I say to our brothers in Gaza:
We are with you and beside you and confident of your steadfastness and
your victory and we will do everything we can to support,” said Nasrallah,
promising to smuggle in more Iranian-made rockets into Gaza. Hamas’s militants in Gaza boast of
their local made rockets, despite sputtering like bad fireworks and missing
targets most of the time. Imported rockets from Iran are the only ones showing any telemetry needed to hit targets
in the Jewish State. Nasrallah continues Gaza’s local propaganda that Palestinians are finally close to
victory against Israel. Hamas’s
Al-Aqsa media continues to tell Gazans that victory is within reach.
Killing of Palestinians fighting al-Assad in Syria, Nasrallah expressed
his backing for the Palestinian cause.
If push comes to shove, the Sunni population in Palestine and elsewhere
would be the first to have Nasrallah’s Shiite head. “Israel has failed to touch the
command and control structure of the Palestine resistance,” said Nasrallah,
giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more reason to locate Hamas’s
underground bunker, part of Hamas’s underground tunnel system. Whether or not Netanyahu will
be given enough time to find Hamas’s command-and-control is anyone’s guess. Before that happens, Hamas’s would
wave the white flag asking for a permanent truce. “You are in Gaza now in a state of
failure, don’t go further to the level of suicide or collapse,” Nasrallah warned
Israelis, in one of the most incompressible statements imaginable, giving
Israelis advice.
Nasrallah knows firsthand what it’s like to battle the Israeli Defense
Forces in a guerrilla war. When he
waged war against Israel Aug. 12-14, 2006, he caused countless deaths and
destruction to Beirut, Lebanon.
Despite killing 121 IDF, thousand more civilians died in Lebanon, raising real
questions about Nasrallah’s judgment.
If Nasrallah really wanted to help his Palestinian brothers, he’d fire
rockets into Israel’s northern territories, starting a two-front war. Nasrallah heard an ear-full from Lebanon’s government, putting Beirut into harm’s way
with the IDF. Speaking on Al- Quds
Day, the last Friday before the end of Ramadan, Nasrallah got in his two cents
but offers Gazans zero real support.
Most Arab capitals know the consequence of waging war against Israel. Anyone with a real army, with
amassed troops and military hardware, would be get hit by Israel’s air force.
Working feverishly on a ceasefire deal, Secretary of State John Kerry
tried to end the latest Palestinian fiasco all designed to win a murky PR
battle, forcing Israel to kill as many Gazans as possible. No matter how much Israel tries to
pinpoint its operation, collateral damage has mounted up, giving Hamas the PR
advantage on the nightly news. When
it comes to Gaza’s beleaguered population, they keep listening to Al-Aqsa TV and
Radio, telling them victory is within sight.
Meanwhile civilian casualties and destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure
continues. Boasting about shutting
down Tel Aiv’s Ben Gurion airport, Hamas has already claimed victory,
highlighting the militant groups willingness to sacrifice civilians for the
cause. Hoping to get concessions at
the bargaining table, Hamas wants an end to Israel and Egypt’s blockade and get
certain prisoners released from Israeli jails.
Worried that the Gaza conflict could be recruiting grounds for more
al-Qaeda terrorism on U.S. soil, former FBI Director Robert Mueller expressed
concerns about more anti-Americanism in the region. Mueller’s arguments were the same
ones made after Sept. 11, looking for some answer to the attacks. “We cannot
forget that what’s happening in Gaza today will feed and fuel the desire for
many more to join radical groups,” said Mueller, suggesting a connection to
al-Qaeda’s efforts in Syria or ISIS’s attempt to establish a new Islamic
caliphate on Syrian and Iraqi soil.
When Osama bin Laden lashed out at the U.S., it had little to do with U.S.
Mideast policy. Bin Laden, like
ISIS’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had his own agenda of creating a worldwide Islamic
state. Palestinians in Gaza or
elsewhere are low on the food chain and have little to do with radical Islam’s
ultimate agenda.
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