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Netanyahu Refuses to Capitulate to Terrorism
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
August 2, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Slapping the White House and State Department,
64-year-old Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu reminded the U.S.
of its own policy on negotiating with terrorists, giving an emphatic no to
dealing with Hamas. With a 72-hour U.N. and U.S.
brokered humanitarian ceasefire lasting only two hours, Netanyahu reminded all
parties that Israel will not sit at the table with terrorists. Swept up in the U.N. hubbub over the
three-week old Gaza war, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John
Kerry forgot that it’s inappropriate for the U.S. or Israel to bargain with
terrorists. No one asked the U.S.
to negotiate with Osama bin Laden after Sept. 11, when U.S. terrorism policy
under former President George W. Bush cut its teeth. Bush ended all relationships with
terrorist states, including Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization
for its connection to terrorism.
Expecting Israel at the table with Hamas rewards terrorism, caves into
unrealistic demands and sends a loud message to terrorists around the globe,
including the notorious Somali Pirates, that terrorism pays off. After the breakdown of the recent ceasefire, it became evident to Netanyahu how utterly
inappropriate it was to be dealing with Hamas’s leaders, led by 51-year-old Gaza
Chief Ismail Haniyeh and 58-year-old exiled Khaled Meshaal, believe they can
blackmail world powers into making concessions by provoking Israel into
sacrificing and displacing Gaza’s citizens.
Israel’s been getting a mouthful from the White House and State
Department to reduce collateral damage, despite Hamas’s aggressive assault with
various ineffective missiles fired at Israel.
Netanyahu looks poised to methodically finish destroying Gaza’s tunnel
system and go after Hamas’s command-and-control.
Somewhere below ground in a Gaza bunker, Haniyeh orders Hamas militants
to continue firing rockets at Israel.
Mobile launchers and rocket stockpiles are a slippery target for the
Israeli Defense Forces. While the
U.N. likes condemning Israel for collateral damage, there’s no blame on Hamas
for endangering Gaza’s 1.7 million civilians, caught in the crossfire of Hamas’s
desperate attempt to survive. After
joining Hamas April 23, 79-year-old PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas remains silent on
the sidelines, condoning Hamas’s mission to force concessions out Israel. While Kerry and Obama would like to
pretend that there’s separation between the PLO and Hamas, his silence speaks
volumes about backing Hamas. “We
will continue our resistance till we achieve our goals,” Hamas spokesman Farwzi
Barhum told the AFP news service, watching Gaza bombed into the Stone Age.
Netanyahu showed determination to outlast Hamas in the latest feud
between Palestinian militants and Israel begun July 8 with rocket attacks on
Israel. “We will take as much time
as necessary, and we will exert as much force as needed,” said Netanyahu,
showing not signs of capitulating to Hamas’s one-sided demands. All of Hamas’s allies have either
spoke their mind publicly like Turkey and Qatar or remained silent while the
militant group exposes Gaza’s population to more death and destruction. Gazans are told routinely by Hamas’s
Al-Aqsa TV & Radio that they’re winning the war with Israel, getting closer to
returning Palestinians to their promised land seized by Israel in 1948 when they
declared with U.N.-backing statehood.
When Hamas refers to Israel as “occupiers” and their activity as
“resistance,” they’re not referring to the post-1967 borders from the
Six-Day-War.
Hamas sees Israel as unlawfully trespassing on Palestinian land in what
was once known before 1948 as the British Mandate of Palestine. While Hamas plays to world sympathies for Gaza’s collateral damage, they ignore their
same beef with the Egyptian regime that outlawed their parent organization known
as the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas
doesn’t fire missiles into Egypt but has just as much contempt for the Cairo
government that refuses to open its Rafah border crossing to Gaza. Egypt has destroyed almost as many
Palestinians smuggling tunnels as Israel.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi sees Hamas as every bit the threat
to Cairo as the now banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Obama and Kerry are beginning to realize that Hamas’s demands threaten
both U.S. and Israeli national security, making peace talks all the more
unfeasible and complicated.
More desperate than ever, Hamas finds its back to the wall, lashing out
at Israel regardless of collateral damage to Gaza’s population. Most of Gaza’s population believes Netanyahu seeks only to exterminate Palestinians. There’s no recognition that Gaza’s
authorities have no regard for the civilians population and believe the more
civilians killed the closer Hamas gets to defeating Israel. Looking at Gaza’s ruins, it’s
inconceivable that anyone believes Hamas is achieving its objectives. No sovereign power—including the
U.S.—will force Israel into making concessions to Hamas. Calling the Gaza
conflict a “collective massacre,” even 90-year-old Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah
didn’t name Israel for the horrific collateral damage in Gaza. To end the conflict, Netanyahu will
have to go much deeper into Gaza, going after Hamas’s underground
command-and-control centers.
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