Operation Pillar of Defence

I was discussing Hamas with some representatives of the Socialist Workers Party. The debate was going no-where so I stated that I was surprised people like them-selves embraced Hamas who as they will recognise, hold Nazis beliefs.  They were deeply offended by this. They said I must not use the word ‘Nazi.’  Hamas, they continued, are fascists – as if that excused their behaviour?  I responded that I have read both their literature and that of Hamas, which is why I called Hamas Nazis and them fascists.  It may be reductive to make the assumption but a supporter of fascism is usually a fascist.  The ladies stormed off.

My clarity received some interesting feedback.  It is not the truth that is at issue but how we present it.  So when I call HAMAS ‘Nazis’ for most Israelis these are words that have emotive intent that preclude discussion because the reaction is bound to be visceral.

What is important is to convey what HAMAS represents.  If we want to educate then we have to examine HAMAS from reason and not from our gut.

Hamas are Gaza’s government. But what is the purpose of Government? A simple answer is that governments preside over the day to day operations of state.  Government sets priorities and defines direction to which it allocates resources in the pursuance of its goals.

And here is the issue.  Hamas has a simple world view.  Once a country has been conquered by Muslims (as Israel was) that country must never be returned to non-Muslim (infidel) control.  An infidel (dhimmi) may only live under protected, separate but inferior status if they agree to a Muslim contract that legalises discrimination against them. If that religious contract is violated the penalty is death. It explains why a Jewish baby like the 3 month old Fogel baby, was decapitated by a proud Muslim fighter without the murderer displaying a moment of guilt either at the time or since his conviction.  Allah, the God of Hamas and Muhammad, the prophet of that same Muslim god, permit genocide in the pursuit of theologically based conquest. It explains why Hamas rejects any permanent peaceful settlement of the conflict and it explains the glorification of the most evil of murderers.  It explains this in the simplest way possible.

Hamas has welfare programs but these are primarily to attract foot soldiers to the cause and by reaching a critical mass of supporters, to take control of the state by which it then dominates every aspect of its people’s lives.  People, are incidental to the cause.  Their welfare is secondary if in fact it is anything other than tangential; a means to an end.

Hamas in Gaza has received billions of pounds (more in dollars) in foreign aid. The Gazan state has received more aid per person than any other special interest group in history. Money is available, as is material for construction and development. Similarly resources are available for feeding the population, educating the masses, for welfare and for health. So where is it all going wrong?

There is lots of evidence of great wealth in Gaza and not just in the housing and other construction projects completed.

At issue is where all the money is spent.  A military infrastructure is extraneous to the building and maintenance of statehood in the modern era. A police force undertakes to protect its people.  The military hardware that Hamas possesses is enormously expensive and intended solely as a provocation to destabilise the region.  Most of the aid that Hamas receives is now sent directly to NGO’s, bypassing the Government of Gaza because the international community has no faith in Hamas not to redirect funds and material to its favoured recipients and towards acts of terror and away from its intended projects.  This strategy fails however because Hamas controls the employment of UN and NGO staff. Perhaps the most famous example was the catastrophic accident that quickly disappeared from Western reporting once it was understood that Hamas was responsible for it.

The “walls of a cesspool in a northern Gaza village collapsed, flooding the village with sewage and killing 5 persons.  The angry residents chased away the Palestinian Minister of Interior, and Israel has since sent Hamas in Gaza 2 pumps to pump out the remaining sewage”. (Jan 1, 2010)

The funds had been embezzled by the major Gazan contractor.

Hamas carried out numerous ‘suicide’ bombings in order to derail the Oslo accords. It does not want Peace with its neighbour, Israel.  In fact Yunis al Astal, a member of the Palestinian Authority parliament, spelled out his organization's vision for the genocidal annihilation of the Jewish people. The interview was broadcast on Hamas Al Aqsa TV and monitored by incitement watchdog group MEMRI. 

Al Astal described the ingathering of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel in terms of a divine plan that would give the Arabs "the honor" of annihilating them.  In a few years' time, he predicted, the Zionists will understand that they were brought here for the purpose of being slaughtered in "a great massacre." (Arutz7, May 2011).

If we understand Hamas then we will appreciate that Palestine and Palestinian Arabs are a means to an end. They do not see them as anything but geopolitical pawns that must not be imbued with a vision for neighbourly peaceful co-existence.  They are a tool for manipulation and where required, death.

To quote Hamas in their charter:

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (Hassan al-Banna, creator of the Muslim Brotherhood)

Article Two: The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine.....”

Article Seven: “As a result of the fact that those Muslims who adhere to the ways of the Islamic Resistance Movement spread all over the world, rally support for it and its stands, strive towards enhancing its struggle, the Movement is a universal one.”

The Prophet said:  "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.

With the greatest of disrespect I know of no god and no just cause that actively advocates for genocide in the modern age except for the Muslim god and its prophet.  They are the exception to the rule and their peace is no more than a cover for conquest.

A patronising New York Times editorial published at the start of the latest war in Gaza stated: “No country should have to endure the rocket attacks that Israel has endured from militants in Gaza, most recently over the past four days. The question is how to stop them permanently”. From that promising start the editorial quickly deteriorates into a formulaic Western interpretation of the conflict that is both simplistic and naïve.  It is predicated on Israel making ‘peace’ with the Palestinian Authority while missiles continue to fall on its civilian population centres.  And on the 19^th of November it was reported that Islamic Jihad promised a ‘truce’ if, amongst other conditions Israel “eased the passage between the Jewish state and the Strip.”

Simply stated this meant that Israel should open its borders to the Gazan population without Gaza renouncing terror, cancelling its odious Charter or ceasing its education of the local population towards religiously sanctified genocide.

There has never been a single poll taken in Gaza that accepted Jewish equality or long term peace with ‘the Jews’ so education towards co-existence is not even considered relevant.  With every cease-fire Hamas has used the relative peace to bring in large quantities of increasingly advanced weaponry. 

Gaza’s citizens voted into power a corrupt and racist party whose central plank is religious domination and mass murder.  Hamas has no interest in Peace, nor does it have any desire for co-existence.

This is the issue that defines the Palestinian Arab tragedy.