Thousands of rockets peppered several locations across Israel on one of the most consequential Jewish holidays. As the rockets exploded and mayhem broke loose, dozens of Islamist terrorists took advantage of the confusion to slip into Israeli towns bordering the Gaza strip.
Dozens of Israelis died in what is being called the worst attack by Hamas – the terrorist group that governs the Gaza strip – on Israeli soil, triggering Tel Aviv to declare that it was in a “state of war”.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thundered that “the enemy will pay a heavy price” and that Israel’s forces will “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known”.
In response and with an ominous air of finality, Mohammad Deif, the shadowy leader of the Hamas military wing, declared that “enough is enough”. Deif, is of course, menacingly alluding to his frustration with what many in the Muslim world believe is a “never-ending occupation” of Palestine and, in particular, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem – the third holiest site in Islam.
There’s no doubt that Israel has been in occupation of Palestine since 1947 and has been at times, self-admittedly, high-handed in its treatment of Palestinian Arabs. Israel has often exhibited a predilection — verging on paranoia – for pre-emptive action, going into Gaza in hot pursuit of Palestinian “insurgents”, with little regard for co-lateral damage or even due process. It has also undertaken the wholesale annexation of more and more Palestinian lands in contravention of painfully negotiated peace agreements undermining trust. Then there is the seconding of Palestinians to Israelis and other forms of discrimination. It isn’t surprising that Israel’s excesses have spawned a cycle of retribution that now seems unending.
But to be sure, there can never be any justification for terrorism. And Hamas cross-border murder and kidnapping of ordinary Israelis – no matter the provocation — qualifies as a gross outrage against humanity.
But then Hamas is a terror organisation.
“Islamo-leftists” will take offence to Israel’s “apartheid” against Palestinians and “illegal occupation” of Palestine, but they won’t tell you that Hamas isn’t fighting a mere independence movement.
The war being waged on Israel, much like in India’s Kashmir, isn’t about liberating Palestine, but it’s about liberating the land from “infidels.”
The Hamas Covenant, that outlines the organisation’s goals, is a shocking document that drips with a vengeful xenophobia. It’s a call to every Muslim to strive for the annihilation of all Jews.
Sample Article 7 of the foundation document of Hamas. It advocates a veritable “Final Solution” of Hitlerian proportions, “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: “O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.”
If the conflict was merely a battle for “azaadi”, why would that freedom have to come at the ghoulish cost of the total annihilation of the Jewish race? Why would Taliban fighters want Iran and Syria to open their borders so that the Afghan Mujahideen can fight someone else’s war?
It isn’t as if U.S. based-Christian supremacists are calling upon the EU to open all its land borders, so that they can get a clear passage to all the way over in Nagorno-Karabakh to fight with Armenian Christians against Azeri-Muslims.
Make no mistake, Hamas is fighting a 21st-century version of the medieval crusades and what’s scary is that it has been voted to govern Gaza by ordinary, so-called peace-loving, Palestinians.
It’s not even as if the state of Israel was set up to wage a holy war upon Muslims, so that there’s not a trace left of them on Earth. There are no parallels between the Israeli Constitution and the Hamas Constitution.
Today, those that lecture Tel Aviv must ask themselves what would truly happen if Israel were to suddenly open the Gaza border and allow the free passage of Palestinians into Jewish neighborhoods. Can these human rights lobbies guarantee that Israelis won’t be exterminated by many of their Palestinian neighbours? Especially those who voted in a mindset that claims, “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him’.”
Hamas has been voted by a majority of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to cleanse the “Holy Land” in their God’s name. They voted with an open mind for, “The Islamic Resistance Movement… whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.”
The Hamas mission statement leaves no room for compromise, no pull back to “pre-1967” status or a “two state solution”, where Israelis and Palestinians can live side-by-side in an eternal peace. Hamas rejects any lawful solution. It believes, “[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement… Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam…There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.”
Indeed, this fear of a looming genocide is what keeps Israel up at night. It is this fear of genocide that makes it retreat into a carapace of exclusivism. It is the same fear that forces Israel to raise the metaphorical drawbridge of human intercourse to distance the blood-thirsty rabble at its border.
In the face of such existential peril, is it fair to place the onus of peace on Israelis alone? To grudge them the right to defend their nation? Haven’t the majority Palestinians who have voted for the modern-day iteration of a mid-20th century version of the “Final Solution” surrendered their right to be called victims?
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