By Steve Kramer
KFAR SABA, Israel — The Jerusalem Post has editorialized “Those who have called for ceasefires, who have demanded negotiations with Hamas, must now ask themselves: How do you negotiate with monsters? How do you make peace with those who murder babies and celebrate their deaths? Hamas-supporting parents and their children stood by in Gaza, watching the spectacle of Israeli children’s bodies being paraded around.”
The editorial continued: “What kind of society allows such evil to flourish? Israel must respond with the full force of its power. This is no longer just about retrieving hostages; this is about eradicating a force of pure evil. There is no justification, no rationalization, and no compromise to be made with those who revel in the suffering of innocents.”
Israel’s war with Hamas and Gaza is far from over. Similar Israeli fighting against terrorists is ongoing in Lebanon and in Judea & Samaria (aka West Bank). But Gaza is much worse, because many Israeli captives are still held there by Hamas. Israel’s hands are somewhat tied because: a) Hamas will never give up all the hostages, who are their main protection; b) extensive bombing may inadvertently kill hostages; c) the ‘world’ blames Israel for destroying Gaza and puts roadblocks in front of the Israeli government, handicapping IDF actions.
During this period, intensive negotiations are going on among Israel, the US, and significant Arab countries to plan the next few decades in Gaza. Hamas is still the most powerful force there, defending itself against Israel’s war aim of ousting it from power. Up to and including the present, the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza have been prevented from escaping the war zone, except for some thousands who successfully bribed their way over the border with Egypt. (This reminds one of East Germany, where citizens were also prevented from leaving the country.)
Egypt won’t allow the Gazans into the relatively huge, sparsely populated Sinai Peninsula, because Egypt doesn’t want additional terrorists in the Sinai, which already has many hyper-jihadist fighters. Nor does Jordan want them, because its population is already about 3/4 Palestinian Arabs, who are cousins of the Gazans. The shaky Hashemite dynasty fears more Palestinian Arabs entering Jordan would cause its ouster. Without continuous American and Israeli support, King Abdullah would already be mimicking Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, living the ‘good life’ in exile with treasure stolen from his former subjects. Many Arab nations have expelled Palestinian Arabs from their countries. See Note 1 below.
Israel wants no connection to the Gazans and has every right to refuse partnering with them, or with the Palestinian Authority in the Jewish homeland of Judea & Samaria. The ‘sacred’ 2-state solution is dead and buried as far as even leftist Israelis are concerned. Not only that – 70% of Gazans want to destroy Israel and murder the Jews, not rebuild their ruined statelet. If there ever was significant approval of “two states living side by side in peace,” current events have extinguished it. See: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-840517
The Gazans are ruled by the terrorist party Hamas, which enjoys great support among the population. There are few “innocent Gazan civilians.” The thousands of Gazan fighters and “civilians” tearing into Israeli communities across the border stealing, raping, and killing convinced all (except the few die-hard, Marxist Israelis) that a Palestinian state next to Israel is the worst idea.
“Approximately 6,000 Gazans invaded Israel and participated in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s Channel 12 news revealed on Saturday. While 2,200 non-Hamas Gazans (some on bicycles, some on crutches!) crossed the border into Israel, some 3,800 terrorists from Hamas’ elite Nukhba forces led the invasion, which resulted in the massacre of at least 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of about 250 people from southern Israeli border communities. (https://allisrael.com/6-000-gazans-invaded-israel-on-oct-7-according-to-new-idf-assessment) More than 2,000 of the murderers were so-called civilians.
If there were another election (the last one was in 2006) Hamas would no doubt increase its majority over Fatah/PLO, which it handily defeated last time. Dressed in suits, the PLO leadership is only slightly less radical than Hamas. The Gazans who want better lives are, in the main, stuck there.
A plan to remove the Palestinian Arabs from Gaza has been presented by President Trump, including the chance for Gazans to voluntarily leave Gaza. This desire was shown by the huge crowds on Egypt’s border begging Egypt’s President Sisi to allow them to enter the Sinai Peninsula. He refused. See Note 2 below.
Losers who start wars generally, but not always, are the ones who are displaced by war and most significantly, lose land. This is considered to be recompense for the destructive behavior of the aggressors. So then, why are the Gazans exempt from this formula? Does everything go back to October 6, 2023, a period replete with repetitive, punitive operations against Hamas/Islamic Jihad terrorists? Only now, with an added bonus of new homes and institutions to be built for the war’s perpetrators?
Since the foolhardy, total Israeli evacuation from Gaza in 2006, a fortune has been donated to Gaza. While exact financial details are very difficult to determine, at least $4.5 billion was given to Hamas by the UN to build infrastructure and support the population, many of whom live at subsistence level due to their leaders’ corruption. Little or no infrastructure has been built, but hundreds of miles of terrorist tunnels were! Qatar has donated $1.3-$2 billion and continued to hand over cash to Gazans – with Israel’s approval! The US has also been a major donor, providing more than $5.2 billion through USAID from 1994-2021.
The unique refugee policy defining all new-born Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and Judea & Samaria as refugees, insures that with every new generation, more “refugees” are created, ad infinitum. Hamas not only doesn’t care about the ‘refugees’ sometimes miserable living conditions, it uses them as human shields. If they are inadvertently killed, Hamas happily displays their corpses to eager Western media. The Gazan and Arab news ‘reporters’ ignore the fact that placing the military behind civilians and in or near civilian institutions like schools, hospitals, and mosques will obviously result in huge casualties to civilians. (Not that you can believe casualty counts from the Hamas government.)
Why does the West want to force Israel to be a ‘peace partner’ with Gaza, given its mission to wipe the state of Israel off the map? Providentially, President Trump has negated this idea and has literally blasted open the doors to new ideas for Gaza, eviscerating the 2-state ‘solution’. While no country, especially Arab ones, is opening its borders to the Gazans, Western countries will continue their role as “useful idiots” to rebuild Gaza – until the next time.
NOTES
Note 1: Even the Arab countries which don’t condemn Hamas have kicked out Palestinians over the years: Jordan (1970-71), tens of thousands killed or expelled to Lebanon; Lebanon (1982) expelled the PLO following the Israeli offensive to stop border incursions; Kuwait (1991) expelled over 200,000 Palestinians, including those in Gaza, for supporting the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; Egypt (post-2007) imposed border restrictions on Gazans; Iraq (2003-2006) persecuted and displaced many Palestinian refugees.
Note 2: 25+ million of people were forced from, or fled their homes following WW2:
- Expulsion of Germans (12-14 million people)
- Polish Population Shifts (~2 million people)
- Soviet Deportations (~3-4 million people)
- Greek-Turkish Population Transfers (‘leftovers’ from WW1)
- Jewish Displacement (6-7 million Holocaust survivors)
Others in the Eastern hemisphere are an indirect result of WW2:
- Indian Subcontinent (1947) 15-20 million in India and the new state of Pakistan)
And then following the war for Israel’s independence:
- (1948-9) 700,000 Arabs from the former British Mandate for Palestine
- (1948-1967) 800,000 Jews from Arab lands
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Steve Kramer is an American Israeli freelance writer residing in Kfar Saba, Israel.