Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Hamas’s True Crime | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Before I lift the veil surrounding the true crime of Hamas, it is appropriate to begin taking an inventory, even at this early stage, of the gains an losses from the Gaza Crisis, and the truth of what has been “gained” by the enemy.

A group of 65 prominent British Jews comprised of academics and intellectuals summarized Israel’s real loss with regards to its brutal attack on the Gaza Strip. The British “Guardian” newspaper published a statement written by this group on Saturday which said that after 14 days of “Zionist” attacks, thirty thousand members of the Israeli armed forces, thousands of bombs and missiles, and four thousand Palestinian’s killed, the Zionists (term used by the British Jewish group in their statement) are yet to achieve a clear goal despite clearly having the upper hand. And so on the military level the Israeli army is in need of immediate implementation with regards to this dilemma, while on the political level the Israeli government has not achieved anything other than a [campaign of] brutal aggression against the Palestinian people. The true crime of the Hamas movement, as stated by the group of prominent British Jews, is not that it is a terrorist organization, but that it refuses to be a toy in Israeli hands.

If Israel, and America which stands behind it, aims in its battle with Hamas to fight a war on terrorism, which has become the joke of the century then [they must know that] in the caves of Afghanistan there is a man wearing a turban and sitting comfortably with his hands clasped behind his head watching the Israelis sinking into the mire of Gaza on television and laughing at this stupid American- Israeli joke. He is elated at the contribution made by these two allies in raising the flag of Jihad throughout the entire Islamic world. If anybody was wondering about the recent drop in the Al Qaeda operations, which it uses to keep the fire of Jihad burning? The reason, quite simply, they don’t need to because the brutal Israeli attack on Gaza is more then enough to keep the flames of Jihad burning, therefore Israel has easily fallen into implementing the Al Qaeda strategy.

Let us return to the inventory of gains and losses, desperate Israel now finds itself between two positions, it can either continue its stubbornness and arrogance by continuing with the attacks which would only increase its human and moral losses, or it can withdraw without receiving any assurances from Hamas which would result in a disastrous outcome of handing the Hamas movement a victory.

There is no doubt that this war is proving costly to the Palestinian side with regards to human and material losses, but what the Israelis do not know, or perhaps do not want to know, along with many Arabs, is that Hamas will come out of this conflict with political and military gains. The military gains will occur because the utmost of what Hamas aspire to is to “endure” and the previous two weeks have proven their ability to do so. The proof of this is that the Hamas movement has been firing rockets [into Israel] in spite of the violent Israeli attack by land, sea, and air, and continue to inflict wounds on the Israeli army, and the forthcoming days will reveal more of the spectacular operations of the Jihadist Palestinian resistance. Furthermore this is a real war, which means that it is a real opportunity for Hamas to develop its military experience, and the inevitable results of Hamas strengthening its military and political force on the Palestinian arena comes at the expense of its rival Fatah, whose members have become soft and nestled to gentleness and comfort following the stalled and failed peace processes.

As my article began with a Jewish academic inventory of the gains and loss [from this war] it will end with a Jewish religious inventory of the Gaza crisis. In an article in “The Times” Rabbi Michael Lerner after witnessing the Israeli political and military blunder in Gaza wrote that “it breaks my heart to see Israeli’s stupidity” As for us, it breaks our hearts to see those who are unaware of the Israeli stupidity, while some understand the successful strategy of resisting the enemy.