The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> Misplaced sympathy for Hamas.

Barry Rubin

A repressive fascist Hamas that has oppressed the people of the Gaza Strip, murdered Palestinian Authority supporters, used civilians as human shields, needs to be shamed rather than placated

Pleased to meet you/ Hope you guess my name/ But what’s puzzling you/ Is the nature of my game: The Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil

Is it so hard to guess the name? Is it so difficult to understand the nature of the game? Apparently so.

“Israeli assault complicates efforts to improve relationship with US,” says the Washington Post. “Israeli raid exacerbates regional tensions and threatens peace process,” claims a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Scotsman, not interested in the details, called it a “massacre.”

And so the blame is placed. Yet why should either claim be true? After all, neither the US Administration nor the Palestinian Authority is friends of Hamas and its reign in the Gaza Strip. Both have had their people murdered by Hamas and that group, an ally of Iran, wants to drive the former out of the region and overthrow the latter.

Hamas has oppressed the people of the Gaza Strip, murdered Palestinian Authority supporters in hospitals and thrown them off roofs; driven the Christians out; taken relief supplies for its own soldiers; launched a war on Israel in December 2008 that caused avoidable death and destruction; used civilians as human shields and mosques for ammunition dumps; indoctrinated children to be suicide bombers; are putting women into a Taliban-like situation; and repeatedly announces its antisemitic views and intention to wipe out Israel and massacre its people.

For some, none of this makes any difference though — to be fair — the media they get information from may not have presented these facts. For those on the Left, Hamas should be considered as a fascist organisation which they passionately oppose. For those sympathetic to human rights or women’s rights, or many other good causes, Hamas should be anathema.

What should be paramount, then, is an international determination to overthrow the Hamas regime. After all, while it had earlier come in first in elections, it staged a coup and overthrew what was perceived as the rightful Government of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority. To do such a thing would — to paraphrase the Carnegie report — reduce regional tensions and aid the peace process lead to an independent Palestinian state. Yet this rather obvious idea simply does not seem to have occurred to any Western Government or elite.

So instead there is a policy, albeit an eroding one, of isolating Hamas and denying it at least some supplies and money, demanding that it accept the idea of real peace with Israel and cease the use of terrorism. Even this seems too much for many people and, increasingly, for some Governments.

In the face of this very profound and essential wrongness, precisely what measures Israel takes toward a half-dozen vessels seeking to break the blockade that much of the world supports seems a rather secondary issue.

Then there is the confrontation itself.

It is unlikely that the clash between Israeli forces and revolutionary Islamists on a Turkish vessel carrying Hamas supporters and supplies to Gaza is going to change anything at all in terms of the politics and issues of the regions. Yet these events tell us a lot about international thinking nowadays and the tactics used by the revolutionaries who want to transform West Asia and turn it into Islamist totalitarian states.

Everything I have written above would, in many circles, be considered shocking. Yet it is all obviously demonstrably true and profoundly valid for the conduct of international affairs. If any North American or European country had done the same thing as Israel, it would be excused. If any other Third World country did so, it would be ignored.

Why does the Israel-Palestinian conflict continue? The Palestinians. If the Palestinians stopped fighting there would be peace; if Israel stopped fighting there would be even more war.

Why were people killed in the sea off of Gaza? The Islamist-led forces there. Because — as was shown with five of the six ships — if they didn’t fight nobody would be hurt but if they assaulted Israeli soldiers, the latter would defend themselves.

Oh, by the way, the Turkish group that organised this operation also has had ties with Al Qaeda. In other words, numerous Western institution are cheering — or at least being fooled — by an allegedly humanitarian action of ‘peace activists’ run by an organisation that supported the 9/11 attack. Contemplate that irony for a few minutes.

Of course, this isn’t the first time a revolutionary movement has deliberately sacrificed people for a perceived benefit to the cause. Indeed, Hamas does that all the time. But it might perhaps be the first time it has fooled so many people. Or, perhaps I should see the second, given international reactions to the 2008-2009 war in the Gaza Strip. And the more successfully Hamas (and Hizbullah) uses such tactics, the more people they will get killed in their pursuit of international sympathy and support.

Recognition of these facts is necessary for democratic societies that intend to survive. And yet that is not at all what is happening.

Now events have gone one step further. In order to pursue their goals, Hamas wants to escape from its isolation and win international support for both its regime over Gaza and in its struggle against Israel. And what are these goals? Ruling the Gaza Strip forever, seizing the West Bank and putting the PA leadership in front of a firing squad, obliterating Israel and committing genocide on its Jewish population, creating a totalitarian Palestinian state, destroying Western influence in the region, and helping to overthrow all the existing Arab Governments as a junior partner of Iran.

This might be expected to bother a lot of people, especially in the West, especially on the Left, especially among intellectuals who benefit from living in free societies. And yet that’s not necessarily true either.

As part of its effort, Hamas supporters organised a six-ship convoy to bring supplies to the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip has always been a poor area, even compared to the West Bank. Despite ruling over the area for more than a decade while receiving a huge amount of foreign aid in comparison to the size of the population, the PA did little for the people. It led them into an unnecessary five-year-long destructive war in 1999 that only made things worse for them.

Hamas has now ruled the Gaza Strip for about five years. Yet it has preferred continued war with Israel, a full-scale military mobilisation, and hardline policies rather than working for the development of the area and jobs for the people.

Yet who is blamed for the status of that area today?

— The writer is director of the GLORIA Center, Tel Aviv, and editor of the MERIA Journal.

via Iran offers escort for Gaza ships.

Photo by: Associated Press

Iran offers escort for Gaza ships

By ASSOCIATED PRESS AND JPOST.COM STAFF
06/06/2010 18:02

Supreme leader Khamenei offers military protection for activists.

Iran would be willing to send its Revolutionary Guard members to accompany further aid ships to Gaza, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday in an interview cited by Reuters.

via American Thinker Blog: If D-Day had been reported by today\’s MSM.

Edward Olshaker

New UAVs Take to Sky Near Gaza, Could be Used in Iran Strike – Defense/Middle East – Israel News – Israel National News.

Follow Israel news on  and .

The Eitan

via Israel set to become gas exporter.

Photo by: Delek group via Bloomberg

By JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP

06/03/2010 21:26

Consortium finds enough gas to secure energy needs for 50 – 70 years.

Obama’s Flotilla, Obama’s War – HUMAN EVENTS.

The flotilla of boats intercepted by Israel this week flew the Turkish flag and was paid for by a “charity” deeply implicated in Islamic terrorism. But the “captain” of the fleet was none other than Barack Obama.

From the day he took the oath of office eighteen arduous months ago, Obama has followed a Middle East foreign policy that’s been as hostile toward Israel as it’s been hospitable toward the Islamic world.

Over those months Obama has seldom showed anger toward rogue Muslim governments—not toward the appalling human rights abuses of the genocidal Bashir regime in Sudan. Not toward the government of Iran as it pursues its nuclear weapons program.

Obama refused “to meddle” in Iran’s affairs after the deadly crackdown against protestors following the Islamic Republic’s sham elections. But he was described as “seething” with anger only moments after hearing about a routine decision by Jerusalem’s municipal government to authorize housing units in a well established Jewish neighborhood.

The administration’s latest betrayal of Israel came a couple days before the flotilla episode, when the U.S. joined an international conference that singled out Israel—not Iran—to renounce its nuclear weapons.

From Tehran to Ankara, from Damascus to Beirut, radical Islamists have read the signals as well. They see Obama as weak and they know he feels no bond with Israel. They sense opportunity. That is why missiles are being launched from Gaza again, why Hezbollah says it is yearning for war, why Syria has rejected every U.S. overture and why Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens a second Holocaust.

“Mr. Obama, you are a newcomer. Wait until your sweat dries and get some experience,” Ahmadinejad taunted Obama ahead of the president’s nuclear summit in D. C. two months ago.

Obama’s It’s-Better-To-Be-Loved-Than-Feared foreign policy also explains why Turkey, a U.S. ally and NATO member, allowed the flotilla to be launched. Did Obama even try to convince Turkey to stop the ships? Did he object when Turkey signed a nuclear deal with Iran two weeks ago?

As night follows day, Israel has come under a cascade of criticism for trying to defend its people. But it’s important to remember that Israel imposed the embargo after Hamas violently seized the Gaza Strip three years ago and turned it into a launching pad for rocket attacks against Israeli citizens.

Some 10,000 rockets have rained down on Israel since then, and the air assaults continued this week. Under international law, any nation that is under repeated attack has the right to intercept suspect ships to make sure munitions aren’t being smuggled in.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week, “This incident was the result of an intentional provocation of forces which support Iran and its terrorist enclave, Hamas, in the Gaza Strip. This enclave, Hamas, has fired thousands of missiles at the State of Israel, and it is amassing thousands more.”

The embargo was the only way to stop rockets from being transported to Gaza from Syria and Iran. Israel had already caught several ships filled with weapons. Given Hamas’ stated goal of the annihilation of the Jewish State, and its ongoing rocket attacks on Israeli citizens, the embargo is not only justified but also, I would argue, mandatory.

When one of the boats refused to be diverted to allow Israeli inspectors to ensure that only humanitarian goods were on board, Israel was well within its rights to intervene with force.

The media initially tried to portray those on board as “activists.” The Tea Party protestors are activists. The boats were filled with Islamists and their allies – people whose ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel and the U.S. Later reports found that many have links to terrorist groups. Three of the four Turks killed told their families before they left that they hoped to become martyrs.

On Wednesday it was reported that Israeli Security forces found a weapons cache on board the Turkish-flagged merchant vessel. The stash included Molotov cocktails, detonators, knives, slingshots and gasmasks. As Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “This was not a love boat. This was a hate boat. These were not pacifists. These weren’t peace activists. These were violent supporters of terrorism.”

Israel’s enemies are succeeding in increasingly isolating Israel. Its one-time ally Turkey, which knew about the flotilla in advance but chose not to stop it, has severed diplomatic ties to Israel. And while Americans are overwhelmingly pro-Israel, their government is downright hostile.

That is why I believe war looms on the horizon, and why the outcome of that war is far from certain. If war erupts, it won’t be because of the way Israel handles the constant stream of provocations and attacks. It will be because Islamic radicals feel increasingly emboldened by a feeble American president.

They have taken the measure of the man in the White House and have found him soft.  Peace in the Middle East has been a goal of American presidents for decades. It’s tragic that Obama’s failure to stand with our only Democratic ally in the Middle East is leading us all closer to war.

via PM: Mercenaries aboard Gaza ship.

Photo by: IDF Spokesperson.

By JPOST.COM STAFF AND YAAKOV KATZ

06/06/2010 12:12

“Evidence shows separate group of violent Islamists boarded flotilla.”

Talkbacks (11)

Turkish paper releases \’censored\’ photos of beaten Israeli commandos – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

	Photos published by Turkish paper Hurriyet June 6, 2010 of beaten Israeli navy commandos aboard Mavi Marmara
	Photo by: Hurriyet

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Tags: Erdogan Intelligence Pro-Hamas flotilla

Dr. Hakan Fidan, new Turkish MIT chief

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan is clearly spoiling for more trouble with Israel. This is manifested by the steps which are revealed here by DEBKAfile‘s military and intelligence sources. The peaceful outcome of the Rachel Corrie incident Saturday, June 5, and Israel’s efforts to keep the crisis under control have had no effect on his determination to raise rather than de-escalate Turkish-Israeli friction.
Friday, Erdogan made sure his close aides leaked word to the media that he was preparing a large wave of flotillas to challengeIsrael’s blockade, to be escorted next time by armed Turkish warships with himself possibly on board.

To this, our sources add:
1. The prime minister’s office in Ankara is forking out millions of dollars to the IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi), the Istanbul-based terrorist group linked to al Qaeda and Hamas, with orders to purchase 8-10 large ships for a formidable fleet to challenge the Israeli Navy and its enforcement of the 20-mile blockade of the Gaza Strip.
This is the second time he is recruiting the IHH terrorists who assaulted Israeli commandos boarding the Mavi Marmara on May 31, leaving nine people dead and 45 injured in consequence.

The Washington Post Sunday called for the Erdogan’s government’s ties to the IHH to be one focus of any international investigation into the Marmara incident, pointing to its support for Hamas, which the United States has named as a terrorist entity. The paper called foreign minister Ahmet Davutogolu’s statement that the Israeli attack “is like 9/11 for Turkey” obscene.

2. Last week, ahead of the Marmara incident, Erdogan began deploying at the Turkish end ofCyprus air, naval and marine units, holding them ready to combat Israeli takeovers of Gaza-bound vessels. He was only restrained from sending them into action by the last-minute intervention of President Barack Obama’s NSA James Jones and President Nicolas Sarkozy’s chef de bureau who, according to DEBKAfile‘s Washington and Paris sources, threatened him with isolation in NATO and Europe if he went ahead.
Saturday, the Turkish leader had his aides leak to the media that he was seriously thinking of leading the next flotilla in person to dramatize his confrontation with Israel.
3. At home, the Turkish prime minister shored up his intelligence ranks ahead of his planned showdown with Israel, replacing professional directors for the first time in modern Turkish history with civilians, radical Muslims close to him personally.
DEBKAfile names them for the first time here as Hakan Fidan, the former head of TIKA, the Turkish International & Development Agency, who is appointed head of the Central Turkish Intelligence Agency – MIT, the equivalent of the Israel Mossad; and Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler, who is the new Undersecretary for Public Order and Security, who in fact directs Turkey’s special operations against terrorists.
By these appointments, the Turkish prime minister put paid to any lingering hopes still cherished by some circles in Israel of preserving the long-held back channels to Ankara.

And finally, Turkey’s state prosecutors are instructed to prepare charges of murder and piracy on the high seas against Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defense minister Ehud Barak and chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazy.