WarSclerotic

Dovid Efune on i24 News: Obama Should Not be ‘Agitating’ While Israel is Under Fire (VIDEO), Algemeiner, August 21, 2014

(The current American relationship with Israel is substantially better than that of the Obama Nation. — DM)

“President Obama had been treating Israel like a vassal state, and that is wrong. It is simply wrong,”

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The Obama administration should not be pushing its agenda on Israel while the Jewish state’s citizens are facing rocket fire from Gaza and are in the midst of a military campaign to address the threat, The Algemeiner Editor Dovid Efune said in a recent debate on i24 News at Jerusalem’s Jaffa Port.

“For the president – now – to be agitating – even if he has differences of opinion, now is not the time,” Efune said. “Israeli citizens are under fire; Israel has a right – not only a right but a moral duty to defend its own citizens. And right now the president should be supporting.”

“Historically, U.S. presidents – especially at a time of war – even Nixon, who was considered an anti-Semite, according to many historians, rose to the occasion when Israel was at war and needed [them] most,” he added.

On Israel’s relationship with its main ally, the U.S., Efune pointed out that, “There is a difference between the U.S.-Israel relationship and the Obama Administration’s relationship with Israel.”

“The U.S.-Israel relationship is stronger than ever,” he said, “the polls are among the highest that they’ve been, in the high 60s and 70s. The American people are strongly in Israel’s court, backing what it needs to do to defend itself at this point.”

The televised exchange took place just hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration demanded extra oversight over arms being transferred to Israel after the IDF secured munitions behind the White House’s back.

Israel was also reported to have voiced strong objections to the U.S. insistence on involving Turkey and Qatar, key Hamas allies, in regional peace talks. A strongly contested report from Israel’s Channel 1 news also had the president demanding a unilateral cease-fire from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The rocky period that we’re going through right now has seen much worse periods,” Efune said, “and it will emerge bigger, stronger, and better, especially after President Obama leaves office in a couple of years time.”

On the sometimes combative position that Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken throughout the operation, Efune said, “It’s definitely hugely important for the prime minister of the state of Israel to assert the independence of this country and the right to act independently, in its own interests and the interests of the security of its people.”

“President Obama had been treating Israel like a vassal state, and that is wrong. It is simply wrong,” he added.

That ISIS guy who promised to raise Islamic flag over the White House? He’s dead
posted at 2:41 pm on August 21, 2014 by Noah Rothman Via Hot Air

(Let’s just call it Karma.-LS)

The Islamic State’s Press Officer Abu Mosa became a figure of international notoriety overnight when he took on a starring role in a captivating Vice News documentary about ISIS in Syria.

“Don’t be cowards and attack us with drones,” he said. “Instead, send us your soldiers, the ones we humiliated in Iraq. We will humiliate them everywhere, God willing, and we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House.”

Instead of doing that, according to the U.S. State Department, he’s just going to be dead.

Mosa was reportedly killed near the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, where much of Vice’s documentary was shot. His death comes as Islamic State forces mount a long-awaited assault on the Tabqa Syrian military airbase.

“The group in recent months has virtually eliminated the presence of President Bashar Assad’s military in Raqqa province, with the exception of Tabqa,” the Associated Press reported. “The air base is one of the most significant government military facilities in the area, containing several warplane squadrons, helicopters, tanks, artillery and ammunition.”

Mosa was a true zealot. His commitment to the cause of fundamentalist Islamic jihad took precedence over every other aspect of his life.

“I don’t return home for pleasure,” Mosa told Vice’s cameras. “The family, honestly, is the least important thing. There is a higher purpose.”

“No one would defend Muslims if we all sat at home with the family,” he continued.

He will not be missed. At least, not in the West.

(Besides, he’s probably real busy now, you know, all those virgins.-LS)

Retired Intel Officer: Foley Rescue Attempt Failed Because Obama ‘Dragged His Feet’
BY: Larry O’Connor August 21, 2014 12:57 pm Via The Washington Free Beacon

(For Sale: One President, slightly used. Only driven to golf course on Sundays. Make offer.-LS)

Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer (Ret.) is a CIA-trained former senior intelligence officer who wrote the book Operation Dark Heart about the Special Operations successes in the early stages of the Afghanistan war.

He also famously reported to Congress that part of the intelligence breakdown prior to the 9/11 attacks was due to communications failures between the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency’s “Able Danger” project which had identified Mohamed Attah’s terror cell in Brooklyn in 2000.

Thursday morning, Shaffer appeared on WMAL radio in Washington, D.C., to discuss the ISIS execution of American journalist James Foley earlier this week. He told me and co-host Brian Wilson that the recently revealed rescue attempt led by Special Forces earlier this summer failed because President Obama was slow to give the go-ahead:

I’m hearing from my friends in the Pentagon, they are giving him every single option way ahead of time. And let me give you a little secret here: The reason that raid into Syria failed to get Foley and those guys was because the president drug his feet. He waited too long, the intel got stale, and by the time we actually gave the “go” word it failed because we just didn’t react quick enough.

Revisiting “The Silent Extermination of Iraq’s ‘Christian Dogs,’” Front Page Magazine, Raymond Ibrahim, August 21, 2014

(President Obama says that the Islamic State speaks for no religion. However, it both speaks and acts for Islam, as do other Islamic nations and groups. Does he no longer consider the beautiful “religion of peace” a religion? Don’t be silly.– DM)

And now the job is largely done, as Christians and other religious minorities are being cleansed from large parts of Iraq, not to mention much of the Islamic world.

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Nearly three-and-a-half years ago, before the “Arab Spring” and the plight of Christians became much of a topic, I wrote a FrontPage article titled “The Silent Extermination of Iraq’s ‘Christian Dogs.’”  Revisiting it is useful, as it highlights some important points.  The article follows below in italics, with new observations interspersed in regular font:

Last week [April, 2011] an Iraqi Muslim scholar issued a fatwa that, among other barbarities, asserts that “it is permissible to spill the blood of Iraqi Christians.”  Inciting as the fatwa is, it is also redundant.  While last October’s Baghdad church attack which killed some sixty Christians is widely known—actually receiving some MSM coverage—the fact is, Christian life in Iraq has been a living hell ever since U.S. forces ousted the late Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The important point here is that the plight of Iraq’s Christians did not just begin under the Islamic State, as many seem to believe, but rather from the very first day the (secular) autocrat was removed.

Among other atrocities, beheading and crucifying Christians are not irregular occurrences; messages saying “you Christian dogs, leave or die,” are typical.  Islamists see the church as an “obscene nest of pagans” and threaten to “exterminate Iraqi Christians.”  John Eibner, CEO of Christian Solidarity International, summarized the situation well in a recent letter to President Obama:

“The threat of extermination is not empty. Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, more than half the country’s Christian population has been forced by targeted violence to seek refuge abroad or to live away from their homes as internally displaced people. According to the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, over 700 Christians, including bishops and priests, have been killed and 61 churches have been bombed. Seven years after the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk reports: ‘He who is not a Muslim in Iraq is a second-class citizen. Often it is necessary to convert or emigrate, otherwise one risks being killed.’ This anti-Christian violence is sustained by a widespread culture of Muslim supremacism that extends far beyond those who pull the triggers and detonate the bombs.”

Again, more confirmation that the savage persecution of Christians in Iraq—including recent acts of genocide and expulsions—is not a product of the Islamic State, but rather something more homegrown, more—how shall we say?—integral to Muslims unloosed from the grips of secularized dictators?

The grand irony, of course, is that Christian persecution has increased exponentially under U.S. occupation.  As one top Vatican official put it, Christians, “paradoxically, were more protected under the dictatorship” of Saddam Hussein.

What does one make of this—that under Saddam, who was notorious for human rights abuses, Christians were better off than they are under a democratic government sponsored by humanitarian, some would say “Christian,” America?

Although I first suggested over three years ago that Christian minorities are the first to suffer whenever the U.S. intervenes in Islamic nations—evincing the types of people the U.S. ends up empowering—this notion is now an ironclad fact, with other examples to add to Iraq, including Libya, Syria, and Egypt, under Obama allies, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Like a Baghdad caliph, Saddam appears to have made use of the better educated Christians, who posed no risk to his rule, such as his close confidant Tariq Aziz.  Moreover, by keeping a tight lid on the Islamists of his nation—who hated him as a secular apostate no less than the Christians—the latter benefited indirectly.

Conversely, by empowering “the people,” the U.S. has unwittingly undone Iraq’s Christian minority.  Naively projecting Western values on Muslims, U.S. leadership continues to think that “people-power” will naturally culminate into a liberal, egalitarian society—despite all the evidence otherwise.  The fact is, in the Arab/Muslim world, “majority rule” traditionally means domination by the largest tribe or sect; increasingly, it means Islamist domination.

Either which way, the minorities—notably the indigenous Christians—are the first to suffer once the genie of “people-power” is uncorked.

Indeed, evidence indicates that the U.S. backed “democratic” government of Iraq enables and incites the persecution of its Christians.  (All of this raises the pivotal question: Do heavy-handed tyrants—Saddam, Mubarak, Qaddafi, et al—create brutal societies, or do naturally brutal societies create the need for heavy-handed tyrants to keep order?)

Again, a reminder that it is not just the Islamic State that persecutes Christians, but even the U.S. installed government of Iraq. Moreover, a few months after the above was written, the government of “liberated” Afghanistan destroyed the last Christian church—entirely under U.S. auspices.

Another indicator that empowering Muslim masses equates Christian suffering is the fact that, though Iraqi Christians amount to a mere 5% of the population, they make up nearly 40% of the refugees fleeing Iraq.  It is now the same in Egypt: “A growing number of Egypt’s 8-10 million Coptic Christians are looking for a way to get out as Islamists increasingly take advantage of the nationalist revolution that toppled long-standing dictator Hosni Mubarak in February.”

At least Egypt’s problems are homegrown, whereas the persecution of Iraq’s Christians is a direct byproduct of U.S. intervention.  More ironic has been Obama’s approach: Justifying U.S. intervention in Libya largely in humanitarian terms, the president recently declared that, while “it is true that America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs… that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what’s right.”

Indeed, and we have since seen what Obama’s “humanitarian” actions in Libya have led to—the empowerment of Islamists and jihadis, evinced from things like the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the dramatic rise of Christian persecution.  Since Obama “liberated” Libya, Christians—including Americans—have been tortured and killed (including for refusing to convert) and churches bombed. And it’s “open season” on Copts, as jihadis issue a reward to Muslims who find and kill Christians. This was hardly the case under Gaddafi.

True, indeed.  Yet, as Obama “acts on behalf of what’s right” by providing military protection to the al-Qaeda connected Libyan opposition, Iraq’s indigenous Christians continue to be exterminated—right under the U.S. military’s nose in Iraq. You see, in its ongoing bid to win the much coveted but forever elusive “Muslim-hearts-and-minds™”—which Obama has even tasked NASA with—U.S. leadership has opted to ignore the inhumane treatment of Islam’s “Christian dogs,” the mere mention of which tends to upset Muslims.

And now the job is largely done, as Christians and other religious minorities are being cleansed from large parts of Iraq, not to mention much of the Islamic world.

Israeli official: Talks with Hamas will not resume any time soon, Israel Hayom, Mati Tuchfeld, Daniel Siryoti, Gideon Allon, Lilach Shoval and Yoni Hirsch, August 21, 2014

U.S. “very concerned” by renewed fighting in Gaza Strip • State Department calls for immediate end to rocket fire, return to cease-fire talks • Hamas blames Israel for deadlock • Fatah official: Qatar threatened to cut off Hamas if it agrees to truce.

An Israeli Air Force strike on the Gaza Strip, Wednesday | Photo credit: Albert Sadikov, JINI

The Cairo cease-fire talks with Hamas will not resume at this time, an Israeli official said Wednesday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the Israeli delegation to Egypt to return to Jerusalem following the collapse of the truce on Tuesday and Hamas’ renewed rocket fire.

Cairo’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that the Egyptian-brokered talks had been suspended and that the Palestinian delegation had left Cairo as well.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday, as well as with the Turkish and Qatari foreign ministers, and expressed the White House’s “deep concern” over the renewed hostilities.

State Department Deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters Wednesday, “We remain very concerned about developments in Gaza, condemn the renewed rocket fire, and as we have said, Israel has the right to defend itself against such attacks.

“We call for an immediate end to rocket fire and hostilities, and a return to cease-fire talks. We hope that the parties can reach an agreement — as we’ve said, ideally on a sustainable cease-fire, but if not, then agree to an extension.”

Lieberman said Wednesday that “when seriously discussing the security of Israeli citizens we have to understand that there is no other option except launching a decisive Israeli move meant to defeat Hamas.”

Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On criticized the foreign minister, saying, “Lieberman has been peddling the illusion of Hamas’ defeat for years, but after a month of killing and devastation in Gaza, the residents of the south have once more found themselves under rocket fire. It doesn’t look as if this operation has changed anything, and I doubt any military operation can change things.”

A senior Fatah official was quoted Wednesday by the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat as saying that the negotiations deadlocked following a threat by Qatar to expel Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal (who has been living in Doha) and cut off its financial support of Hamas, if Mashaal agreed to the Egyptian cease-fire initiative.

Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq, who participated in the Cairo talks, blamed Israel for the talks’ collapse, but said that there was still “a slim chance” of renewing the negotiations.

Azzam al-Ahmad, the lead Palestinian negotiator and a senior Fatah member, also blamed Israel for the deadlock in the negotiations. He said that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had left for Qatar in a bid to convince Mashaal to resume the truce negotiations with Israel.

The Israeli Air Force has struck over 110 targets in the Gaza Strip since the fighting resumed. The military has recalled up 2,000 reservists, who were recently released, ahead of a potential ground incursion. According to military sources, the military has presented the cabinet with plans for a ground operation, and is now waiting its approval.

Translating Hamas, Israel Hayom, Zvika Fogel, August 21, 2014

To stop us from being surprised, it would not hurt us to hire a Hamas translator. The collapse of a cease-fire is an Israeli expression that is not part of Hamas’ vocabulary. More than once, Hamas has shown us that fire is an inseparable part of its negotiating strategy, and that the Israeli strategy of “quiet will be met with quiet” leaves Hamas with the initiative and the ability to decide when to fire.

Anyone surprised by the foiled Hamas plot to overthrow the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria or the fact that Hamas is continuing to fire rockets at Israel despite the massive damage inflicted in Gaza does not understand Hamas’ raison d’etre, as is clearly written in its hateful charter: “There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by jihad. The initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.” A simple translation of this is: “There is no place in Palestine for the Jews or Mahmoud Abbas. The Jews must be killed or expelled and the Palestinian Authority must be replaced.” Anyone who thought for a moment that the issue of an airport and seaport in Gaza could be pushed back to the next stage of a cease-fire agreement did not realize that, for Hamas, this issue was not simply one part of the deal, but rather its main component, as part of the group’s overall goal of establishing Hamastan.

The attempt to assassinate Hamas military wing chief Mohammed Deif was the first step on a correct path that will divert Hamas from the organized plan it has been following almost undisturbed throughout Operation Protective Edge. The goal the Israeli government must set is that there will not be another round of fighting in Gaza after this operation is over. The government must also allow the military and security services to expand their target list to include Hamas civilian leaders, who have allowed Gaza residents to be crushed under the boots of the Hamas military wing. Gaza residents have been exploited as human shields for rocket fire and cynically used for propaganda purposes and the bolstering of the feelings of depression and deprivation from which Hamas draws strength.

Time is short. Summer is coming to an end and the High Holy Days are approaching. Operation Protective Edge proved that we have someone to rely on, that we have skilled, brave and determined soldiers.

If the military and security services are properly prepared and able to prevent surprises on the home front, and if they can avoid mistakes while also showing creativity and boldness, then I have no doubt the we will have a new year filled with apples and honey.

The Myth of the Palestinian Underdog, Commentary Magazine, Evelyn Gordon, August 21, 2014

(Israel is also quite “westernized” and tries to negotiate in good faith with her Islamist enemies in Gaza. Hence, Israel is expected to work diligently for peace while her enemies are expected to work diligently for Israel’s elimination. Why try to get Hamas, et al, to proceed in good faith when they haven’t and won’t but Israel has and will? — DM)

 [C]ondemning Israel entails no costs and frequently provides benefits, whereas supporting it could invite retaliation from its numerous enemies. So just as Western countries are reluctant to push China on Tibet for fear that China will retaliate by barring access to the world’s largest market, or to push Russia too hard on Ukraine because Russia is a major natural gas producer with no qualms about cutting off supplies to its political opponents, they often find it easier to push Israel than to push its enemies..

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One of the enduring myths of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is that much of the West supports the Palestinians out of natural sympathy for the underdog. Victor Davis Hanson of Stanford’s Hoover Institution effectively demolished that myth last week, pointing out that if sympathy for the underdog were really driving the massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations sweeping the West, one would expect to see equally massive demonstrations in support of occupied Tibet, the undoubted underdog against superpower China, or embattled Ukraine, the equally undoubted underdog against superpower Russia. In reality, he argued, anti-Israel sentiment flourishes not because Israel is Goliath, but because it is David:

Israel is inordinately condemned for what it supposedly does because its friends are few, its population is tiny, and its adversaries beyond Gaza numerous, dangerous and often powerful.

Or to put it more bluntly, condemning Israel entails no costs and frequently provides benefits, whereas supporting it could invite retaliation from its numerous enemies. So just as Western countries are reluctant to push China on Tibet for fear that China will retaliate by barring access to the world’s largest market, or to push Russia too hard on Ukraine because Russia is a major natural gas producer with no qualms about cutting off supplies to its political opponents, they often find it easier to push Israel than to push its enemies.

Take, for instance, the cases of Qatar and Turkey, currently Hamas’s two main patrons. Qatar is Hamas’s leading financier, giving it hundreds of millions of dollars per year to build its rocket arsenal and tunnel network; it hosts Hamas leader Khaled Meshal; it reportedly torpedoed an emerging Hamas-Israel cease-fire deal by threatening to kick Meshal out if he signed; and according to former Israeli Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, about a third of all cement imported to Gaza for Qatari-sponsored projects was instead diverted to Hamas’s tunnel network–presumably with Doha’s willing cooperation, since EU-managed projects suffered no similar diversions.

Turkey also gives Hamas hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and hosts about a dozen senior Hamas officials, including Saleh Arouri–who, over the past week, has both admitted to being behind the kidnapping of three Israeli teens in June and been accused by Israel’s Shin Bet security service of organizing a massive terror network in the West Bank tasked with starting a third intifada and overthrowing the Palestinian Authority. Israel has arrested some 90 members of this network and confiscated weapons and funds; the PA took the accusation seriously enough to launch its own investigation.

In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say that without the support Hamas receives from Turkey and Qatar, it could never have built the war machine that enabled it to start this summer’s war, and thus the death and destruction the world is now decrying in Gaza would never have happened.

Since both America and the European Union have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, one might expect this flagrant support for Hamas to prompt sanctions on Qatar and Turkey as state sponsors of terrorism. But Qatar is the world’s largest natural gas exporter and richest country, as well as home to the main U.S. air force base in the Middle East, while Turkey is a NATO member and major emerging economy. So in fact, far from sanctioning Qatar and Turkey, both America and Europe consider them key partners. In short, it’s simply easier for the West to condemn Israel’s response to Hamas attacks and pressure it to accede to Hamas demands than it would be to condemn and penalize Turkish and Qatari support for Hamas.

Clearly, Israel has many strengths, including a thriving economy, a relatively powerful army, and strong American support. But as Hanson noted, it’s still a tiny country with few friends and many enemies, and anti-Israel protesters intuitively sense this. So don’t be fooled by their pretensions to “moral indignation” against Israel’s “oppression of the underdog.” They’re just doing what mobs have done since time immemorial: targeting a victim they see as fundamentally vulnerable.

ISIS is to America as Hamas is to Israel, Gatestone Institute, Alan M. Dershowitz, August 20, 2014

No democratic nation can accept its own destruction. We cannot compromise — come half way — with terrorists who demand the deaths of all who stand in the way of their demand for a Sunni caliphate, whether these terrorists call themselves ISIS or Hamas. Both are, in the words of President Obama, “cancers” that must be extracted before they spread. Both are equally malignant. Both must be defeated on the battlefield, in the court of public opinion and in the courts of law. There can be no compromise with bigotry, terrorism or the demand for a caliphate. Before Hamas or ISIS can be considered legitimate political partners, they must give up their violent quest for a worldwide Islamic caliphate.

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President Barack Obama has rightfully condemned the ISIS beheading of American James Foley in the strongest terms. This is what he said:

“There has to be a common effort to extract this cancer so it does not spread. There has to be a clear rejection of the kind of a nihilistic ideologies. One thing we can all agree on is group like (ISIS) has no place in the 21st century. Friends and allies around the world, we share a common security a set of values opposite of what we saw yesterday. We will continue to confront this hateful terrorism and replace it with a sense of hope and stability.”

At the same time that President Obama has called for an all-out war against the “cancer” of ISIS, he has regarded Hamas as having an easily curable disease, urging Israel to accept that terrorist group, whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction, as part of a Palestinian unity government. I cannot imagine him urging Iraq, or any other Arab country, to accept ISIS as part of a unity government.

Former President Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu have gone even further, urging the international community to recognize the legitimacy of Hamas as a political party and to grant it diplomatic recognition. It is hard to imagine them demanding that the same legitimate status be accorded ISIS.

Why then the double standard regarding ISIS and Hamas? Is it because ISIS is less brutal and violent than Hamas? It’s hard to make that case. Hamas has probably killed more civilians — through its suicide bombs, its murder of Palestinian Authority members, its rocket attacks and its terror tunnels — than ISIS has done. If not for Israel’s Iron Dome and the Israeli Defense Forces, Hamas would have killed even more innocent civilians. Indeed its charter calls for the killing of all Jews anywhere in the world, regardless of where they live or which “rock” they are hiding behind. If Hamas had its way, it would kill as least as many people as ISIS would.

Is it the manner by which ISIS kills? Beheading is of course a visibly grotesque means of killing, but dead is dead and murder is murder. And it matters little to the victim’s family whether the death was caused by beheading, by hanging or by a bullet in the back of a head. Indeed most of ISIS’s victims have been shot rather than beheaded, while Hamas terrorists have slaughtered innocent babies in their beds, teenagers on the way home from school, women shopping, Jews praying and students eating pizza.

Is it because ISIS murdered an American? Hamas has murdered numerous Americans and citizens of other countries. They too are indiscriminate in who they kill.

Is it because ISIS has specifically threatened to bring its terrorism to American shores, while Hamas focuses its terrorism in Israel? The Hamas Charter does not limit its murderous intentions to one country. Like ISIS it calls for a worldwide “caliphate,” brought about by violent Jihad.

Everything we rightly fear and despise from ISIS we should fear and despise from Hamas. Just as we would never grant legitimacy to ISIS, we should not grant legitimacy to Hamas—at the very least until it rescinds its charter and renounces violence. Unfortunately that is about as likely as America rescinding its constitution. Violence, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism are the sine qua non of Hamas’ mission.

Just as ISIS must be defeated militarily and destroyed as a terrorist army, so too must Hamas be responded to militarily and its rockets and tunnels destroyed.

It is widely, and in my view mistakenly, argued by many academics and diplomats that there can never be a military solution to terrorism in general or to the demands of Hamas in particular. This conventional wisdom ignores the lessons of history. Chamberlain thought there could be a diplomatic solution to Hitler’s demands. Churchill disagreed. History proved Churchill correct. Nazi Fascists and Japanese militarists had to be defeated militarily before a diplomatic resolution could be achieved.

So too with ISIS and Hamas. They must first be defeated militarily and only then might they consider accepting reasonable diplomatic and political compromises. Another similarity between ISIS and Hamas is that if these terrorist groups were to lay down their arms, there might be peace, whereas if their enemies were to lay downtheir arms, there would be genocide.

A wonderful cartoon illustrates this: at one end of the table is Hamas demanding “Death to all Jews” At the other end is Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu. In the middle sits the mediator, who turns to Netanyahu and asks: “Could you at least meet him half way?”

Image source: A.F. Branco/Legal Insurrection

No democratic nation can accept its own destruction. We cannot compromise — come half way — with terrorists who demand the deaths of all who stand in the way of their demand for a Sunni caliphate, whether these terrorists call themselves ISIS or Hamas. Both are, in the words of President Obama, “cancers” that must be extracted before they spread. Both are equally malignant. Both must be defeated on the battlefield, in the court of public opinion and in the courts of law. There can be no compromise with bigotry, terrorism or the demand for a caliphate. Before Hamas or ISIS can be considered legitimate political partners, they must give up their violent quest for a worldwide Islamic caliphate.