One hundred days plus into 78-year-old President Joe Biden’s administration, Hamas erupts with a new war with Israel, something that didn’t happen in former President Donald Trump’s four years in office. While there were riots and skirmishes after Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem Dec. 6, 2017, it wasn’t the full scale rocket war seen in the past. While there are always excuses given, the fact is that Hamas thinks, like the former Obama administration, Biden is more sympathetic to their cause, more inclined to put pressure on Israel. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen. So far, Biden has said publicly that Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas rocket attacks. As the destruction and bodies pile up, both sides, certainly Israel, will be under growing international pressure for a ceasefire. But as ceasfires go, they can’t be one-sided requiring Hamas to play ball.
Hamas’s 54-year-old Gaza Leader Ismail Haniyeh shows no signs of stopping the rocket war against Israel. Whatever destruction it causes in the dilapidated Gaza Strip, Haniyeh thinks he has backing in the Arab world, if not elsewhere. Yet it’s most ironic that the likely peace broker comes from 66-year-old Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the de facto military ruler who ousted Egypt’s only elected leader that late Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi who died in prison June 17, 2019. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood has a strong kinship with Haniyeh, the radical Islamic leader of the Gaza Strip, the former Egyptian territory. If El-Sisi is the one that brokers the ceasefire with Israel, wouldn’t that be ironic? When the last full-scale war took place in 2014, it lasted seven weeks, leaving 2,310 Hamas killed, more that 10,000 wounded, with major parts of Gaza left in ruins.
Hamas fought the bloody war with Israel in 2014 to loggerheads before both sides caved in to international pressure, stopping the hostilities Aug. 26, 2017, but not before the international community, human rights groups and the global press highlighted Hamas’ mass casualties. Hamas declared victory after the conflict, despite knowing the extent of the devastation in the Gaza Strip. Daily reports from Gaza, like the 2014 war, itemized women and children killed in the conflict, knowing, at any time, Hamas could stop firing rockets into Israel. As casualties and destruction continue, pressure mounted for Biden to appoint 54-year-old Brookings Institution Qatar bureau chief and State Department envoy Hady Amr to help work out a ceasefire. Amr, who has strong sympathies toward Hamas and Palestinians, doesn’t have much rapport with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Whatever Amr’s sympathies, he’s going to need to press Hamas to stop its rocket war with Israel, but, at the same time, put it into the context of Iran’s proxy war against Israel. Carrying out two main proxy wars in the Middle East, Iran has supplied arms-and-cash to Hamas terrorists in Gaza and Yemen’s Houthi rebels to battle Saudi Arabia since 2015. Whether Amr will see to bigger picture of Hamas’s rocket war with Israel is anyone’s guess. Whatever the precipitating causes, it doesn’t take much for Hamas to give Izz ad-Din al-Qassem brigades, Hamas military wing, the green light to start shooting off rockets at Israel. With Palestinians split between Hamas in Gaza and Palestine Authority in the West Bank, Hamas seems to call the shots. When Amr arrives in Israel, he’ll be shuttling back-and-forth between Gaza City and Ramallah to find some solution to the current crisis.
Appointing Amr raises questions for Netanyahu knowing his sympathies toward Palestinians. Amr has stated in the past the U.S. bore responsibility for the Sept. 11 hijackers, because of its support of Israel. Amr could not be more controversial to Republicans believing he’s biased toward Palestinians, accepting the old formulas for Mideast peace involving Israel returning to the pre-1967 Six Day War borders. Israel’s national security doesn’t permit a return to the pre-1967 borders, especially in the strategic Golan Heights with the war in Syria continuing to go on. Before the 2014 war ended Aug. 26, 2014, the Israeli army had to mobilize a ground offensive in Gaza. How far Hamas pushes the current war in anyone’s guess. What’s known for sure is that Hamas has the backing of Gaza residents, despite knowing the consequences of war with Israel, including more destruction to the region.
Marking the end of Ramadan with Eid al-Fitr, Hamas has the faithful whipped up into thinking they’re on the verge of conquering Israel, an all-consuming goal since paraplegic blind Sheikh Ahmed Yassin formed Hamas 1987, primarily as the armed wing of the Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO]. Past U.S. attempts to broker a Mideast peace ran through the Arafat PLO or more recently 85-year-old Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority [PA]. No diplomat has made much progress with Hamas because they haven’t changed their charter to destroy Israel. Starting the latest war proves that Hamas has more clout than the Ramallah-based PA. When Amr arrives at the scene he’ll have limited options, unless Hamas agrees to an immediate ceasefire. Israeli officials, whether Netanyahu, opposition leader Yair Lapid or former Defense Minister Beni Gantz, won’t deal with Hamas.
