LOS ANGELES.–After saying it wants modifications to 81-year-old President Joe Biden three-stage peace plan, Qatar-based billionaire Hamas leader in exile Ismail Haniyeh now says Hamas accepts in principle Biden’s proposal. Haniyeh, who ripped off Gaza of $4 billion dollars over 18 years, now says Hamas wants only minor changes. But the minor change is really quite simple, Hamas wants to remain in power, to get its hands on the expected billions of dollars in donor capital. Returning Hamas to power would put the Gaza Strip, and all its inhabitants, in a perpetual state of war, destroying the enclave every time Hamas leaders find any excuse to exact revenge on Israel. Hamas knows it cannot defeat Israel but keeps telling Gazans that they will return to their rightful land inside Israel. Hamas thinks it can commit any Nazi-like atrocity in the name of “resistance,” seeking their land back.
Hamas knows that the Gaza Strip was controlled by Egypt since 1920 before the 1967 Six Day War, when Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] leader Yasser Arafat led six Arab states on a suicide mission that lasted on six days. When the dust settled, Israel had defeated the powerful Egyptian Gen. Gamel Abdel Nasser, humiliating him watching Israel seize the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula. Egypt, long after Nasser’s death Sept. 28, 1970, made peace with Israel in what was known as former President Jimmy Carter’s 1979 Camp David Accords. Israeli returned the Sinai Peninsula, including resort area Sharm El-Sheikh in exchange for a peace treaty with Israel. After the Six Day War, Israel annexed Jordan’s West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights, both territories holding dense populations of Bedouin Arabs, a population Arafat labeled Palestinians.
At no time in Palestinians’ history did they hold sovereign territory in the Holy Land, living under over 500 years of Ottoman Turk and British rule. Arabs living in the Holy Land under Ottoman or British rule did not rebel or refer to Ottomans or British as occupation. Only after the British deeded the British Mandate of Palestine to Jews in 1948 did the revolts happen, in no small part because of rampant anti-Semitism in Muslim circles. When it comes to Hamas, they hold the same radical anti-Semitic hatred as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei sees his mission and promise to Shiite Islam as destroying the State of Israel. So, Hamas was the perfect donor state for the Aytollah to supply with cash-and-weapons to destroy the Jewish State. Ayatollah knows it’s a perverse fantasy to think any Arab State—including Iran—can conquer Israel.
Yet for state-sponsored terrorists in Iran or other terrorist groups like Hamas, the goal of destroying Israel fits in its radical Islamic philosophy, giving poor people without a future hope to return to paradise in the Holy Land. Everyone knows when Israel took over the British Mandate of Palestine it was a desert wasteland, transformed by ambitious European Zionists into one the world most sophisticated developed states. Arabs can only dream of the conquering the modern state of Israel for all its high tech, science, medicine, arts, education, culture and opportunities. Instead of trying to destroy Israel, Arab States—and Palestinians—should do everything possible to mirror Israel’s thriving democracy. Hamas wants to maintain control over Gaza to continue fleecing the Mediterranean territory expecting to once again get fresh infusions of capital to rebuild the war-torn territory.
How can any world leader trust Hamas knowing that they pillaged, plundered and looted the Gaza Strip for their own gains? Forget about their hatred of Jews or Israel, it’s about using Gaza as a perpetual cash cow to get rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Bedouin Arabs living under Hamas control are only cannon fodder to any war they create with Israel for the purpose to getting more oil-rich donor cash. No U.S. or EU member can accept Hamas leadership in Gaza. Haniyeh must be told directly that Hamas cannot return to power in Gaza or any other place to govern Palestinians. Enough crimes have been committed to prosecute Hamas leaders from now until eternity. World leaders can’t make a mistake on a terror organization the functions as a criminal gang, a kind of drug cartel or mafia. How can they be trusted with donor cash to rebuild the Gaza Strip?
Hamas does everything possible with its prodigious propaganda network to denigrate Israel, grossly exaggerating civilian casualties, especially women and children. Hamas likes to accuse Israel of genocide when, it’s precisely what they did Oct. 7, 2023, raping, torturing and murdering over 1,200 Israeli citizens, taking another 250 hostage. Israel’s vaunted Mosad Security Service was asleep at the switch, not intercepting the slaughter before it happened. World leaders don’t like to hear about Hamas sexual violence against girls, teenagers and women, showing their true colors while they rampaged in Kibbutzes near the Gaza border. What more does the world need to see about Hamas, a true ISIS or al-Qaeda-like terror group that thrives on mayhem whether on Jews, Christians or Muslims. Watching ISIS rape, torture and slaughter Yazidi women tells Hamas’s story.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
