LOS ANGELES.–Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, 89, called on Hamas to leave the Gaza, relinquishing all power to the Ramallah-based Fatah movement or Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] started by Yasser Arafat in 1964. Hamas illegally seized the Gaza Strip in 2007, installing Hamas as the ruling legal authority of Gaza, controlling 2.1 million Palestinians. Hamas was founded in 1987 by blind Sheikh Ahmed Yassin for the purpose of serving as a military wing to the PLO. As obvious by Abbas’s age at 89, he’s in no position without foreign help to rule the Gaza Strip to prevent terrorists groups like Hamas from seizing the territory again. Hamas has refused to give up its arms, prompting Israel to resume fighting, with Egypt and Qatar scrambling to find a new ceasefire agreement. Hamas refused to give back alive or dead Israeli hostages.
Declaring that Hamas must leave Gaza is long overdue, something that could have been proposed by Egypt and Qatar, serving as mediators, months ago, after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas massacre the killed over 1,200 Israelis, taking another 250 hostages after completing their rampage of rape, torture and murder, then returning inside the Gaza border. Israel went to war with Hamas promptly after Oct. 7, 2023, spending the last year-and-a-half decimating the Gaza Strip trying to get Hamas to leave Gaza. “Hamas must show compassion for Gaza, its children, women and men,” said Fatah spokesman Monther al-Hayek. Al-Hayek called on Hamas to “step aside from governing and fully recognize that the battle ahead will lead to the end of Palestinians existence,” if Hamas remains in power. Fatah or PLO has no enforcement mechanism to order Hamas to do anything.
Hamas refuses to leave Gaza unless there’s a permanent ceasefire in place, continuing to battle Israel like it’s always done. Yassin chartered Hamas with one purpose, one goal in mind, to destroy the Jewish State, drive Israeli into the Mediterranean Sea, a often refrain from the Palestinian diaspora community, using the expression, “From the river to the sea,” meaning from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) likes to repeat the Hamas refrain “from the river to the sea,” showing her fierce opposition to the Israeli State. Palestinians like Tlaib harbor the same views of Israel as Hamas, that it’s an illegal entity that stole Palestinian land in the 1948 war of independence. Arabs living in the Holy Land before the 1948 war of independence had no sovereignty over the territory, living under Ottoman Turk and British rule for over 500 years.
Only after the British gave the Mandate of Palestine to Jews fighting for a Jewish State in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust did Palestinians rebel, start revolting and planning for more wars to eradicate the state of Israel. Israel fought its way for the last 80 years while building a technologically advanced democracy, comparable in development to any European country in terms of science, medicine, education, arts and culture. So when the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar planned the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre his intent was to finally conquer Israel, the same twisted fantasy as his predecessors. Before retreating back to Gaza’s tunnels, Sinwar boasted how easy it was to breach Israel’s security. But Hamas found out quickly that its pipe dream was noting more than the same old fantasy of destroying Israel, the message Hamas delivers to Gaza since taking over the territory from the PLO in 2007.
Under President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no restraints placed on him by former President Joe Biden. With Hamas refusing to end the conflict and get out of Gaza returning all living-and-dead hostages, Trump has given Netanyahu to do whatever he wants with the Gaza territory. Hamas has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, going to its backers in the U.N. to claim Israel uses starvation as a war-time strategy. Yet Hamas refused to heed the calls from the PLO and other to end the conflict, return the hostages and accept exile arrangements to leave Gaza. Hamas’s past leader spent the last 20 years looting the Gaza Strip, becoming millionaires and billionaires stealing donor cash from Gaza. Hamas’s leader-in-exile, living in Doha, Qatar, Khaled Meshaal is worth reportedly $4 billion. Well, how did that happen if not for grand larceny?
Calls for Hamas to release all hostages and get out of Gaza are long overdue from the European Union. Members of the U.N. have been complicit with Hamas not demanding that they release all hostages and leave the Gaza Strip. Now that the PLO has made their position clear, it’s time for the U.S. and EU countries to call for Hamas to release the hostages and get out of Gaza. Hamas fights a PR war exploiting its contacts in the U.N. and elsewhere to blame Israel for committing genocide against Palestinians. But has PLO’s al-Hayek said Hamas has resulted in the destruction of the Palestinian people. Whatever differences with Israel, the West Bank Palestinian Authority has done everything to work with Israel to improve the lives of its people. Only the Iranian-backed terror group Hamas has one mission to perpetuate continuous war with Israel as their first and only duty.
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 Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
