LOS ANGELES.–U.N. Security Council voted June 10 unanimously with only a Russian abstention to approve 81-year-old President Joe Biden’s three-stage Gaza plan to begin a six-week ceasefire while hostages are returned and prisoners swapped, now waiting for Hamas approval. Hamas said before it didn’t approve of Biden’s plan because the ceasefire was not permanent, allowing Hamas to remain in control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas negotiator Sami Abu Zuhri said Hamas was ready to negotiate the terms of the deal, meaning it didn’t meet its basic requirement of letting Hamas stay in power. No donor state, thinking about financing reconstruction of Gaza, can trust Hamas with its known corruption with billions in donor cash. Many Hamas officials now living in exile are millionaires and billionaires after looting the Gaza Strip of donor cash over the last 18 years of Hamas rule.
Hamas wants ironclad guarantees that it will retain its power in Gaza, not something envisioned in Biden’s peace proposal. “The U.S. administration is facing a real test to carry out its commitments in compelling the occupation to immediately end the war in an implementation of the U.S. Security Council resolution,” said Abu Zuhri. Hamas doesn’t trust 62-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken because he’s Jewish, believing he’s in cahoots with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Hamas officials Osama Hamdan thinks the U.N. Security Council is flawed because it doesn’t have a permanent provision to allow Hamas to stay in power. Blinken “is one of the obstacles to reaching an agreement because he acts solely according to ‘Israel’s wishes,’ said Hamdan. Hamdan rejects any agreement that doesn’t explicitly leave Hamas ruling Gaza.
When it comes to the third phase of Biden’s plan involving rebuilding the Gaza Strip it would take billions of dollars, all directed toward Hamas leadership. Hamdan knows the degree of corruption in Hamas, where its current and past leaders have ripped off donor cash for their own selfish gains or, more importantly, to spend Gaza donor cash on military operations designed eventually to destroy the Jewish State. Hamas was founded and chartered in 1987 for one purpose: The destruction of Israel. Netanyahu knows that any deal accepted by the terror group Hamas would not change Hamas’s charter to drive Israel into the Mediterranean Sea as specified in the Hamas charter. Nothing has fundamentally changed with Hamas preserving power and its mission of destroying Israel. Hamas Supreme leader Yahya Sinwar has no plans of recognizing Israel’s right to exist.
Hamas was originally founded in 1987 after multiple wars of annihilation failed since 1948 through the 1973 Yom Kippur War. When the Yasser Arafat founded Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] in 1964. he failed to annihilate Israel together with six Arab States in the 1967 Six Day War. Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin pledged in 1987 to continue to the mission of destroying Israel. Ahmed Yassin was killed March 22, 2004 by Israel, his successor Abdel Aziz al-Ratissi died less than a month later April 17, 2004. Since that time, it’s been all out war by Hamas against Israel, culminating with Sinwar’s Oct. 17, 2023 massacre that’s left the Gaza Strip in ruins and Hamas hiding in Gaza’s military tunnels. So when it comes to negotiating any ceasefire, Netanyahu knows that Hamas hasn’t changed its charter to destroy the Jewish State at anytime in the foreseeable future.
Hamas finds nothing trustworthy in Biden or Blinken’s plan, now an approved U.N. Security Council resolution. Hamas wants to retain power in Gaza, and, more importantly, the right of resistance, to rape, torture, murder and eventually exterminate all Israeli citizens for the purpose of reclaiming their rightful land. One small problem with Hamas’s read of history. Arabs in the Holy Land lived under Ottoman Turk and British rule for over 500 years before Israel received the British Mandate of Palestine in 1948. Arabs living under Ottoman and British rule didn’t revolt against occupation until the Jews took over. So, when it comes to Hamas, the hatred is pure anti-Semitism since they never complained about Ottoman and British occupation. Hamas can’t conquer Israel and other Arab states don’t want to follow Hamas’s fixation on destroying the Jewish State.
Recent reports by the Wall Street Journal indicate that intercepted Hamas messages show Hamas Supreme Leader Yahya Sinwar saying that high casualty rates help their cause by painting Israel in a bad light. Sinwar was quoted by the WSJ as saying that Gaza citizens must be sacrificed in the cause of destroying Israel by piling on the negative publicity. “It is on Hamas to move forward with this proposal or not,” Blinken said. “And it’s very clear what virtually the entire international community wants to see and of course, what so many families want to see and it’s also what the people of Gaza so desperately need,” Blinken said, antagonizing Hamas because they think Blinken works for Netnayahu. “Everyone says yes, except Hamas. And if Hamas doesn’t say yes, then this is clearly on them,” said Blinken, not realizing that saying less in more in today’s delicate negotiations.
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.
