LOS ANGELES.–Ten months into the Israel-Gaza War there’s no end in sight with Egyptian, Palestinian and Qatari mediators banging their heads together to get a ceasefire. But the obvious solution to ending the conflict has eluded the United States, European Union, United Nations and all others working feverishly to end the conflict. Hamas Ministry of Health keeps reporting on casualties daily but never asks why the war keeps going. All parties involved in ceasefire discussions know that Hamas can no longer rule the Gaza Strip after starting the war Oct. 7, 2023 slaughtering 1,200 Israelis, taking 250 hostages and destroying the Mediterranean seaside territory. All parties, including Hamas, know they’ve spent the last 17 years looting the Gaza Strip to enrich its leaders while ordinary Gazan citizens don’t have enough running water and electricity to survive.
Everyone involved in the ceasefire negotiations know that 61-year-old Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar can no longer lead the Gaza Strip. Chartered to destroy Israel in 1987, Hamas has watched generations of its leaders assassinated by Israel, all because Hamas refuses to come into the real world and make peace. Hamas considers any atrocity, any act of terrorism, legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation, pretending that the State of Israel illegally possesses Arab land. Hamas was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin to serve as the military wing of Yasser Arafat’s 1964 Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] after its crushing defeat in the 1967 Six-Day-War. Arafat was certain he could defeat Israel with the help of six Arab nations all of which were defeated by Israel in only six days. Arafat called Arabs living in the Holy Land Palestinians to claim their homeland.
Arafat knew that Bedouin Arabs lived in the Holy Land under Ottoman Turk and British rule for over 500 years. Arabs living under the Ottoman Empire didn’t revolt or claim that their land was occupied by the Turks. But once the U.K. deeded the British Mandate of Palestine to the Jews in 1948, given to them in 1920 at the Treaty of Sevres, the war of independence started, with all its uprising and wars ever since. Arabs didn’t mind living under Ottoman rule but furiously rejected Jewish rule of the Holy Land. After the 1967 Six-Day-War, Israel annexed Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, Jordan’s West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights. Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula in 1979 to Egypt in exchange for a peace treaty and eventually ceded the Gaza Strip to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority in 2005. Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in a bloodless coup in 2007.
Over 17 years of Hamas rule, Hamas has started at least three wars and multiple uprisings with Israel, destroying Gaza many times over. Every time Hamas would end its wars, it would convene donor conferences asking oil-rich Gulf States to fund Gaza’s reconstruction. Somehow billions of donor cash went missing with the bulk of the funds used to finance military tunnels and rockets to eventually go to war with Israel. Hamas’s latest gamble with poor Gaza citizens was to destroy the country all to let Sinwar engage in a Nazi-like atrocity, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. So when it comes to ruling Gaza, Hamas has failed in every way possible, especially to use donor cash to develop the Gaza Strip into a thriving, industrialized territory to benefit all citizens. Whatever military atrocities occur in Gaza, it’s all because of the unending Hamas war.
U.S., EU and Arab countries must ask Hamas to surrender Gaza to a new Palestinian leadership to allow the death and destruction to stop. Sinwar, now holed up deep underground in Gaza’s military tunnels, must agree to an exile deal along with what’s left of his militia. High priority should be given to establishing a new government and rebuilding the area, not preserving Sinwar’s hold on power. If foreign leaders want a lasting truce, Hamas must be removed from the Gaza Strip. Why the U.S., EU and Arab states have not demanded that Hamas leave Gaza is anyone’s guess? It’s the only way to stop the war and start the rebuild to reduce more casualties and hardship to Gaza citizens. Hamas may want to destroy Israel but they’ve destroyed themselves intead. Now it’s time for Sinwar and his band of terrorists to get out of Gaza.
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.
