The barbaric actions of Hamas on Saturday should appall every decent human being. They were shocking.
But they were not a surprise. Hamas is a terrorist movement and it did what terrorist movements do: murder, maim, and kidnap.
The full scope of Hamas’s atrocity is not yet known, but the tally so far is already staggering: more than 600 murdered, more than 2,000 wounded, and an unknown number abducted – including the elderly, invalids, and young children. Some 5,000 rockets were also launched on Israel – every one of them a war crime.
This was an unprovoked mega-attack involving the invasion of the sovereign State of Israel. There’s a reason people are calling it Israel’s 9/11.
This was not about “settlements” or because of poverty or population density in Gaza. Hamas doesn’t need an excuse to harm Israel and murder Israelis. It is the group’s stated aim. The destruction of Israel and the massacre of Jews are written in the Hamas charter. They are part of its raison d’etre. In its DNA.
The significance of Hamas’s nature as a terrorist organization can’t be stressed enough. Hamas does not consider itself bound by the rule of international law. It is fighting a holy war, a jihad.
Remember this when the practiced statements come
When the initial shock of the invasion’s scope and severity wears off, world leaders who today firmly condemn Hamas will inevitably drag out their tired admonitions about a “proportionate response.” But what counts as proportionate to a deliberate murderous onslaught that results in the death of hundreds of innocent people?
The world must not only recognize, but truly internalize, that when you’re dealing with a terrorist organization like Hamas, the enemy is not playing by any normal moral rules.
Anyone who questioned why Israel responded in the past with live fire to Palestinian rioters on the Gaza border should now regret that Israel did not disperse the most recent disturbances. No Gazan, armed or unarmed, should have been allowed to get close to the security fence.
When Islamic Jihad last week held an exercise, instead of pretending all was well, the government, security forces – and any thinking person – should have asked: what was the terrorist organization practicing for?
When asked why Israel and Hamas don’t just sit down and talk instead of killing each other, our response must be: “For the same reason the US and al-Qaeda can’t discuss how to compromise” or “For the same reason you can’t hold a peace conference with ISIS.”
Islamist, jihadist, and terrorist organizations are not aiming for a gentlemen’s agreement and a handshake.
Money for quiet was a tragic mistake
If anything, this is one of the concepts that completely collapsed on Saturday. Israel previously managed to put a halt to rounds of hostilities from Gaza by allowing an inflow of Qatari money and permitting more Palestinian Gazan workers to enter Israel on the theory that this would ease the overall economic difficulties there and hence reduce the tension and likelihood of attack.
We have seen what a tragic mistake that was. While Israel was making humanitarian and economic gestures, the Hamas regime in Gaza was meticulously planning its mega-attack. And this is another message to the world: You cannot appease terrorism.
Terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad – all funded, armed, and backed by Iran – feel empowered. Remember this, as world powers try to keep the Iranian regime’s nuclear aspirations in check by lifting sanctions and allowing money to flow in. There is no doubt that Iranian funding went into Saturday’s massacre perpetrated by Hamas.
Israel is at war with Hamas and other terrorist organizations. But from the terrorists’ perspective, this is a holy war. And make no mistake: The Jewish state may be their primary target, but anyone considered an “infidel” is at risk – and as we saw with ISIS, this includes other Muslims, Christian communities, and people of other religions around the world.
Evil is hard to face and even harder to tackle, but the world needs to realize that terrorism is exactly that: evil. Hamas is a terrorist organization, the same way that ISIS and al-Qaeda are terrorist organizations, and they need to be treated as such. Downplaying the threat of terrorism when it is perpetrated against Israel endangers the entire world.