Obama to the rescue of Hamas

Caroline Glick

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Operation Protective Edge is now two weeks old. Since the ground offensive began Thursday night, we have begun to get a better picture of just how dangerous Hamas has become in the nine years since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. And what we have learned is that the time has come to take care of this problem. It cannot be allowed to fester or grow anymore.

We have known for years that tunnels were a central component of Hamas’s logistical infrastructure.

What began as the primary means of smuggling weapons, trainers and other war material from Hamas’s sponsors abroad developed rapidly into a strategic tool of offensive warfare against Israel.

As we have seen from the heavily armed Hamas commando squads that have infiltrated into Israel from tunnels since the start of the current round of warfare, the first goal of these offensive tunnels is to deploy terrorists into Israel to massacre Israelis.

But the tunnels facilitate other terror missions as well.

Israel has found tunnels with shafts rigged with bombs located directly under Israeli kindergartens.

If the bombs had gone off, the buildings above would have been destroyed, taking the children down with them.

Other exposed shafts showed Hamas’s continued intense interest in hostage taking. In 2006 the terrorists who kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Schalit entered Israel and returned to Gaza through such a tunnel.

Today the presence of sedatives and multiple sets of handcuffs for neutralizing hostages found in tunnel after tunnel indicate that Hamas intends to abduct several Israelis at once and spirit them back to Gaza.

In an interview with Channel 2 Monday evening, Minister Naftali Bennett spoke of a mother at Kibbutz Netiv Ha’asara who told him that her children wake her in the middle of the night and tell her that they hear digging beneath their beds.

As Bennett said, this state of affairs simply cannot continue. People cannot live in fear that there are terrorists burrowing beneath their homes, digging tunnels to murder or kidnap them.

These tunnels must be found and destroyed not merely because they constitute a physical danger to thousands of Israelis. They must be located and destroyed, and Hamas’s capacity to rebuild them must be eliminated because the very idea that they exist makes a normal life impossible for those immediately threatened.

Hamas’s tunnels are also the key component of their command and control infrastructure inside Gaza.

Hamas’s political and military commanders are hiding in them. The reinforced bunkers and tunnel complexes enable Hamas’s senior leadership to move with relative freedom and continue planning and ordering attacks.

The sophistication of the tunnels and the malign intentions of Hamas are not in the least surprising.

But Hamas’s rapid advances in both tunnel and missile technology are deeply worrisome. At a minimum, they indicate that if it is allowed to end the current round of fighting as a coherent, relatively well-armed terrorist army, Hamas will be able to rapidly rebuild and expand its capabilities.

As a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas is not a stand-alone terror group. It is part of a much larger web of Islamic jihadist terror groups including al-Qaida and its affiliates as well as the Shi’ite Hezbollah. Like Hamas, all of these threaten several major Sunni Arab states.

Due to their recognition of the threat Hamas and its allies pose to the survivability of their regimes, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have taken the unprecedented step of supporting Israel’s efforts to defeat Hamas.

They understand that a decisive Israeli blow against Hamas in Gaza will directly benefit them. Not only will Hamas be weakened, but its state sponsors and terrorist comrades will be weakened as well.

Presently, Hamas’s most outspoken state sponsors are Qatar and Turkey.

As Israel’s Calcalist newspaper reported earlier this week, Qatar is Hamas’s biggest and most important financier, a role it plays as well for ISIS, al Nusra, the Muslim Brotherhood and various jihadist groups in Libya.

Turkey for its part is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Like Qatar, Turkey has also been a major supporter of ISIS and al Nusra, as well as Hamas. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s slander against Israel has grown so hysterical in recent weeks that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been trying to downplay Turkey’s animosity, called him out on his open anti-Semitism.

By Tuesday morning, IDF forces in Gaza had destroyed 23 tunnels. The number of additional tunnels is still unknown.

While Israel had killed 183 terrorists, it appeared that most of the terrorists killed were in the low to middle ranks of Hamas’s leadership hierarchy.

Hamas’s senior commanders, as well as its political leadership have hunkered down in hidden tunnel complexes.

In other words, Israel is making good progress.

But it hasn’t completed its missions. It needs several more days of hard fighting.

Recognizing this, Israel’s new found Muslim allies have not been pushing for a cease-fire.

In contrast, the Obama administration is insisting on concluding a cease-fire immediately.

As Israel has uncovered the scope of Hamas’s infrastructure of murder and terror, the US has acted with the UN, Turkey and Qatar to pressure Israel (and Egypt) to agree to a cease-fire and so end IDF operations against Hamas before the mission is completed.

To advance this goal, US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Cairo on Monday night with an aggressive plan to force on Israel a cease-fire Hamas and its state sponsors will accept.

As former ambassador to the US Michael Oren told the media, it is clear that neither Israel nor Egypt invited Kerry to come over. Their avoidance of Kerry signals clearly that the US’s two most important allies in the Middle East do not trust US President Barack Obama’s intentions.

And their distrust is entirely reasonable.

The State Department has openly applauded Turkey and Qatar for their involvement in attempts to achieve a cease-fire. Last week Israeli officials alleged that the US was responsible for Hamas’s rejection of the Egyptian cease-fire proposal. By attempting to coerce Egypt to accept Qatar and Turkey as its partners in mediation, Obama signaled to Hamas’s leaders that they should hold out for a better deal.

Due to Turkey’s membership in NATO and the glamour of the Qatari royal family, many Westerners find it hard to believe that they are major sponsors of terrorism. But it is true. Turkey and Qatar are playing a double game.

While sending his ambassador to Brussels for NATO meetings, Erdogan has been transforming Turkey from an open, pro-Western society allied with Israel into a closed, anti-Semitic and anti-American society that sponsors Hamas, ISIL, al Nusra and other terrorists groups.

As for Qatar, the tiny natural gas superpower presents itself to Americans as their greatest ally in the Muslim world. The emirate gives hundreds of millions of dollars to US universities to open campuses in Doha and pretends it is a progressive, open society, replete with debating societies.

Qatar hosts three major US military bases on its territory. And it is becoming one of the most important clients for US military contractors. Earlier this year Qatar signed an $11.4 billion dollar arms agreement with the US.

At the same time, according to the Calacalist report, Qatar is the major bankroller of ISIS and al Nusra in Syria and Iraq. It gives $50 million a month to jihadists in Libya. It gives Hamas $100m. in annual aid. And in the past two years Doha has provided Hamas with an additional $620m. dollars, including $250m. it transferred to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal’s personal bank account, and $350m. in military aid to Hamas, transferred after the Egyptian military forced the Muslim Brotherhood government from power last July.

Add to that the $100m. per year that Qatar pours into Al Jazeera’s satellite network – which has dedicated itself to undermining pro-Western Arab regimes while popularizing the likes of al-Qaida and Hamas, and Qatar is the largest financier of international jihad in the world.

Rather than notice that Qatar and Turkey are playing a double game, and treat them with suspicion, the Obama administration has embraced them.

Chances that Kerry will secure a cease-fire in the near future are small. In all likelihood, the government will be able to buy the time necessary to complete the mission in whole or large part. But the fact that the US has chosen at this juncture in the operation – with Israel enjoying unprecedented support from the most important Sunni states in the region – to side with Hamas and its state sponsors in their demand for an immediate cease-fire speaks volumes about the transformation of US foreign policy under Obama’s leadership.

The writer is the author of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in The Middle East.

July 23, 2014 | 10 Comments »

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10 Comments / 10 Comments

  1. does anyone know the story of the 225 mill requested by BB of obama for missing parts in iron dome. I dont subscribe to haaaretz and i only see it there.

  2. Everybody is missing the fact that Israel is fighting the war against these terrorist bastards, a war that the entire Western world should be fighting also, and most of the Western world sits back out of harm’s way and excoriates Israel’s Jews.

  3. phoenix, like when that Obastard pointed his finger at Netanyahu’s chest (if you’ve seen the photo). What an asshole. He’s not even a quarter of the man Bibi is (and I’m not always fond of Netanyahu). And that’s no different than NormanF saying this about Israel’s Jews: “Israel’s Jews don’t have balls, they’re emasculated women afraid of their own shadows. Its embarrassing.” Neither are friends of Israel and the Jewish people. Fuck NormanF (my new movement, as in bowel movement). I want to shit NormanF off this blog.

  4. @ rongrand:

    Someone please tell Kerry the PM is out to lunch, don’t call him he will call you (when hell freezes over).

    Dear Ron,
    You are definitely talking my language.
    Lord knows that I am not a fan of bibi.
    HOWEVER,
    When that black bastard baboon, illegally sitting inthe Oval Office with his simian feet on the desk, facing the camera, has snubbed Mr. Bemjamin Netanyahu, THE PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL (!!!!!!!) he has snubbed all Israel (as he continuously does) and THAT should not go unanswered.
    Now, indeed is a golden opportunity to do just that.
    ..
    However… meanwhile, back at the ranch… It ain’t gonna happen…
    🙁

  5. Someone please tell Kerry the PM is out to lunch, don’t call him he will call you (when hell freezes over).

    Now we have the liberal left anti-Semite media at work reflecting the Palestinians crying in the streets.
    Oh my, the Israelis don’t care about life.
    No, Hamas doesn’t care about you, your life means nothing to them except as a tool and a pawn. They want you to die for their cause or better still the cause of #Iran.
    For those who call for Israel to exercise restrain, I say F**K YOU.

  6. @ yamit82:

    This doesn’t happen often – Secretary Kerry got wanded by an Egyptian security officer on his way into the presidential palace here

    Saw the clip the Egyptians leaked to add and ensure Egypts message to Kerry and America got out with no room for Political spin by the Americans.

    Ok.
    So by now, the poster boy for bad plastic surgery and Botox, is already in Israel.
    What would you say, are the odds that this sob, be PUBLICLY placed against a wall, spread eagled and meticulously frisked?…
    Or at the very least, repeat ‘the Egyptian protocol’….. 😉
    I’d say at best slim to none. … 🙁

  7. J Kerry is like a bad penny.
    He and his boss are more concerned for Hamas than Israel.

    They continue to pour funds to the Palestinians for use by Hamas, what the hell.

    How can you say Israel has the right to defend her sovereignty at the same time you fund her enemy. Something wrong with that picture.

  8. I do not see how Israel, after this operation is over (and it must be 100% completed based upon Israel’s own assessment, devoid of enemy enabling interference), allows Hamas to re-build these tunnels or to remain in power at all. Well that is exactly what my terrorist government in Washington DC is demanding.It is so clear now, Obama’s close friendship with Erdogen, his empowerment of Morsi and The MB in Egypt, his appointment of his anti-Israel useful idiot clowns; Hagel, Kerry, Rice, Clinton,Brennan, Power and if Obama had his way Chas Freeman.

    President Obama does not “seem” to understand that The Gaza War is ongoing. Yet, now we know he knows all too well and he wants to nip Israel in the bud because he is okay with Hamas in Gaza, with all that this implies.
    These matters tie in directly to the phony Iran Nuclear Disarmament talks P5+1. The outcome is obviously going to be a nuclear Iran. Just as with Hamas re-arming in Gaza, Obama is okay with a nuclear Iran. This is exactly from Chas Freeman’s talking points. The only difference is Freeman has no qualms in stating The US should… cut off Israel’s US “Umbilical Cord”. Cutting off Israel is an often repeated mantra emanating from The US Government, specifically, CIA, DIA etc. They do not beat around the bush. Speaking of George Herbert Walker Bush, the former CIA director, President Reagan had to cut VP Bush down to size when Bush indicated his support for The PLO. Any Jew employed in The CIA should not be given any vital Israeli secrets. They have to be quislings and trust me those Jews in the agency are kept on a leash even after they are fully indoctrinated to hate Israel.
    Israel should be prepared to implment the Iran Project not long after Gaza is secured,IMO.

  9. John Kerry’s back in Cairo, but the Egyptians don’t appear to be thrilled to have him as a guest. The US Secretary of State got held up in this notable break from protocol while entering the presidential palace to meet President al-Sisi:

    This doesn’t happen often – Secretary Kerry got wanded by an Egyptian security officer on his way into the presidential palace here

    Saw the clip the Egyptians leaked to add and ensure Egypts message to Kerry and America got out with no room for Political spin by the Americans. Sissi is not a fan of Kerry or Obama. 🙂