Hamas Must Be Destroyed Not Just Militarily, But As a Political Threat
Hamas is the terror group in Gaza that has been responsible for murdering thousands of Israeli civilians in acts of terror carried out by its members since 1987. For decades, it carried out terror attacks, using rockets, missiles, drones, suicide bombers, rifles, and knives, to kill Israelis. The apotheosis of its terror took place on October 7, 2023, when 3,800 Hamas members, accompanied by 2,200 ordinary Gazans who accompanied them so as to join in the fun, smashed into Israel, where they proceeded to rape, torture, decapitate, burn alive, mutilate, and murder 1,200 Israelis and to kidnap 250 more. Since then, the IDF has been dismantling Hamas’ military forces. It has killed about 20,000 Hamas members — half the prewar strength of the terror group, and is now in the process of taking apart what remains of its forces, as they try to regroup in northern Gaza. The IDF has discovered and destroyed hundreds of miles of terror tunnels. It has found and seized, or in some cases destroyed, huge caches of weapons hidden everywhere — in apartment buildings, in schools, in mosques, in hospitals and, of course, in the network of tunnels, some 450 miles of them, underground.
The Palestinian Authority has been trying to patch things up with Hamas after years of enmity. Mahmoud Abbas did not denounce, but praised, the “valor” displayed by Hamas on October 7. He has spoken of the need to form a coalition government between Fatah and Hamas to jointly rule in Gaza “the day after.” Khaled Abu Toameh, the Israeli Arab analyst, denounces this attempt by Mahmoud Abbas to legitimize Hamas here: “Hamas Must Be Defeated, Not Legitimized,” by Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute,
More than a year after the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to view the Iran-backed Islamist movement as a legitimate partner.
Last week, representatives of the PA’s ruling Fatah faction (headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas) and Hamas held talks in the Egyptian capital of Cairo to discuss establishing a joint administration to rule the Gaza Strip. An Egyptian source confirmed that the Fatah-Hamas discussions aim at to create a committee to manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip, in addition to pursuing efforts to reach a ceasefire there.
Another Egyptian security source was quoted as saying that the talks “aim to unify the Palestinian ranks and alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people.” According to the source, the Fatah and Hamas negotiators “showed more flexibility and positivity towards establishing a committee to manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip.”
Tayseer Nasrallah, a senior Fatah official who participated in the talks with Hamas, expressed “optimism” that the talks with Hamas would lead to the formation of a committee for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. The talks, he said, “aim to unify visions regarding the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip” in the aftermath of the current Israel-Hamas war, which erupted after the October 7 attack that resulted in the murder of 1,200 Israelis and the injury of thousands. During the attack, many Israelis were beheaded, raped, tortured, and burned alive. In addition, more than 240 others were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, where 101 – alive and dead – remain in captivity.
Hamas, for its part, said: “We held a meeting with our brothers in the Fatah faction, and the atmosphere of the meeting was positive and frank.” The terrorist group added that the two sides discussed “the formation of a body to follow up on the affairs and needs of the Gaza Strip,” and noted that the meetings with Fatah will continue.
Last month, Fatah and Hamas representatives held similar talks in Cairo to discuss ways of ending the rivalry between the two parties and establishing a Palestinian unity government. Senior Hamas official Taher a-Nunu said that the purpose of the talks was to “achieve Palestinian national unity and strengthen security and political coordination between the two sides.” Unnamed Fatah officials were quoted as saying that their faction has agreed to the formation of a joint committee to manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip….
The main military component of the Palestinian Authority is the armed group Fatah, of which Mahmoud Abbas — along with being the PA’s president-for-life — is the head. He now sees a way to gain a foothold for Fatah in Gaza, from which it was bloodily expelled by the men of Hamas in 2007. He has been negotiating with Hamas for sharing rule in Gaza. He wants to share in the governance of Gaza, and Hamas wants to continue, by agreeing to share power with Fatah, to be seen as acceptable — its terrorism diluted, in a sense, by the presence of Fatah — by the United States.
The IDF is close to completely destroying Hamas as a military threat. But Hamas must also be destroyed as a political threat, lest, in a power-sharing arrangement with Fatah, it manages to reconstitute itself, is then resupplied with weapons from Iran and attracts new recruits from inside Gaza. It has to be not embraced, but shunned, by the Palestinian Authority. It should be accused by the PA of having caused the destruction of so much infrastructure in Gaza, and held responsible, too, for the killing of thousands of civilians, the result of its policy of deliberately embedding its fighters, and hiding its weapons, in civilian areas, including schools, mosques, hospitals, and apartment buildings. Mahmoud Abbas may be afraid of rejecting Hamas outright from a possible role in a coalition that would rule Gaza. He remembers how many hundreds of Fatah members were murdered by Hamas in 2007 — but Abbas is 88 years old, and his successor may not feel the same. After all, Hamas is a lot less powerful now than it was before October 7, 2023, and only one-third of Gazans still support it. Fatah’s hour may have come round at last, to hold itself out as the sole governing group that the Americans can accept. Hamas is detested by the rich Sunni states of the Gulf. They see Hamas, correctly, as the Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and are well aware that the MB wants to overthrow their “decadent” monarchies. But if Gaza is to be rebuilt, most of the money will have to come from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, among Arab states, and possibly some money will come — but not while Trump is in office — from the Americans as well, and none of the three would welcome a continuing Hamas role in Gaza.
Mahmoud Abbas must stop voicing his approval of Hamas. His attempts to legitimize the terror group will further antagonize not only Israel — which will have the largest say in who governs Gaza once the fighting in the Strip has stopped — but also the United States, which has designated Hamas as a terror organization, and the two Arab countries, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, that are expected to contribute the most to rebuilding — s-l-o-w-l-y — Gaza. How willing will they be to fund projects if Hamas is still taking part in Gaza’s government? Everyone should just let Israel finish the job of defeating Hamas. It won’t be long now. The end is nigh.
AUTHOR
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