Eradicating Hamas

"Hamas must have a time frame -- a month or two or six months -- to return the hostages, and if they don't return the hostages within the time frame, Israel must execute top Hamas leaders in prison, especially the mass murderers."

"When I say execute top Hamas leaders, I mean no exceptions. That includes my own father, the co-founder of the Hamas movement. In this war, there are no exceptions. I made a mistake, ten or 15 years ago, when I saved his life many times ... he was supposed to die for his actions. I saved his life. Things did not change, things got worse."

"Hamas is going nowhere, and if we continue to negotiate with them, they will continue stretching these negotiations, taking us into a rabbit hole that will never end. And this is their goal: to get away with their crimes. We cannot allow this to happen."

Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef

Mosab Hassan Yousef – the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef – has called for Israel to give Hamas a time frame to release all the hostages or says they should kill its imprisoned leaders, including his father. X / @MosabHasanYOSE

Mosab Hassan Yousef calls on Israel to set a time limit for the release of all Israeli hostages. Should that demand for their release within the time designated not be honoured, Mr. Yousef emphatically declares that Israel must forthwith destroy the lives of any senior Hamas officials held in Israeli prisons. That they should pay for their crimes -- both the crimes that sent them to be incarcerated and the crimes they are equally responsible for having promoted through their leadership in the death cult that is Hamas.

 

He gave warning of the obvious that cannot have escaped the notice of anyone, either close to the negotiations, or watching from the sidelines, that Israel is being mercilessly manipulated; the Hamas terrorist group taking full advantage of their understanding of Jewish veneration for life, as opposed to their own casual attitude toward death -- encouraging death as a stairway to heaven as a martyr where Paradise awaits them in another world on a higher plane.

 

About 155 Israelis and other hostages including foreign workers remain in the hands of the terrorists in Gaza, including some being held by 'ordinary' civilian Palestinians who have taken it upon themselves to emulate the inhumane tactics of their leaders, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The temporary truce which Israel agreed to through the bargaining auspices of Qatar, the United States and Egypt, with Hamas releasing a discrete number of hostages daily in exchange for Palestinian criminals being held in Israeli prisons continues to limp along.

 

Over several days, Hamas has been releasing groups of hostages in exchange for prisoners

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the face of pressures few other world leaders have ever had to manage -- demands from its citizens to use any means possible to have the hostages -- children, adults and soldiers returned to their families; the need to ensure that the terrorist groups in Gaza and their operating infrastructure and weaponry finally be destroyed to stop the never-ending assaults -- the pressures brought by Israel's putative supporters and fellow democracies, to permanently suspend its response to the sadistic violence brought to southern Israel.

 

Born in Ramallah, the 45-year-old Yousef was involved as a youth in the activities of his father's Hamas movement, viewed as a successor to the leadership in the terrorist group. In Israel's Megiddo Prison in his early adulthood, he began to question the ideology he had committed to, its Islamist hostilities and jihadist violence, becoming disillusioned and moving away from the methodology and goals of the terrorist group. He was receptive to Israel Security Agency Shin Bet's offer to become an agent.

The offer was release from prison to become an informer. He agreed, on the condition that Israel would arrest and not kill the targets of any of his intelligence revelations. Privy to Hamas plans as the son of Sheikh Yousef, he became an impressive source of intelligence for a decade, providing the Shin Bet with information enabling them to foil numerous suicide bombing attacks and attempts at assassination, as well as exposing terror cells. The Shin Bet came to refer to him as "The Green Prince".

Yousef converted to Christianity. In 2010 he wrote and had published his autobiography under the title of Son of Hamas. Since then he has lived in the United States. His father has been in and out of prisons in Israel for years. His latest arrest was on October 19 in Ramallah in a crackdown on Hamas in the wake of the October 7 bloodbath where 1,200 people were killed in Israeli communities close to the Gaza border. 

There are people still unaccounted for, while Israeli authorities continue to identify bodies and doggedly search for human remains in an effort to identify everyone who had become a victim to Hamas savagery in an unparalleled example of sadistic human depravity. Where even infants of 9 months of age, their  four-year-old sibling, and their 32-year-old mother were not immune from murder, while the children's father in separate captivity was forced to watch a video revealing their deaths.

"Hamas has been waging psychological warfare against humanity... They want to release thousands of mass murderers back to the street in return for the Israeli hostages. Israel cannot afford this, but also humanity cannot afford this – because the release of mass murderers means the death of many other innocent people."

"I understand that Israel had to compromise in the past week or two in order to release children, women, elders, and defenseless civilians [but] the remaining hostages – especially soldiers, [and] those who failed to defend themselves and defend the civilians in the southern communities when they were captured – should be treated as war prisoners and Israel must shift its priority from a hostage rescue mission to an offensive that focuses on eradicating Hamas."

Mosab HassanYousef

Deadly Delusional

"When protesters chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' it is not, as some suggest, an aspirational cry echoing the hopes of Palestinians for freedom from Israeli occupation; it is -- according to this poll -- the clear expression of the genocidal intent of most Palestinians [three out of four people], who want to obliterate Israel from the map."

"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau believes [that] Israel's war against Hamas will make it harder to get to a two-state solution. He might want to run his views past ordinary Palestinians, who, according to [this] recent poll, appear committed to a Middle East where Israel doesn't exist at all."

Michael Higgins, journalist, National Post

A Palestinian demonstration in Nablus in support of prisoners held in Israeli prisons, November 14, 2023 (WAFA)

A poll, conducted by the Arab World for Research and Development, which is a research organization based in the West Bank -- recognized by the United Nations -- in a November 14 survey, asked Palestinians in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (obviously during a period with Israel's military responding to the Hamas 'provocation' of October 7 when its operatives invaded Israel to spend a horrendous day of mass butcher, rape and abduction) what type of state they would want to establish.

 

The choice was for one state for two disparate groups of people representing Arabs or Jews (i.e. Palestinians or Israelis), to which 5.4 percent responded in support. The choice of a two-state solution saw support by 17.2 percent. Then came the most popular of all the given 'solutions', the enthusiastic 74.7 percent popularity, a "Palestinian state from the river to the sea". This kind of response was not necessarily a total surprise. Previous such polls garnered similar responses.

Peace, on the terms that the West envisages, with two peaceful states side-by-side, each respecting the autonomy of the other, with a healthy trade between them and prospects of prosperity for both, seems far from the minds of the very people involved; Palestinians themselves. The survey results made it quite clear that a large majority of Palestinians are in support of terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And by extension, supportive of the savage attacks of October 7 that saw 1,200 Israelis butchered.

Indeed, Palestinians saw comfort in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations taking place around the world; 78.2 percent were hopeful of the future of humanity, given the extent of those demonstrations, despite their belief that the West hates Muslims. Researchers interviewed 668 people, evenly split between men and women. The respondents included farmers, tradespeople, professionals like doctors and engineers, along with students and housewives. Of the group. the median age was 31, reflective of Palestinians as a 'young' demographic.

The question "How much do you support the military operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas on October 7th?" saw strong support of 59.3 percent, another 15.7 percent supporting it somewhat, for a combined total of 75 percent approving the slaughter of men, women and children. As for how Palestinians view the Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing that presumably carried out the deadly raid,79.1 percent of Gazans held a positive view of the group.

In the West Bank, however, that approval rating increased to 95.4 percent. Close to 60 percent of Gazans held a positive regard for Hamas, but in the West Bank, the approval rated 87.7 percent. The terrorist organization Islamic Jihad saw support of 71.9 percent of Gazans and over 90 percent of respondents in the West Bank, while the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade was positively viewed by close to 70 percent of Gazans and over 80 percent of West Bank respondents.

According to Justin Trudeau, a man who cannot deplore the prevalence of antisemitism in Canada without mourning the presence of Islamophobia, Israel's 'war on Hamas' will see the "pathway toward a secure, viable, independent Jewish state alongside a secure, viable independent Palestinian state" more difficult to achieve. An accomplishment indeed were it to occur, given the reality of one of those presumptive states supporting the destruction of the other.

When asked whether "your conviction in the possibility" of achieving peace with Israel or coexistence between Palestinians and Israel had increased or decreased, close to 90 percent responded it had decreased in both instances. Coexistence does appear under these circumstances, unlikely to occur without the inconvenient occasional daily disruptions of violent attacks by Palestinians against Jewish Israelis. 

When asked for a response to the question why it is that the United States and the West support Israel, answers included: 

• the Israeli lobby (91.5 percent);
• hatred of Muslims and Islam (89.5 percent); and
• political and economic interests in the region (96.3 percent).

Another question revealed that a large proportion of the Palestinian population will never 'forgive' Israel, with almost 96 percent cleaving to that sentiment (though the puzzle is forgive Israel for what? its existence?). And those who will never 'forget' what Israel 'did', garnered 93 percent. (What Israel DID? Does that mean having the bloody nerve to protect itself from deadly assaults?) The absolute capper: the number of Palestinians who feel pride after October 7: 94.3 percent.

 

Almost 80 percent of Palestinians are increasingly committed to a Palestinian state, than ever before. And from the responses to this poll it seems obvious enough that their dream of statehood can only come to fruition with the destruction of Israel. Their reliance on terrorist groups to deliver that prize to them sums up the chances of Israel achieving peace anytime soon -- if ever -- with a society and culture addicted to hate and violence. 

 

Palestinians shout slogans during a protest in the West Bank city of Hebron on Nov. 17. Photo by HAZEM BADER/AFP

"While support for terror organizations is high, 87.3% of the Palestinians believe that the Palestinian Authority plays a negative role. Only 23.2% believe that Fatah plays a positive role. When asked who should govern the Gaza Strip and the areas in Judea and Samaria that are under the control of the PA, only 8.4% supported the PA. In comparison, 85.8% supported Hamas continuing to play a role in the Palestinian government – 13.6% supported a Hamas-only government, while 72.2% supported a “national unity” government – i.e., a government comprised of Fatah and Hamas."

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

The Heroes of the Palestinian 'Resistance'

"The Hamas goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project. There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time."

"[Hamas] strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine. Resisting and quelling the enemy become the individual duty of every Muslim, male or female. Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes."

"Palestine symbolizes the resistance that shall continue until liberation is accomplished, until the return is fulfilled and until a fully sovereign state is established with Jerusalem as its capital."

"Not one stone of Jerusalem can be surrendered or relinquished. The measure undertaken by the occupiers in Jerusalem, such as Judaization, settlement building and establishing facts on the ground are fundamentally null and void."

Hamas Charter

A Palestinian youth walks inside a tunnel used for military exercises during a weapon exhibition at a Hamas-run youth summer camp in Gaza City July 20, 2016. An extensive labyrinth of tunnels built by Hamas stretches across the dense neighborhoods of the Gaza Strip, hiding militants, their missile arsenal and the over 200 hostages they now hold after an unprecedented Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.  Adel Hana, AP Photo

The debate that now rages in the West over the brutality and carnage represented by the October 7 attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israeli border communities that saw sadistic savagery meted out on helpless civilian populations in an orchestrated orgy of bloodlust was revealed widely as a revelation of the extreme fanaticism of Islamist expression of rage and hate against the presence of an ancient people returned to their ancestral homeland in a rebirth of a nation. The land reclaimed and formally institutionalized into a UN-recognized country whose legitimacy cannot be questioned.

 

Despite which the founding Charter of the Hamas terrorist group has as its theocratic foundation the elimination by any means possible, of an entire nation of people, in a country dedicated to the universal preservation of Jewish life. A nation, moreover, that has accepted the presence of Arab Palestinians as citizens, along with a wide number of other ethnic, cultural, and religious groups from Christianity to Baha'i, Druze and Kurds, Circassians and Africans. 

Hamas and its secular-sister Palestinian organization Fatah, along with Islamic Jihad have distinguished themselves over the decades for their forays into terrorism, from hijacking planes and ocean liners, to suicide bombers and events such as bombings of Jewish community centers, synagogues and other like institutions globally. Few more shocking than the Black September (PLO special unit) attack at the Munich Olympics in 1972 that saw Palestinian terrorists slaughter 11 Israeli athletes.

 

A video still from recovered Hamas body camera footage shows their infiltration into southern Israel from Gaza on Oct 7, 2023.EYEPRESS/Reuters

The latest atrocities carried out by Hamas operatives on October 7 represent the most savagely brutal of all such attacks. Where videos, most of them taken by the Hamas operatives as proud evidence of their inhumanity, took videos of the atrocities they perpetrated against helpless civilians. In them can be seen hacked off arms and legs of mutilated victims, an infant with its skull cracked open, a dog shot repeatedly, a young corpse dressed in Mickey Mouse pyjamas, fragments of skulls littering house floors, and bones scorched to black-coal density.

 

Those same videos included footage of the attackers of those homes in towns and villages and kibbutzim, revelling in their butchery, boasting to one another of their descent into hell as proud accomplishments among the gore they created as they tracked down families, broke into safe rooms, set houses on fire and celebrated their courage. In proof of which they took care to retain trophies, not only the videos from their body cams, but physical evidence of their triumphs.

 

These are the proud Palestinian heroes who routinely store weapons at or close to heavily populated civilian sites inclusive of hospitals. According to a NATO report, Hamas fire "rockets, artillery and mortars from or in proximity to heavily populated civilian areas, often from or near facilities which should be protected". Moreover, journalists from a variety of media outlets have been eyewitness to rockets launched adjacent to hospitals.

Hamas has been using a bunker beneath Dar Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza, as a major military base. Israeli intelligence officials suspected during the 2009 conflict that Hamas was using the hospital as cover. Hamas "closed off some of the departments, stationed armed guards and closely examined everyone in the hospital. Ismail Haniyeh, head of the de facto Hamas administration, set up his headquarters in the hospital's burn ward", documented the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information center.

In 2015 Amnesty International wrote that civilians were "interrogated and tortured or otherwise ill-treated in a disused outpatient clinic within the grounds of Gaza City's main al-Shifa Hospital. At least three people arrested during the conflict accused of 'collaboration' died in custody". Fatah accused Hamas of using the hospital's X-ray department as a prison and interrogation room.

Israel's chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari Photograph:(Reuters)

Hamas's Deadly Invasion Evaluated

An Israeli armored personnel carrier heads toward the Gaza border. Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press

"The dominant view in Israel, and not just at the political level, but also within some in the security services, was that the conflict in Gaza is manageable, that we could contain it."

"The easy answer that you hear is that Hamas is an apocalyptic terrorist movement that doesn't care about human life. That's true. But they're not irrational."

"Hamas has already said ... that it wants to exchange [the Israeli hostages] for prisoners. One objective for Hamas in doing that is to boost up its ranks by freeing prisoners [jailed in Israel] in large numbers."

Thomas Juneau, political scientist, University of Ottawa

"Hamas officials have been quite open about the fact that this [normalization] would be a huge event."

"Saudi Arabia is the custodian of the two holiest sites in Islam and I think Hamas fears that if there would be normalization with Saudi Arabia, other Muslim nations, other Arab nations would follow suit."

"Not only is it [Fatah] secular as opposed to Islamist but it believes in a two-state solution and Hamas does not."

"Hamas is not fighting for there to be a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Hamas is fighting to destroy Israel ... it's against peace in general."

Matthew Levitt, professor, Georgetown University Center for Security Studies

"I can give you a hypothesis and that is, we were in a situation where there was no peace process. There was absolutely no movement whatsoever on Palestinian issues. And I think that Hamas took the decision that they had to shuffle the deck, that they had to do something or they wanted to do something, which would make the status quo untenable."

"It's not at all clear to me how [Hamas] thought the endgame would work out. They would have known that this would have brought a major Israeli military operation, that that would include ground operations."The last Israeli ground operation [in 2014] was the biggest boost in history to Hamas's popularity."

"Clearly ... it wasn't meant to be an incremental thing. It was meant to be a game changing thing. And that includes the deliberate targeting of civilians."

"Are you going to occupy all of it? You're going to fight street by street into downtown Gaza?"

"If you destroy Hamas, who will you hand [Gaza] to when you leave? Do you want to occupy it?"

Rex Brynen, Middle East expert, McGill University

Rockets fired from Gaza City are intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome defense missile system in the early hours of October 8, 2023. EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images

 

The Palestinian Authority, commented Dr. Juneau from his perspective as an academic with a focus on the Middle East, is highly incompetent and corrupt. That alone has led to resentment among Palestinians which has been responsible for growing support for radical groups like Hamas. October 7th's incursion by Hamas into Israel, he stated, represents "the most significant escalation of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict in several decades", he said, quoting the Council on Foreign Relations.

"We just don't have great insight into Hamas's strategic judgement", added political scientist Rex Brynen. October marks 50 years since the Yom Kippur War when a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria led a surprise attack on Israel, which may entirely be coincidental. Since Hamas stated the October 7 attack had been planned out carefully for a year before the event.

At the same time, Israeli public opinion and support for the current government led by Benjamin Netanyahu with the 2022 coalition government including hard-right religious factions, and the government's intention to change the judicial reform process that Israel's liberal-left supports, fracturing the country, and in the opinion of onlookers from outside the country, believing it to have been in a weakened state. Opportunity perhaps beckoned, all the more so when the dissenting opinions took place at all levels, including the IDF and its reservists, some of whom refused to serve.

 

 

The ongoing normalization process between Israel and Saudi Arabia was a red flag to Islamists and Palestinians in general, realizing it left them outside the loop; the reality being that the 'Palestinian refugee' problem was being sidelined in the greater interests of achieving regional peace that would lead to greater regional prosperity and in no small part greater security, in the majority Arab Sunni region where Shiite Islamist Republic of Iran presents as a threat.

 

An issue that Dr. Juneau expressed his  skepticism over. On the other hand, they all acknowledged, Fatah, the leading party in the Palestinian Authority and the PA itself are unpopular and viewed as weak by the  general Palestinian population they govern. Even among West Bank Palestinians Hamas is admired and supported to a far greater extent than the Palestinian Authority. Then there are relations between Fatah and Hamas; the latter despising the former as a secular group to Hamas's Islamism.

Dr. Brynen expressed his opinion that the 'success' of the Hamas attack surprised even Hamas. The much higher Israeli body count and hostage taking surpassed its expectations. And the corollary to that was a far greater response from Israel than Hamas might have anticipated.

One thing all three agreed upon in their debate was that whatever the original reasons behind the unprecedented scale of the attack -- whether to bring international attention to focus on the Palestinians; to eliminate Israel for replacement by an Islamist state; to free prisoners convicted of crimes in Israel; or to help Iran -- the ultimate goal was to effect a massive change in the region's dynamics. 

 

To that degree, and to the dimensions of the attention given its deadly exploits in the outside world, they succeeded.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather during a rally for Gaza outside the Israeli Consulate General in New York on Oct. 9. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images