Failed US Policy Based on the Belief that Hamas Is Willing to Coexist with Israel

The US is foolish to believe that Hamas is willing to coexist with Israel. 

Caroline Glick has been brilliant in laying out the course of events in the Middle East since Hamas invaded Israel on October 7th killing, kidnapping and raping hundreds.

The following is from Glick’s piece at the Jewish News Syndicate.

Last Sunday, senior Hamas terrorist Ali Baraka told the tale of how Hamas duped Israel and the U.S. into complacency.

In an interview with RT (formerly Russia Today), Baraka said, “In the past couple of years, Hamas has adopted a ‘rational’ approach. It did not go into any war and did not join Islamic Jihad in its recent battle, [i.e., its missile assault on Israel in August 2022].

“We made them think Hamas was busy with governing Gaza, and that it wanted to focus on the 2.5 million Palestinians [there] and had abandoned the resistance altogether. All the while, under the table, Hamas was preparing for this big attack.”

In other words, Hamas pretended it was a credible partner for negotiations, and that the only problem was Palestinian Islamic Jihad, its Iranian-founded spin-off.

One of the frustrating aspects of Baraka’s admission is that there was nothing new about Hamas’s deception. Deception is an integral part of the jihadist doctrine, going back to the days of Muhammad. Just as important, and frustratingly, even those who are unaware of—or willfully blind to—the centrality of Islamic jihadist doctrine and beliefs for Hamas, should still have been familiar with Hamas’s tactic.

It comes right out of the PLO’s playbook.

Five days after Hamas’s slaughter of more than 1,300 Jews in southern Israel, and on the eve of his meeting Friday in Amman with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, P.A. chairman and PLO/Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas released a statement.

“We reject the practices of killing civilians or abusing them on both sides because they contravene morals, religion and international law.”

Abbas’s statement is notable for many reasons. It doesn’t name Hamas. It draws a moral equivalence between Israel’s counterattack in Gaza and Hamas’s orgiastic rape, torture, murder, immolation and kidnapping of babies, children, women and men. And it came after five days in which Abbas and the rest of Palestinian society did nothing but celebrate and defend Hamas’s atrocities while blaming Israel for the crimes against humanity Hamas conducted against its people.

In his speech on Oct. 10, President Joe Biden intimated that Hamas isn’t representative of the aspirations of the Palestinians. In his words, “Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination.”

The subtext was clear. Hamas is the bad guy. The Palestinian Authority is the good guy. And if that weren’t apparent as Biden spoke, Blinken’s decision to meet with Abbas made the point explicit.

Fatah and Hamas

For five days, Abbas had nothing but praise for Hamas and condemnations for Israel. As Palestinian Media Watch reported, the day after Biden’s speech, Abbas issued a statement of solidarity with Hamas. On Oct. 11, Abbas promised that the P.A. will “stand by our people, the Gaza Strip will not be alone.”

The PLO’s ruling Fatah faction (which Abbas also leads) gave gushing praise to Hamas. As MEMRI reported, on Oct. 9, Fatah’s Central Committee praised Hamas for its slaughter and called for national unity—that is, unity between the P.A. and Hamas.

The goal, Fatah stated, is “to rally in a real and conscious fashion around the possibility of national unity, unity in the struggle on the ground, political and diplomatic unity with all means possible to us in order to wage this campaign in a united fashion.”

Fatah also called for all Palestinians to join Hamas’s jihad against Israel.

(Read more at the link above.)

Glick has also been a frequent guest at the War Room with Steve Bannon.

For some reason killing over 1,300, kidnapping over 200 and raping many of their hostages just doesn’t sound like a Christian thing to do.