International Affairs columnist Jonathan Manthorpe tackles the crisis of Israel and Palestine crisis in a new column, Hamas Leads Gaza Down a Dead-end Street. An excerpt:
Not the least of the problems of finding any kind of solution to the plight of the Palestinians is that the Hamas zealots who control Gaza are incompetent terrorists and jihadis.
Hamas’ sole strategic objective, the purpose of its jihad, is to overrun Israel and drive its 6.1 million Jewish residents into the sea. This latest month-long conflict shows Hamas has no capacity to do that and has no idea how to go about it.
A measure of its uselessness as terrorists is that in these hours after Israel’s military withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas is being credited with a tactical victory in the conflict. The justification for that view is that Hamas fired 3,356 missiles at Israel, killed three civilians and 64 Israeli soldiers, and disrupted flights in and out of Tel Aviv airport.
This is, indeed, far more chaos than Hamas has previously been able to cause since 2007, when it took control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority, which remains dominant in the West Bank.
But almost all the Hamas missiles were intercepted by Israel’s “iron dome” anti-missile system, which was extraordinarily efficient. Palestinian civilians were not so lucky. In the over 4,760 air strikes in Gaza and the artillery fire during the military invasion, 1,875 people were killed, 85 per cent of them civilians, according to the United Nations.
Strangely, many see the Palestinian civilian deaths as tactical victory for Hamas because it raised international anger … Log in* on the top right of each page (or click here to purchase a subscription or a $1 site-wide day pass) to read Hamas Leads Gaza Down a Dead-end Street.
Jonathan Manthorpe’s columnist page is here.
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