by Guy Millière for The Gatestone Institute.
Above all, to speed up the release of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, there must be as few "pauses" as possible, and no let-up by Israel in military pressure.
While the Israelis were urging the residents of northern Gaza to move south to avoid being caught in the cross-fire, Hamas leaders were ordering Gazans not to move to safety, and shooting at them as they tried to flee -- presumably so that Hamas could have more dead bodies to show the television crews how evil the Israelis supposedly are.
Unfortunately, Biden announced that the US will send $100 million in additional "humanitarian aid" to Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, thereby freeing up funds to be used for further terrorist attacks. "Humanitarian aid" sounds virtuous, but actually violates UN Security Council Resolution 1373, which prohibits resupplying terrorists.
Israel, regrettably, evidently under US pressure, has just agreed to four-hour "humanitarian pauses." To Hamas, any pause is a gift. It can restock, move its terrorists around, and keep re-hiding the hostages. What chance is there that a terrorist group that shoots its own citizens to keep them from fleeing to safety will hand out food, water and medicine to anyone but its own members?
In fairness, Biden immediately sent Israel munitions and deployed US Navy vessels to the eastern Mediterranean, including a nuclear submarine...
Biden has not failed to repeat his support for a"two-state solution", even though it is now clearer than ever that the creation of a genocidal Palestinian state on what is left of Israel's small borders must be unthinkable... In such a volatile region, what if Iran or Hamas or ISIS were to take over the new Palestinian state?
While the Israelis were urging the residents of northern Gaza to move south to avoid being caught in the cross-fire, Hamas leaders were ordering Gazans not to move to safety, and shooting at them as they tried to flee -- presumably so that Hamas could have more dead bodies to show the television crews how evil the Israelis supposedly are.
In January 2021, Iran was on the verge of economic asphyxiation, barely able to continue financing Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The Abraham Accords outlined the prospect of regional peace, and Saudi Arabia was considering joining the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kosovo, Morocco and Sudan. Israel was a respected regional power.
Russia had not yet invaded Ukraine. Chinese President Xi Jinping was not threatening Taiwan.
Then came the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan; Russia's invasion of Ukraine; China's spy balloon, unstopped until it had finished collecting information over America's significant military sites for a week; the Biden administration's cancellation of the China Initiative that had been effectively combating Chinese espionage; failure to close illegal Chinese police stations throughout the US; no response to roughly 70,000 Americans each year killed by Chinese fentanyl; a US southern border overrun by seven million migrants, and reported a known 1.5 million "gotaways" who have presumably evaded announcing themselves for a reason; around 1,800 young Chinese men, in packs, with similar clothes, haircuts and tattoos who pretend not to speak English.
Some of whom US border guards recognize as members of China's military; failure to prevent China buying American farmland, possibly either to grow their food or destroy America's -- especially near US military bases; a California laboratory with mice bio-engineered to carry at least 20 deadly pathogens ready to be released into the US; Confucius Institutes that had been closed down but were renamed and are now spreading from universities to high schools; China's subversion of America's children by a "Trojan Horse" named TikTok; financing Iran's nuclear weapons and terrorism programs by ignoring sanctions on Iran to enable it to profit by close to $60 billion, funding the Palestinian Authority to the tune of nearly $1 billion, unconditionally, despite its deadly pay-for-slay "jobs program," and last week, Secretary Janet Granholm inviting the Chinese and Russian officials to inspect a US nuclear testing facility.
All this has been watched by what must be a world that is stupefied. If the Free World is not alarmed, it should be. The idea of focusing only on the US and its southern border is basically abdicating its role as protector of the Free World, and abandoning the rest of the planet to the tender mercies of China, Russia and Iran, with North Korea at the back. How long do we think America would last after that?
Iran-backed Hamas's October 7 invasion of Israel and the brutalities committed there need to be viewed in that context.
Above all, to speed up the release of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, there must be as few "pauses" as possible, and no let-up by Israel in military pressure.
On October 7, at dawn, Hamas terrorists attacked and breached the high-tech security barrier separating Israel from the Gaza Strip. Thousands of well-trained and heavily armed terrorists invaded Israel. They tortured, mutilated, raped and murdered.
They beheaded babies, burned them alive and baked one in an oven. The Gazan terrorists, in a few hours, murdered more than 1,200 people, wounded thousands more, and abducted almost 250 Israelis, who are now held as hostages in Gaza. While that was going on, Hamas terrorists from Gaza launched thousands of rockets at Israel (20,770 sq.km), a country not quite as large as New Jersey.
"This," said Israel's ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan," is Israel's 9/11." Proportional to population, the attack was worse -- as if the September 11 terrorists had killed not nearly 3,000 people but 50,000. The Hamas attack also was clearly genocidal. Hamas wanted to torture, mutilate, rape, injure, kill, and kidnap as many Jews as possible only because they were Jews. If Hamas had had the means, the number of victims would have been far higher.
The October massacre of Jews was the largest and most vicious since the Holocaust.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu within days formed an emergency government. "Israel's war," he wrote, " is your war.... This is a turning point for leaders and nations. It is a time for all of us to decide if we are willing to fight for a future of hope and promise or surrender to tyranny and terror. Rest assured, Israel will fight."
European leaders also weighed in. "I strongly condemn the current terrorist attacks against Israel," French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X. "Germany condemns these attacks by Hamas and stands by Israel," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote. US President Joe Biden spoke of his "unwavering commitment to Israel's security".
On October 9, Biden, Macron, Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak published a joint statement expressing support for Israel -- but, in a disingenuous attempt to put Israelis and Palestinians on an equal footing, carefully counterbalanced their support with backing for the so-called Palestinian cause:
"All of us, recognize the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people and support equal measure of justice and freedom for Israeli and Palestinian alike... Hamas does not represent these aspirations".
Those words came two days after a horrific massacre, after millions of Palestinians and others in the Middle East had cheerfully celebrated the massacre. Worse, saying that Hamas "does not represent" the aspirations of the Palestinian Arabs is actually not quite the whole story: on October 7 in Gaza, crowds thronged the streets to cheer the terrorists, shout "Allahu Akbar" ["Allah is greatest"], spew hatred towards the hostages and obscenely exhibit and abuse corpses of victims brought back as trophies.
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Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.
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