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On Tuesday, the Secretary-General of the United Nations saw fit to openly opine to the 15-member Security Council, "It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum."
“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” António Guterres continued. "They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing."
Now, while that misguided attempt at rationalizing any motivation behind the unspeakable attacks of October 7 might have been (not really, but) somewhat less offensive and inexcusable a few hundred years from now, the fact that he offered that opinion a mere 18 days after the atrocities were perpetrated —as Israeli families still pondered the fate of their missing loved ones— is simply beyond the realm of decency.
Furthermore, his statement is replete with disingenuousness.
Who, Mr. Guterres, is responsible for the Palestinian economy being "stifled"?
And why have "hopes for a political solution" been "vanishing"?
Might the answer to each of those questions be the ongoing campaign of terrorist insurgency being waged by 10 different Palestinian militant groups in the region, rather than, as he clearly implied, Israel?
Of course, Guterres is not the first one, since Israel declared its independence, in 1948, to go out of his way to obfuscate the facts regarding Israel's relationship with its neighbors.
The fact is that, literally since Day One of its existence, Israel has repeatedly been on the defense against attacks, not the opposite, as many would have you believe.
You may remember that, before Hamas, there was the PLO, whose revised Covenant, issued in 1968, argues that, "Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history."
That one was news to me because I could swear that I read an awful lot somewhere, about Jews, Hebrews, and Israelites living in the neighborhood for like a few thousand years.
Now, if I could only remember the name of that book.
The Covenant goes on to point out that "Israel is a constant source of threat [to] peace in the Middle East and the whole world."
I'll deal with that one in detail shortly.
For now, back to Hamas.
Article 32 of the Hamas Covenant warns that "Zionism's scheming has no end, and after Palestine, they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates River. When they have finished digesting the area on which they have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion.”
Scheming, expansion, digesting. Am I missing something?
Yeah, I'll grant that the whole settlement thing is a bit complex, but I honestly don't think it rises to the level of actual "expansion."
And the fact of the matter is that any Israeli "expansion" that has taken place since 1948 has occurred as a result of wars that were instigated not by Israel, but by its neighbors, and, besides, Israel eventually went on to give most of it back. Like in 1979, when it returned to Egypt the entire Sinai Peninsula, which it had captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, which was precipitated by Jordan, Syria, and, wait for it…yeah, Egypt.
No matter what propaganda you've been inundated with all these years —and especially, recently—you should first and foremost note that, since its founding in 1948, Israel has never instigated a major military conflict.
Not one. Period. That's a fact, though you certainly couldn't be blamed for thinking otherwise, given what the media and others would have you believe.
You might quibble over what would be considered an appropriate level of preemption or response but, before you go there, try living in Israel, even just for a couple of weeks. Then tell me if you wouldn't be always looking over your shoulder.
And don't forget that, for the sake of their very survival, Israelis are forced to live their daily lives under something called an "iron dome."
Wow, that sounds like a great neighborhood, doesn't it?
Israel and its people have lived under constant threat since literally the day the Jewish state was established (actually well before).
Now, I want to be very clear when I tell you that I have absolutely nothing against the Palestinian people. They're God's children every bit as much as I am. And, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that they've all lived cushy lives since 1948, or that Gaza's not really crowded and economically challenged.
It's just that, most of that, at least, just ain't Israel's fault.
First of All, Who's Kicking Whom?
Remember that, in its 1968 charter, the PLO asserted that "Israel is a constant source of threat to peace in the Middle East and the whole world."
So, let's explore that, from the beginning. As you read, try to consider the proximate cause, instigator, and perpetrator of each of the conflicts I'm about to cover.
After the Ottoman defeat in World War I, Britain and France began to divvy up the Empire's southern territories, with Britain gaining control of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) and Palestine (modern-day Israel, Jordan, and Palestine).
As early as November 1914, the British War Cabinet was contemplating the post-war future of Palestine, expressing its support for the creation of a Jewish state. In a 1917 letter to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour announced the Kingdom's official support for a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. That statement would become known as the Balfour Declaration.
In 1920, the League of Nations drafted the British Mandate for Palestine, which went into effect in 1923. The Mandate granted Britain official rule over the formerly Ottoman nations "until such time as they are able to stand alone."
Importantly, in 1921, Britain appointed a 24-year-old by the name of Haj Amin al-Husseini as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. They probably could've done a better job of vetting the dude. But more on him later.
While it would be years before Israel would declare its independence in 1948, European Jews began to migrate to the region, establishing a significant foothold, though not without resistance and conflict. Frequent clashes took place between Jews and Arabs, and British forces, as well.
Following the conclusion of World War II, as the magnitude of the Holocaust became apparent, efforts to resolve the "Question of Palestine" accelerated, with the aim of providing a sanctuary for "Displaced Persons," who had survived Hitler's Final Solution. The British made repeated attempts to broker a deal that would be acceptable to both Arabs and Jews, but the former simpy refused to make any concessions.
Though the Mandate would remain in effect until May 1948, in 1947, Britain handed the "Question" over to the nascent United Nations, which began to debate the terms of the partition.
At this point, Haj Amin al-Husseini, now the Chairman of the Arab Higher Committee, announced to the world that Arabs would "fight for every inch of their country." The Committee's spokesman vowed that Arabs would "drench the soil of our beloved country with the last drop of our blood."
Not exactly a warm welcome for their new Jewish neighbors.
The UN adopted the Plan of Partition on November 29, 1947, and things immediately went south.
At 7:30 the following morning, a bus carrying 21 passengers departed Netanya heading for Jerusalem. As it neared the Egyptian migrant hamlet of Fajja, three men on the road began waving at the driver. Believing that they wanted to be picked up, the driver slowed his vehicle but quickly noticed a machine gun protruding from the coat of one of the men. He attempted to speed away but automatic weapons fire and grenades caused the bus to veer off the road.
While most of the passengers were able to escape, the attackers, members of the soon-to-be infamous Abu-Kishk gang, then stormed the bus and killed the five who remained onboard, including a man desperately trying to protect his wounded wife and 22-year-old Shoshana Mizrahi, who was on her way to her wedding in Jerusalem.
Twenty-five minutes later, a bus bound for Hadera was attacked in a similar manner and two more Jewish passengers were killed.
On January 9, 1948, four months before the State of Israel was even a thing, over 1,000 Arab fighters attacked several Jewish communities in the north, inflicting severe casualties.
Yeah, on civilians, again.
Following months of violent skirmishes with the Jewish Haganah militia, on May 4, 1948 —ten days before Israel would declare itself a state— forces from the Jordanian Legion attacked the West Bank kibbutz of Kfar Etzion, home to 50 children and 163 adults, many of whom were Holocaust survivors. The Haganah was able to repel the initial attack, but not without the loss of 12 of its soldiers, with another 30 wounded.
On May 12, the Jordanians returned, this time reinforced with thousands of local Arabs, and launched what would be the final and lethal attack on the kibbutz. By the following morning, the attackers had stormed the gates of the Jewish settlement and the village’s elders surrendered. The residents were then assembled in a courtyard, where they were told they’d be photographed before being taken into custody.
Instead, the attackers opened fire on the crowd. Many of those not killed in the initial fire fled to security cellars. The attackers threw hand grenades into one of the cellars, killing 50. In another, 20 women were killed.
In all, 127 of residents of Kfar Etzion died at the hands of their attackers.
A day later, Israel decared itself and independent nation, and no sooner had it done so than, on the evening of May 14, 1948, found itself on the receiving end of an Egyptian aerial bombardment focused on Tel Aviv.
The following day, military forces from six Arab nations — Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq — reinforced with local Arab militias, attacked the nascent Jewish state from all directions. Their stated goal was to not only prevent the implementation of the UN partition plan, but also to violently and completely remove the Jews from the region.
So, shalom, and welcome to the neighborhood, I guess.
Egypt (not Israel) took control of the Gaza Strip, while Jordan (not Israel) took control of the West Bank, both of which, remember, were intended for the Palestinians.
The war persisted until March 1949, with Israel remarkably prevailing. The conflict would become known by Jews as The War of Independence, and by Arabs as, the Nabka or "The Catastrophe."
Still, the conflict cost the lives of 6,000 Jews, fully one percent of the fledgling state’s population.
During the mid-1950s, Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser sponsored the activities of the Palestinian Fedayeen, which conducted numerous cross-border raids on Israeli targets from bases in Syria, Egypt and Jordan.
Then on September 5, 1955, Egypt further tightened its blockade of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. Recognizing the threat that the blockade posed to the Israeli economy, on September 29, Israeli Minister of Defense, David Ben-Gurion declared that, if remained in place, Israel would not hesitate to use force.
In 1956, in response to Egypt’s growing ties with the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, the United States and Great Britain opted not to finance the construction of the Aswan High Dam, as they had previously agreed. Nasser reacted by declaring martial law and, on July 26, seizing the Suez Canal Company from its British and French shareholders.
Nasser believed that the tolls collected from vessels transiting the canal would generate funds sufficient enough for Egypt to construct the Aswan Dam within five years.
Western leaders were rightly concerned by the threat to the maritime trade that relied on the canal, with British Prime Minister Anthony Eden observing, “The Egyptian has his thumb on our windpipe.”
Fearing that Nasser might close the canal to shipments of oil from the Persian Gulf to Europe, Britain and France secretly formulated military plans to seize control of the canal and, if feasible, to depose Nasser. Given the threat to the well-being of the Jewish state that the Egyptian president posed, the European powers soon found a willing partner in Israel, whose antipathy for Egypt had been amplified by Egypt’s barring the Jewish state’s access to the Straits of Tiran and its patronage of the Palestinian Fedayeen.
The plan that the three nations formulated was actually quite a ruse. Israel would invade Sinai, and Britain and France would then issue “demands” that Egyptian and Israeli troops withdraw from the canal zone. Fully expecting that Nasser would reject the ultimatum out of hand, the European powers would then occupy the zone and depose the Egyptian leader.
The Israeli troops struck on October 29, while the British and French forces arrived two days behind schedule. Despite their tardiness, the Europeans captured Port Said and Port Faud.
These developments caught the Eisenhower Administration off guard, as Britain and France had previously assured the US that no such attack was imminent. Eisenhower quickly imposed sanctions on Britain and France, but they hadn’t taken effect before paratroopers from both nations landed along the Suez Canal on November 5.
Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev condemned the invasion and threatened to intervene with nuclear weapons, while also massing forces in Syria.
Eisenhower prudently ordered the Pentagon to prepare for war, but also implemented financial and political pressure, ultimately convincing the parties to accept a UN ceasefire that went into effect on November 7.
In the Spring of 1967, Palestinian guerrillas based in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria intensified their attacks against Israeli targets, forcing the Jewish state to respond. In April, Syria fired on an Israeli tractor plowing land in the demilitarized zone, leading to an aerial conflict where the Israeli Air Force (IAF) shot down six Syrian MiGs.
In May, an erroneous Soviet intelligence report indicated that Israel was about to initiate further action against Syria, leading Egyptian President Nasser (yeah, that guy, again) to mass troops on the Sinai, expel the UN Emergency Force stationed there, and prevent Israeli ships, once again, from accessing the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba.
Israel considered Nasser's gesture to be an act of war (surely Nasser did, as well) and began preparing a response.
In spite of repeated entreaties and warnings from Israeli PM Levi Eshkol, on May 30, Jordan placed its military forces under Egyptian command. A few days later, Iraq followed suit.
Recognizing the threat posed by the forces being mobilized against it, on June 5, Israel launched a series of preemptive air strikes against Egyptian assets in the Sinai, destroying more than 90 percent of its air force on the tarmac.
Jordan then began shelling West Jerusalem, followed by a ground invasion. And, so on June 7, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) gave the Jordanians what they asked for, delivering a devastating counterattack and driving the Hashemite forces from East Jerusalem and most of the West Bank.
By June 8, the IDF had prevailed against the invaders, seizing the Gaza Strip from Egyptian control, capturing territory on the Sinai Peninsula, and achieving sole control of the city of Jerusalem. That day, Egypt and Jordan agreed to a ceasefire, and Syria got on board the following day.
Soon after assuming the role of Egypt's President, in October 1970, Anwar Sadat began to make overtures of peace toward Israel. His main condition was that Israel return all of the territory it captured in the '67 war. (A war that, you'll surely recall from the last section, the Palestinians started, soon to be joined by Syria, Egypt and Jordan.)
Israel, of course, refused to abide by this silly stipulation.
And then, in spite of all the empty talk of peace emanating from Cairo, in September 1972, eight armed terrorists from the Palestinian group Black September infiltrated a dormitory at the Munich Olympics and murdered 11 Israeli athletes.
Throughout 1972 and into 1973, Sadat continued to threaten war unless the United States could convince the Israelis to accept his demand that Israel totally withdraw from the land it had captured in 1967.
In 1973, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, fell on October 6, which, that year, also happened to be during the Islamic month of Ramadan. That day, Egypt and Syria —with the active support of nine Arab states (and oddly, Cuba, which contributed tanks, helicopters, and 4,000 troops) — launched a surprise coordinated two-pronged attack against Israel.
And it really was a was a surprise. Nobody, to include the CIA, saw it coming.
Making matters worse for the Israelis, the Soviet Union quickly commenced a massive airlift of 8,000 tons of military supplies to the invading forces. In response, on October 12, President Nixon signed off on Operation Nickel Grass, a massive airlift of tanks, bombs, helicopters, and spare parts to support Israel's defense.
The US assistance enabled Israel to repel the Arab invasion and led to the UN Security Council announcing a cease-fire on October 24.
In November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made the bold move to speak before the Israeli Knesset, and meet with Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in Tel Aviv, calling for peace and reconciliation between the long-time adversaries. The visit outraged most of the Arab world but, to his credit, Sadat continued his effort to conclude a peace.
The following September, President Carter helped broker the Camp David Accords, the terms of which included a process for Palestinian self-governance in Gaza and the West Bank, and the framework for a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
In a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, in March 1979, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the historic treaty, earning them each the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Under the terms of the treaty, Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula, while Egypt agreed to full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, and to ensure Israeli access to the Suez Canal, and nearby waterways. The pact also established a framework for territorial issues related to Gaza and the West Bank.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, most Arabs were less than thrilled with the whole thing. That included Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffi, who sponsored members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, to make his displeasure known.
On October 6, 1981, the eighth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, President Sadat stood on a reviewing stand in Cairo, as military units and equipment paraded before him. Meanwhile, Qadaffi's team of six men, dressed in Egyptian army uniforms, took hits of hashish, before climbing into a Soviet-made truck, with a South Korean howitzer in tow.
When they reached the reviewing stand, the assailants exited the truck and opened fire, also throwing grenades into the crowd of about 2,000. They riddled Sadat with ten bullets, from his neck to his lower abdomen. He was pronounced dead at Maadi Hospital two hours later.
1st Lebanon War - 1982
On June 3, 1982, a terror cell in London, part of the Abu Nidal Organization (a PLO faction sponsored by Syria, Lybia, and Iraq), tried to assassinate Shalom Argov, the Israeli ambassador to the UK. The head wound he sustained would leave him paralyzed until his death in 2003.
The day following the assassination attempt, the IAF attacked nine targets in Lebanon, belonging to the PLO and its Fatah branch. The terrorists responded by once again shelling civilian communities in the Galilee region.
In response, on June 6, the Israelis launched Operation Peace for Galilee, with the IDF handily overtaking PLO positions in the south, routing Syrian forces in the Bekaa Valley, and arriving on the outskirts of Beirut on the 9th, cornering the remaining PLO forces who ultimately surrendered and agreed to evacuate to Tunisia in September.
First Intifada - 1987
The First Intifada, or "uprising," officially began on July 9, 1987, but was preceded by months of violence and unrest.
Throughout the year that marked the 40th anniversary of the Israelis' capturing the formerly Egyptian- and Jordanian-controlled Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the Six-Day War (which, just to remind you, was provoked by Arab nations in the region), Palestinians had been directing various forms of violence against Israelis for months, when on December 6, 1987, an Israeli man, shopping at a Gaza market, was stabbed to death. The following day, an Israeli truck crashed into a station wagon full of Palestinian workers in Gaza's Jabalya district, killing four.
Many Palestinians concluded that what was likely an accident was instead an act of deliberate revenge for the previous day's stabbing death. They quickly took to the streets of Gaza in what began as a simple protest, but then devolved into burning tires and throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers and police.
On July 9th, violent, large-scale riots broke out in Jabalya and a 17-year-old was shot and killed by police after he'd hurled a Molotov cocktail at their patrol car. This incident caused the unrest to spill over into the West Bank and Jerusalem.
On July 13, rioters launched a gasoline bomb at the US consulate in East Jerusalem but, fortunately, no one was injured.
Untrue rumors added fuel to the unrest. Gazans were led to believe that wounded Palestinians were being taken to a Tel Aviv hospital to be "finished off," and that Israeli troops had poisoned the water reservoir in Khan Yunis. The reality was that only the most critically injured Palestinians were taken out of Gaza for treatment and, in many cases, it likely saved their lives. Moreover, the UN tested the reservoir and found it uncontaminated.
The likely source of these rumors, as well as the certain organizing force behind the violence, was Yasir Arafat's PLO, which distributed leaflets instructing Palestinians on which days violence should be ramped up, and against whom. At about this time, Arafat's leadership of the Intifada was challenged by an upstart Islamist organization that called itself, Hamas.
Over the next five years, more than 3,600 Molotov cocktails, 100 grenades, and 600 gun and explosives assaults were reported, resulting in the deaths of 11 IDF soldiers and 16 Israeli civilians. Additionally, more than 1,400 Israeli civilians and 1,700 Israeli soldiers were injured.
But Jews weren't the only victims, nor the most numerous. As the Intifada ebbed in late 1990, Arafat authorized Palestinian death squads to kill any Arab deemed to be "collaborating with Israel." This "collaboration" included such innocuous transgressions as simply being employed by Israel's Civil Administration. So, merely working for the wrong boss, or otherwise "collaborating," led to almost 1,000 Palestinians being shot, clubbed, stabbed, hacked to death with axes, and burned with acid…by fellow Palestinians.
Before I delve into the next major Arab-Israeli conflict, let me point out a bit of trivia that might interest you. Since its first meeting, in 1949, Israel's parliament, the Knesset, has had 100 Arab members. Currently, ten Arabs sit in the house, including two women. As you read the next section, you may understand why I felt it important to tell you that.
Second Intifada - 2000
Beginning in about 1997, with both sides frustrated with the implementation of the Oslo Accords, Israeli intelligence grew concerned about a number of troubling developments, such as increasingly militant Palestinian media broadcasts, the establishment of military training camps, the growth of the Palestinian armed forces beyond the number agreed to under Oslo, the release of an increasing number of terrorists from Palestinian custody, and the lack of effort, on the part of Palestinian authorities, to confiscate illegal weapons.
In July 2000, President Clinton hosted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat for a “Peace Summit” at Camp David. The effort turned out to be futile, with Barak and Arafat each blaming one another for its failure.
On September 24, 2000, Israeli opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, announced his desire to visit Jerusalem's Temple Mount. However, security officials were concerned that such a high-profile trip might offend the sensibilities of certain Palestinians.
These concerns ultimately led to a phone call between Israeli Foreign Minister Shalom Ben-Ami and Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Organization, who informed his counterpart, "If Mr. Sharon refrains from entering the Mosques on the Temple Mount, there won't be any problem." Nonetheless, Israeli law enforcement officials insisted on providing Sharon with a modest 1,500-member police escort for his visit on the 28th, just to be safe.
Sharon made good on his promise, steering clear of the mosques during what turned out to be a pretty brief visit. However, as he was exiting the area, at about 8:30 am, he was confronted by a vocal crowd of Palestinian protestors, led by Arab members of the Knesset who proceeded to hurl stones at him and his police escort.
Anyway, the unrest was short-lived, and, by mid-afternoon, Israeli security officials concluded that the matter was behind them.
Let's just say that they couldn't have been more wrong.
Later that afternoon, Voice of Palestine began airing broadcasts denouncing Sharon's "serious step against Muslim holy places."
PLO Chairman Arafat directed the entire Muslim and Arab world to "move immediately to stop these aggressions and Israeli practices against holy Jerusalem." And, throughout the night, Palestinian radio stations painted the visit as an intentional defilement of a sacred Muslim site.
By the following morning, the rage had spread through the entire Palestinian community. In the West Bank, a Palestinian police officer operating in a joint security patrol shot and killed his Israeli partner. Following morning prayers on the Temple Mount, hundreds of Palestinians stormed past border guards toward the platform overlooking the Western Wall where Jewish worshippers were praying.
Arriving on the platform, they began throwing heavy rocks down at the worshippers, prompting Israeli guards to open fire with rubber bullets, killing four and wounding more than 100.
The carnage of the 2nd Intifada would soon far overshadow that of the first, and would rage for the following 4 1/2 years, costing the lives of countless civilians on both sides.
It would also mark the emergence of Hamas, which would take sole or joint responsibility for 36 terrorist attacks between 2001 and 2005, claiming 358 lives.
On May 8, 2001, two Israeli boys, 13-year-old Koby Mandell and his 14-year-old friend Yosef Ishran were kidnapped near their village of Tekoa. The following morning, their bodies were discovered in a nearby cave. USA Today reported that the boys had been "been bound, stabbed and beaten to death with rocks," and that "The walls of the cave in the Judean Desert were covered with the boys' blood, reportedly smeared there by the killers."
On the evening of June 1, even as President Bush was attempting to broker a ceasefire, an Islamic Jihad militant entered the Dolphinarium dance club in Tel Aviv and detonated his suicide vest, killing 21 Israeli civilians, most of them high school students. Another 132 were injured in the explosion.
The attack significantly impeded the American attempts to negotiate an armistice.
While there was never an official or even definitive end to the Intifada, many point to Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, announced in June 2004 and completed in August 2005, as the beginning of the end.
2nd Lebanon War - 2006
Following Israel's successful Lebanon campaign of 1982, Shia clerics in the country established a militia called Hizb Allāh, or "Party of God." If the name seems to ring a bell, that's because it would later become better known as Hezbollah.
In 2000, under the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, Israel completed its withdrawal from southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah fighters quickly moved in, establishing a network of bunkers throughout civilian areas, undeterred by the UN observers stationed there.
At about 9 am on July 12, 2006, Hezbollah fighters crossed the border with Israel and ambushed an IDF patrol, killing three soldiers and capturing another two, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, whom they took with them back into Lebanon. This action fulfilled the enduring desire of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to take IDF prisoners to be used as leverage in negotiations over the release of Lebanese militants in Israeli custody.
However, even against the backdrop of those negotiations, Hezbollah continued to fire indiscriminately at Israeli communities, with the clear intent of killing and wounding innocents. The attacks took the lives of at least 157 Israelis and wounded scores more. They also drove roughly 400,000 from their homes, while those who remained were forced to the refuge of bomb shelters for the duration of the 34-day war.
The prisoner exchange finally took place on July 16, 2008, with Israel releasing five militants, including Samir Kuntar, a member of both Hezbollah and the Palestine Liberation Front, who had been convicted of murder in Israel.
Hezbollah reciprocated by returning the dead bodies of Goldwater and Regev. Until that time, the terror group had refused to divulge any information regarding the fate of the Israeli soldiers.
Kuntar’s release was widely cheered in Beirut, inspiring Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah to host a rally. And, it might be worth noting that Palestinians in Gaza celebrated, as well, with many handing out candy to local children.
Seven years later, in December 2015, Kuntar was chilling in his sixth-floor Damascus apartment when two IAF jets fired four smart missiles from inside Israeli airspace, about 90 miles away. A few minutes later, the Hezbollah hero was dust.
Now, I'm not completely naive, but from where I'm sitting, it would pretty much appear that, since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pretty much been minding its own business, just trying to exist (and survive).
The partition plan of 1947 gave the Jewish people their share of the land and the Palestinians theirs.
And, if you've been led to believe that Palestinians somehow got hosed in the deal, you need to take a closer look.
To begin with, the UN took nearly 80% of the land that the League of Nations had designated as the "Jewish National Home," and allocated it to Saudi Emir Abdullah so that he could invent a country that had never existed before, Transjordan (now Jordan). So, even early on, the Jews were being screwed in favor of an Arab interest.
No, the Palestinians derived no benefit from the UN's move but, again, that wasn't Israel's fault.
Next, the UN insisted that Jerusalem remain separate from both the Jewish and Arab states, and that it instead be administered as an international zone. This policy left over 100,000 Jews isolated from the nation they'd been promised as a sanctuary.
Finally, while it might have looked, on paper, that the UN gave the Jews a sweetheart deal, with 54% of what was left over after Jordan’s rip-off, the reality was that Israel got three non-contiguous rivers, and 60% of the real estate it was granted was in the non-arable Negev desert. The Palestinians, on the other hand, were granted the far more agriculturally favorable land.
It might be worth noting that never in the history of the world has there been any such thing as a Palestinian state. Not before Israel. Not before the Ottomans, or the Mamluk Sultanate, or the Ayyubid Dynasty, or the Christians, or the Romans…you get the idea. No Palestinian state.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that, when presented with the occasion to establish one, modern-day Palestinians have continually balked. From Haj Amin al-Husseini to Arafat to Hamas, Palestinians have rejected innumerable opportunities to establish their own, independent, self-determining state, which might lead an observer to conclude that it’s not exactly what their desired end state is.
So, what is it that Palestinians truly want?
In the movie, Braveheart, King Longshanks opines that, "The trouble with Scotland... is that it's full of Scots."
If you can find an honest Palestinian, and ask him what's wrong with Israel, he won't be shy in responding that it's full of Jews.
The truth is that they will settle for nothing less than the whole enchilada.
In fact, they were even nice enough to put it in writing. As I said earlier, the Hamas Covenant states that "Israel will…continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it…"
Here are a few more snippets from the document.
Article 7: The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him."
Article 13: Peace initiatives and so-called peaceful solutions…are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.
So, let's not waste our time talking about peace. Seriously. This was clearly the sentiment that pervaded the Arab-Muslim world following the Egypt-Israeli treaty of 1979.
Article 32: …After Palestine, [Jews] will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates River….Their scheme has been laid out in the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'.
Let me stop there for a minute.
Here's the thing. The 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' is a completely bogus document that was entirely fabricated, beginning in 1903, and circulated in anti-Semitic circles in order to popularize the belief in an international Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. It has been universally debunked and its inauthenticity is easily established, but I won't bore you with the details.
The bottom line is that they may as well be citing Mad Magazine, seriously
It's also worth pointing out that the ‘Protocols’ were read by schoolchildren throughout Nazi Germany.
So there's that.
Anyway, the point here is that Hamas' founding document —the charter that states the reason for its existence— is premised on at least one demonstrable lie.
But that's not the only lie.
Remember that dude I mentioned about 1,000 paragraphs back? Haj Amin al-Husseini? Well, it's important to note that he is something of a patron saint to Hamas. Given that fact, it's worth knowing a little bit about him.
In January 1922, he was elected as the first president of the Supreme Muslim Council of Palestine. He was vehemently opposed to Zionism and, in spite of repeated Jewish concessions, refused to any negotiation regarding territory.
Instead, he began to launch a series of false claims about Jewish ambitions, both in the region and beyond. He alleged that Jews were intent on destroying Islamic holy sites on the Temple Mount and eradicating the Arab population from the country.
In the 1930s, Britain expelled al-Husseini from Palestine over his support of terrorism. During World War II, he collaborated in a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq, which the British were able to put down.
He then fled to Germany, met Hitler, became a guest of the Nazi government, produced pro-German propaganda, and assisted the SS in recruiting Muslims from Bosnia.
In 1950, he published an article that claimed, "a plot devised long ago between the Jews and colonialism," the aim of which was "to remove the indigenous Arabs from their homeland."
The "plot also intends to terminally eliminate the Arab character, religion, holy places and places of worship in this country," he continued. "They also intend to rebuild the…Temple of Solomon on the current site of the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque."
Really? Think about that one. If that really were the Jewish intent, don't you think they'd have gotten around to it sometime in the 50 years since taking control of the Temple Mount, the site of the Mosque? Instead, Muslims pray at the Mosque daily, without the slightest interference from the Jewish authorities.
Hamas members still idolize al-Husseini, continue to perpetuate his false claims about al-Aqsa, and share his goal of driving the Jews from Israel as the only means of winning "a battle between two conflicting faiths, each of which can only exist on the ruins of the other."
Hamas' goal is not to protect al-Aqsa. Anyone who believes that nonsense either hasn't read the history of the place or is clinically naive (or both). Nor does it seem all too concerned with the well-being of Palestinians, as it routinely siphons foreign aid into its coffers, uses hospitals as command-and-control centers, and steals fuel from sites throughout Gaza, to include medical facilities.
The only true goal of Hamas, its allies, and its predecessors is to rid the region —if not the world— of Jews, and rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine from the Joran River to the Mediterranean Sea.
The group receives upwards of $100 million annually from Iran, in the form of financial and military support. Qatar contributes another $120 million each year, claiming to support the government, not the terrorists. The group is also known to divert massive amounts of international assistance funds —meant to aid the Palestinian people— to build its terrorist infrastructure.
Lies, Hypocrisy and Fake News
As the Hamas savages carried out their slaughter on October 7, a contingent of their generals, including their leader and chief of the political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, basked in the air-conditioned comfort of a luxury hotel suite in Doha, Qatar. They gathered in front of a camera and recorded themselves acting surprised about the news of the attack. They then knelt and praised Allah for its success.
Now, it might strike you as odd that much of the terror group’s leadership —and their families— reside in Qatar, with the full blessing and patronage of the tiny nation’s Emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, given that, just 30 miles southwest of their accommodations, sits Al-Udaid Air Base, home to US Central Command’s forward headquarters.
Also potentially baffling is the fact that, just last year, President Biden designated Qatar as a major non-NATO ally of the United States.
On Tuesday, October 17, an explosion occurred in the vicinity of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in the Gaza Strip. Before the smoke had settled, Hamas, the group responsible for the slaughter of more than 1,400 just days before, alerted the world that an Israeli rocket had struck the hospital building, killing hundreds.
Unconcerned with the sketchy credibility of the news source, media outlets across the globe ran with the unverified (and unverifiable) scoop.
Jonathan Swift once said, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still tying its shoes," and, especially in an age of mass and social media, that aphorism couldn't be more true.
Even before a shred of conclusive evidence had surfaced, President Biden's planned meetings with Palestinian, Egyptian, and Jordanian leaders were all canceled. So the heads-of-state of nations that each receive hundreds of millions of dollars of US aid each year simply told the leader of the free world to go kick rocks.
The following day, the United Nations issued a statement, calling “the strike against Al Ahli Arab Hospital…an atrocity. The New York Times ran with the front page banner headline, "Israel Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say."
Hell, even the Wall Street Journal fell for it.
The reality, as we now understand it, is that a rocket fired from Gaza, by either Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, simply petered out mid-flight, and landed in the hospital parking lot. That's supported by the fact that there was neither a crater anywhere near the alleged impact site nor any shrapnel found in the vicinity.
A week later, the Times printed a lengthy editor's note, admitting that it had “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified.”
If the context weren't so tragic, the simple fact that the “newspaper of record” had to admit to relying "too heavily on claims by Hamas," would be downright hilarious.
But, perhaps, the most grotesque manipulation of the since-debunked story came from Rep. Rashida Talib, who quickly tweeted, “Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that."
But she was just getting started.
The following day, even after confirmation from the White House and US intelligence agencies that the projectile that landed near the hospital was likely not of Israeli origin, Talib addressed a pro-Palestinian crowd near the Capitol, railing against the "cycle of violence" without once referring to the atrocities committed by Hamas not two weeks earlier.
And then, through a river of crocodile tears, the Palestinian-American told the crowd that's "what really painful" for her is "to continue to watch people think it's okay to bomb a hospital (dramatic pause) with children."
And she won't back down. Just a few days ago, the Hamas apologist was calling for an independent investigation, insisting that “Both the Israeli and United States governments have long, documented histories of misleading the public about wars and war crimes."
And, while I didn't believe it when I first read it, even freakin' Joy Behar has called her out for her nonsense.
"[Talib] still will not admit that that attack on the hospital came from Hamas,” Behar scolded. “They have video showing it, but she goes out there and lies (and she just couldn't resist adding) like Trump.”
One more thing that I think important to point out is that, notwithstanding all of the rhetoric we've been fed, for years, about how the Palestinian population shouldn't be associated with —or held accountable for— the actions of Hamas, it's probably worth knowing that a 2021 AP poll found that 53% of Palestinians believe Hamas is “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people.”
And, last week, when Le Monde correspondent, Samuel Foley, asked a young woman in the West Bank for her thoughts on the October 7 attack, she responded, “Hamas attacking Israel? That’s good. We have the right to defend ourselves…The Hamas operation was a great moment.”
Foley went on to write that, “From Jenin to Nablus to Ramallah, all of the Palestinians we met applauded the October 7 attack.”
Just sayin'.
Amid the fusillade of confusing, conflicting, and misdirecting white noise that we've all been subjected to for the past three weeks, it's imperative that we remember what prompted this ongoing and widespread discussion.
At 6:30 am, on October 7, 2023 (in the 21st century), roughly 1,500 Hamas terrorists —about a third of whom had been training in Iran just a month earlier— broke through a security fence, invading western Israel and commenced the killing, burning, raping, and beheading of over 1,400 of its citizens. They wounded another 5,400 and abducted more than 200.
At roughly the same time, concertgoers at the two-day Supernova Music Festival, which had promised a "journey of unity and love" in the western Negev desert, began to spot rockets flying over their heads. About thirty minutes later, a siren sounded, warning of incoming rocket fire, prompting those in attendance to flee.
Soon, Hamas militants using trucks, motorcycles, and paragliders descended on the scene, firing indiscriminately into the crowd. Those who were able to reach the refuge of nearby bomb shelters, orchards, or bushes were killed as they attempted to hide. Some, who were able to reach the road or parking lot, were immediately halted by a massive traffic bottleneck, and were shot to death in their vehicles.
260 innocent music fans were killed and over 100 wounded. An unknown number were abducted and their whereabouts remain unknown. They include Eric Perez and his 17-year-old daughter, Rut, who suffers from muscular dystrophy.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a piece that covered the IRA's 1972 Bloody Friday atrocity and quoted the editorial board of the Irish Times, who said, "Anyone who supports [this] violence is sick with the same affliction as those who did the deed."
That line is worth remembering as you watch protestors and politicians who, disgustingly and inexplicably, continue to grope for ways to rationalize what happened on October 7.
Brian O'Leary is a retired Marine Corps colonel, who served for 30 years, including combat deployments to Somalia and Iraq, and command of an infantry battalion in Afghanistan. Additionally, he has spent 25 years in the financial services industry. Brian earned his BA in English from Penn State University and his MA in National Security Studies from the US Army War College.