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Hamas vs. Gazans
by Daniel Pipes
The Washington Times
November 8, 2023
....
The king's response typifies dictators throughout history, who see troops as expendable. The lives of human drones matter little; more can always be conscripted. Russia's use of Wagner Group prison recruits in the Battle of Bakhmut typified this casual use of cheap manpower. It hardly mattered to Russian dictator
Vladimir Putin how many of his cannon fodder perished so long as the front line moved forward. Battlefield gains justify any loss of life.
Then there is
Hamas, the jihadi organization that has ruled
Gaza since 2007 and which became the focus of global attention after massacring about 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7. For 15 years, it has implemented an opposite and historically unique purpose in tormenting its subject population. Rather than sacrifice soldiers for battlefield gains, it sacrifices civilians for public relations purposes.
The more misery endured by the Palestinians in
Gaza, the more convincingly
Hamas can accuse
Israel of aggression and the wider and more vehement the support it wins from antisemites of all persuasions — Islamists, Palestinian nationalists, far-leftists and far-rightists.
Hamas actively wants
Gaza residents to be bombed, hungry, suffering, homeless, injured and killed. It bases troops and missiles in mosques, churches, schools, hospitals and homes. An Emirati political figure, Dirar Belhoul al-Falasi, explains that "
Hamas fired a rocket from the hospital's roof, so that
Israel would bomb this hospital." It calls on
Gaza residents to serve as shields. It parks vehicles on the roads to block civilians from moving southward, out of harm's way. It even shoots these fleeing civilians.
The U.S. government has long noted this pattern of behavior. In 2014, the diplomat Dennis Ross commented that the people of
Gaza paid a "staggering" price for
Hamas' aggression, but its leaders "have never been concerned about that. For them, Palestinians' pain and suffering are tools to exploit, not conditions to end."
Douglas Feith, a former high-ranking Pentagon official, correctly finds it "unprecedented for a party to adopt a war strategy to maximize civilian deaths on its own side." He dubs this "not a human shield strategy [but] a human sacrifice strategy."
Of course,
Hamas digs into its Islamist ideology to justify this practice. One official blithely explains that Palestinians "sacrifice ourselves. We consider our dead to be martyrs. The thing any Palestinian desires the most is to be martyred for the sake of Allah, defending his land."
Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of a founding
Hamas leader, puts it another way: "I was born at the heart of
Hamas leadership ... and I know them very well. They don't care for the Palestinian people. They do not regard the human life. I saw their brutality firsthand."
....
Hamas' brutal logic brings multiple benefits.
First, it provides
Hamas tactically because it renders
Israel, which tries to avoid harming civilians, not attacking mosques and schools. Second, if
Israel does hit such vulnerable targets,
Hamas crows about the victims. Third, should
Hamas misfire, as in the Ahli Hospital incident, and kill Palestinians, it can blame
Israel, convincing many. Fourth, campuses and streets worldwide erupt with anti-
Israel demonstrations.
Fifth,
Hamas chieftains enjoy the good life, whether in Turkey, Qatar or
Gaza itself, where only its members have access to vast reserves of fuel, food, water and medicine. They even steal fuel from hospitals. The Majalla, a Saudi weekly magazine, found that control over
Gaza's smuggling routes made 1,700
Hamas officials millionaires. Moshe Elad of Western Galilee Academic College estimates that Musa Abu Marzook, Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh are all multibillionaires.
This inversion of logic and morality raises two questions: Why does it work? Can
Israel find an antidote?
....
In 1921, during the Rif War, Moroccan rebels inflicted a devastating defeat on Spanish forces at the Battle of Annual. Interrupted while playing a round of golf and informed of this disaster, Spanish King Alfonso XIII reportedly shrugged his shoulders,
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Note the several other article links to right side of the above with other related articles.
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