How To Deal With Gaza After Hamas

If, as anticipated, Israel launches a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip to drive out the Hamas government that deployed hundreds of terrorists to inflict barbaric horrors on Israeli civilians on October 7, the question remains: what next?

Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005. It removed all Israeli settlers and military personnel from the territory, and sealed it off from Israel, taking a wait-and-see approach. The hope was that self-governing Palestinians in Gaza would take the opportunity to build a peaceful, prosperous society that would be able to coexist with the Jewish State of Israel. That hope did not materialize.

Instead, within a year, Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah, the Islamic Resistance Movement known by its portmanteau Hamas, became the governing body in Gaza. Hamas is a fanatical religious organization committed to reestablishing an Islamic caliphate and has genocidal designs towards Jews, which it makes explicit in its founding charter.

Since 2006, Hamas, aided by the governments of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Qatar, has made its main purpose to wage war against Israel both ideologically and through relentless terrorism. Ideologically, it tunned its education system into a hate factory that teaches kids, from the time they learn to speak, that Jews are evil creatures who not only deserve to be killed, but the reward for murdering them is a paradise in the afterlife. The terrorism took the forms of launching indiscriminate missiles at Israeli civilian centers, savage raids into southern Israel, and attempts at hostage taking. Contrary to popular belief in the west, these raids were never halted for any length of time since 2006. They had lulls and when these lulls turned into onslaughts, Israel was forced to periodically retaliate in force as a deterrent.

The scale of the sadistic, depraved brutality of this last incursion by terrorists controlled by Hamas has completely changed the equation for Israel’s leadership. No country could accept hundreds of terrorists invading and raping, murdering, and torturing innocents as young as infants, and to abduct children and the elderly. America imposed regime change on Afghanistan for acts less savage and on Iraq, which never launched an attach on the US at all.

The only viable solution to Israel for the war declared by Hamas is the complete reoccupation of Gaza and installation of a new government. For it to work in the long term, there is only one approach, but one that has come to be disdained in western capitols. Nation Building.

There is a particular conceit in the west that everyone is basically the same and if given the opportunity, they will all welcome the peaceful lives we have in liberal democracies. This outlook does not take history of culture into account. It took western civilization over two thousand years to develop the democratic traditions we enjoy, and we still haven’t perfected them. To expect a place like Gaza, a theocratic dictatorship with no liberal democratic tradition, to become a functioning democracy in a matter of months or even a few years is completely unrealistic.

To democratize and essentially de-Hamasify Gaza, it will require something like a Marshall Plan for Palestine. Democratic political parties will need to be fostered with western assistance. A massive shift in culture and education will be required, and the Palestinians have demonstrated little will and no ability to do this on their own.

Other powers, some from western nations, others perhaps from more moderate nations like Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, will have to administer Gaza until the task is complete.  

There is another component which is absolutely necessary but intimidating. Any armed resistance or efforts by parties in Gaza to reestablish terrorist political movements have to be crushed as ruthlessly as chemotherapy attacks cancer cells.

Based on historical example of post World War 2 Europe and Japan, this effort will take at least twenty years, and possibly even a decade or more longer. It is an expensive, risky, and daunting prospect. But the alternative, as anyone who has witnessed what has occurred in the region should now realize, is a continuation of the endless, horrific cycle of violence and despair. 

University of Toronto "human rights activist" celebrates death of Israeli pilots

Noa Shaindlinger, from the University of Toronto's Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, bills herself as a "human rights" activist. But like many anti-Israel activists, she hides behind the prentense of being a "peace activist" while actually being a ghoul who takes glee in the deaths of Israelis.

An Israeli helicopter training mission that resulted in the deaths of two pilots is an event Shaindlinger celebrates as "good news."

Shaindlinger's idea of good news is another reason that she and people like her apparently lead such miserable lives.  But it is a reminder that free speech is a good thing and the truth of President Woodrow Wilson's words, ""I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking."

As Kate at Small Dead Animals would say, "scratch a leftist..."

More on this ghoul here

Participant Media`s documentary State 194 - propaganda for hope?

The Palestinian Authority's bid this year to have the United Nations recognize statehood for an independent Palestine has been derailed for the time being. The United States and its allies in the Security Council have prevented the matter from coming to a vote. Part of the story of that so-far unsuccessful effort is told by Participant Media's new documentary State 194.

The movie follows Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad`s efforts to create the institutions necessary to have the stability for Palestine to be able to function as an independent country. Fayyad,who was appointed to his position by PA President Abbas, is a former International Monetary Fund economist who by all accounts is an honest proponent of peace and a highly competent leader. But he is one person and his views are not generally reflective of the whole of Palestinian society, and that is the part of the story that State 194 completely avoids.

In fact, if  you were to rely on the image of Palestine conveyed by State 194, you would think that Palestinian society in the West Bank is a secular, progressive one where in fact the opposite is true. In some ways, it`s as if someone filming a community of Inuit living in igloos north of Tuktoyaktuk were to present it as reflective of Canadian society. Sure, it`s there, but it sure isn`t a full and accurate representation of our society.

The film tries to make the case, as did its Israeli director Dan Setton and producer Elise Pearlstein in an interview I conducted with them yesterday, that Palestine is ready for statehood today. The facts on the ground belie that.

State 194 is its director`s expression of hope for peace. But the movie is also blatant propaganda. Subtly anti-Israel and overtly pro-Palestinian, it places all the blame for the Israeli-Palestinian problem on `the occupation`without in any way addressing what the reasons for that occupation are. The neighbouring Arab states tried to wipe out Israel before `the occupation`and no one was interested in creating an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza when they were ruled, respectively, by Jordan and Egypt from 1948 to 1967. Then the Arab solution to the need for a Palestinian homeland was  to eliminate Israel, a view still held by many in the West Bank and the government in Gaza. These are impediments to peace  that are ignored in State 194.

The disaster in Gaza demonstrates that if the conditions for statehood don`t exists, anarchy and terrorism will readily take over. Fayyad`s efforts are honorable and important, but he is far from achieving his goals. Palestine is not a democratic society and indications are that if free elections were to be held there, he would be defeated and removed from office.

Ironically, as if to demonstrate the discrepancy between the image the film tries to create and reality, Salam Fayyed was scheduled to be at the Toronto Film Festival gala premier of State 194 on Monday night, but had to cancel because of riots in Ramallah over the economy.

The first movie ever distributed by Participant Media, which produced State 194 (and other notable documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman), was another pro-Palestinian movie called Arna`s Children. That movie followed a theatre group in Jenin where Juliano Mer Khamis, who was the son of a Jewish Israeli mother and Palestinian Arab father, provided peaceful means for expressions of Palestinian self-determination and opposition to Israel. In yet another tragic irony, he was murdered last year by Palestinian radicals who objected to his providing a non-violent outlet that could divert their youth from the path of jihad.

That is part of the reality of Palestine that State 194 doesn't want to talk about, but until it is resolved, remains an overwhelming obstacle to peace.

Setton's movie presents a good, detailed look at a tiny piece of a larger puzzle. If you keep that in mind, while realizing that you're not seeing anything close to the larger picture, for all its flaws, State 194 is worth sitting through.

The veil has dropped: PLO now includes terror group Hamas

Hamas, which calls for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews in its founding charter has now joined the Palestine Liberation Organization as partners in a coalition.

This represents a major setback for any potential peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, while making it more apparent that the Palestinians' ultimate goal is the elimination of the Jewish state.

U.S. Representative Allen West gets onboard the growing call for a 3 State Solution for Israel and the Palestinians

Fractured leadership and the culture of violence in Gaza are making the necessity for a Three-State Solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinians more likely.

A divided European Union debates Palestinian statehood

If you can't see the video - try using Firefox..I'm getting really fed up with Internet Explorer

Obama's Full Mideast policy speech

Former Presidential Candidate Gary Bauer on the Two State Solution

As a strong supporter of Israel and its right to exist in peace and security as a Jewish state, I have sometimes been criticized for my skepticism about a two-state solution. But invoking the two-state mantra is not a panacea for what ails the Middle East. Two-state advocates differ wildly about what form each state would take. More fundamentally, there is voluminous evidence that many Palestinians, including those involved with groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, desire not two states but the destruction of Israel.

Read the rest here.