9 October 2023 — 1003 mdt
Updated extensively at 1855 MDT.
Israel needs and deserves the full support
of all Americans. Hamas deserves death.
By James Conner
Israel’s population is 9.4 million; Gaza’s, 2.3 million; Gaza plus the occupied West Bank, approximately 6 million; the United States’, 332 million.
As of this morning, the English language Times of Israel reports that Hamas has murdered more than 800 in Israel. Multiplying that by (332/9.4) yields a U.S. equivalent deaths number of approximately 28,000, an order of magnitude greater than the death toll for the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York’s trade towers and the Pentagon.
Those figures are approximate, but they help Americans understand the shock and anger that Hamas’ murderous raid has generated in Israel.
In strictly military terms, Hamas conducted a raid, not an invasion. Capturing and occupying land was not Hamas’ objective. Driven by incurable and psychotic hatred, killing and kidnapping Israelis was. The operation was months, probably years, in the making. I think there’ a high probability that Iran, which has has been funding Hamas at $100 million for years, helped, but, reports TOI, Hamas denies working with Tehran:
Iran was not given a heads up ahead of Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel Friday morning, according to the Gaza terror group’s director of national relations abroad Ali Baraka.
“It was a surprise to everyone, including Iran,” Baraka tells NBC News in an interview.
“We did not inform them that there was an operation that would happen at dawn on Oct. 7, he adds. “After the operation began, we informed Iran.”
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Iran helped plan the attack but officials from various countries involved have since refuted the claim.
I don’t trust anything that Hamas claims.
Now, having declared war on Hamas, Israel will enter Gaza to destroy Hamas’s weaponry and kill or capture as many Hamas leaders as possible. That’s a military imperative for Israel, but it will harden the pathological hatred of Israel that makes a stable peace between Israel and the Palestinians impossible. And that, I think, is an objective of Hamas. It neither wants peace with Israel nor prosperity for Gaza.
During the 1948 war for Israel’s independence, Egypt occupied Gaza, staying there until driven out by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967. Responding to international pressure, Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in the 2005.
According to TThe Gaza Strip and its history, explained in today’s Washington Post:
Hamas, one of the two major political parties in the Palestinian territories, clashed with Palestinian leaders as the Oslo accords were being brokered in the ’90s. Hamas came into power in Gaza after winning the 2006 election. No elections have been held since then.
If Hamas is destroyed, equally murderous and fanatical terrorists will replace it. There is no reason to hope that terrorists replacing Hamas would materially improve the living conditions and lives of the people living there.
In the meantime Israel needs and deserves our steadfast support. It does not need accusations from students at Harvard that Israel is responsible for Hamas' murderous rampage in Israel. Reports Newsweek:
The Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups released a statement signed by at least 35 student groups that put the blame for the unfolding violence on Israel.
“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine said in a joint statement posted on social media.