Hamas ‘in the dark’ — this is how the terrorist organization’s end can begin

Bombs, missiles, cannons, and suicide terrorists always ready for action: and yet, while it continues to show its teeth and pledges to bring about international calamities, Hamas seems to be among the first victims of Trump’s great Middle East revolution that was established last month in Riyadh and is by now called an “alliance of stability,” which has banned Qatar, who is not only the Muslim Brotherhood’s major sponsor, but also Iran’s close ally.

The background is this: Hamas could lose the many different forms of political, financial and logistical support that Qatar provides it on billion-dollars basis, funding, after various wars and major reconstruction programs. It also hosts many Hamas’ political leaders, including its renowned, fierce former supreme leader Khaled Mashaal. The billions, however, allegedly went mainly to the armed struggle against Israel, the construction of tunnels, and the acquisition of weapons. The two million residents currently living in Gaza under Hamas’s control therefore live in an impending state of humanitarian crisis; their leadership seems to have the sole aim of killing Jews and not the well being of its people. Hamas is a very active member of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose paterfamilias is Qatar and Turkey represents the alma mater.

Now the situation is much more complicated: the money may stop, Qatar has already been impacted by the massive blockade of money, flights, food, and water at the hands of moderate Sunni countries with America’s support, and risks to have to stop its former practice of harboring terrorists, including Hamas.

Now, breaking news: a few days ago, the Israeli Security Council was virtually forced upon the request of Palestinian Authority President Abu Mazen to reduce the amount of electricity supplied to Gaza. The Strip will have electricity for only two or three hours a day. This is, of course, a dramatic situation that can create serious problems for its hospitals, drainage structures, and desalination plant.

The PA has decided to block 40 percent of the budget it currently allocates to Gaza, and it no longer pays for electricity that Israel produces, causing it to reduce its supply. Maybe Israel would have sacrificed for its best friend, but Hamas is its worst enemy, even though Israel is very worried about the possibility that an escalation of the humanitarian crisis may lead to violent consequences: Israel supplies Gaza with all goods through its borders since 2014. The risk is that the population will rise up against the government and consensus will be restored in hatred and blood against Israel.

Why is Mazen taking action now? The political drive is obvious. It’s the “camp of stability” in which Abu Mazen aspires to belong because isolation on behalf of the Sunni Arab countries and by the Americans would result in the loss of the Palestinian’s major contributors. Abu Mazen can’t wait to strike a blow to Hamas, which challenges his hegemony of the Palestinian world and links itself to jihad in its clash with the West. Abu Mazen wants to endure and to perpetuate his strategies of refusing to recognize Israel, exalting jihad, and preventing Hamas to encroach upon his power.

Another deplorable incident has hurt Hamas: under two schools built by UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, a tunnel used as a gateway into Israel by terrorists in order to attack civilians was discovered. A spokesman for the organization, Christopher Gunness, condemned the cynical use of schools. UNRWA, the sole organization created by the UN for a single group of refugees, namely the Palestinians, is also the only one that instead of addressing the issue of integration in order to reduce their numbers actually helps them increase: establishing in its statute that even the children and their children’s children are refugees, thus keeping them locked in refugee camps and making them grow from 750,000 in 1950 when the agency began to about five million today.

The teaching is directed against Israel, the episodes that link the bodies to the proliferation of terror are many, and the air that they breathe in schools adorned with murals that depict portraits of “shahid” is unequivocal. The UNRWA is an organization that – as the Israeli Prime Minister said – should be dismantled, and Hamas shouldn’t dare, at the expense of children, to use it. On its side therefore it only finds those who support terrorism, but this historical moment is questioning its fate. It’s the entire camp of terror that is being shaken, and Hamas is trembling first.

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Translation by Amy K. Rosenthal

This article originally appeared in slightly different form in Italian in Il Giornale (June 14, 2017)