‘Past is Prologue’: Hamas Must Not Get Free Pass

Now the international pressure is on to let Hamas off the hook. It began even before the first temp ceasefire was announced. Some may say its just humanitarian while others call its appeasement, any way you term it is designed to guarantee a repeat performance of the Gaza War.

Israel calling it a day with Hamas would be its biggest mistake since pulling of Gaza in 2005 and 2nd only to the intelligence disaster that failed to prevent October 7th.

As usual what may be a political convenience for Israel’s allies, would be a disaster for Israel. Letting Hamas off the hook would guarantee a future attempted massacre and ensuing resumption of the war with a resupplied and remanned terrorist army.

With massive popular worldwide protests, largely organized by Iran and its proxies, over Israel’s destruction and death toll in Gaza, the obvious stands out. None of this death and destruction would have happened if there was peace between Arabs and Israelis. A peace that never had a chance to take root in Gaza after Israel figured the risk was too great and ordered 10,000 Jewish settlers out, leaving the enclave to the Palestinians.

That had to be the most ignorant and short-sighted action Israel had ever taken since 1948. Leaving Gaza was similar to a teacher leaving a classroom in the hands of hate-filled unruly students.

In this case, many new arrivals back then were pissed off warriors from the PLO’s defeat in Lebanon. They had enough of Yasser Arafat and signed-up with Hamas.

Remember, the Gaza Strip was part of the British Palestine Mandated territories. It was taken by Egypt in 1948 and then taken by Israel in 1967. As part of the 1979 peace deal with Egypt, Gaza would remain Israeli.

But, as much as Jewish people love beach front property, a lack of a peace treaty with the Palestinians made staying there a serious security problem. So, Israel and 10,000 settlers left Malibu East to the Palestinian Authority.

Ah, but the PA didn’t count on the surging Hamas militancy. After a five-day mini-war, Hamas booted the PA from the strip, something that could have been prevented had Israel militarily backed up the PA. But, it didn’t and is now paying for this arrogant stupidity.

In a 2006 election, the result was a victory for Hamas contesting under the list name of Change and Reform, which received 44.45% of the vote and won 74 of the 132 seats, whilst the ruling Fatah received 41.43% of the vote and won 45 seats.

More importantly, the Hamas win showed their supporters were behind a war of destruction against Israel. And that feeling, if anything has increased with 75 percent voicing support for the October 7th attack.

This then brings a two-state solution into focus. It’s likely such a state would be ruled by Hamas, dedicated the Israel’s destruction.

So, the prospect of calling off the war against Hamas is a non starter. Remember ‘the past is prologue.’ What might be more acceptable to Israel’s allies is waiting until all the hostages are returned and then resume the conflict at lower level of surface destruction, concentrating on the Hamas tunnel network and finally, legal action against Hamas leaders and allies in other countries such as the UK and US.