When Israeli Prime Minister,
Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke with President Trump at the White House press
conference on February 15 he spoke about the inadmissibility of forcing Israel
to live alongside a terrorist state of Palestine as the result of a global
effort to establish a Palestinian state.
Ignored by people advocating a
two-state solution is the clear and present danger of Hamas in Gaza and the
West Bank and the terror face of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.
It is an inconvenient truth for
international diplomats pressuring Israel to withdraw from the West Bank that
Hamas has a growing presence there.
Evidence of that has been seen at
Bir Zeit University where Hamas-affiliated students overwhelmingly won the student
body election in February 2017.
Bir Zeit happens to be not in
Gaza but just eight kilometers north of the once stronghold of Fatah in
Ramallah where the Palestinian Authority holds tentative sway.
The Palestinian Authority is busy
arresting Hamas members and the Israeli
security forces are constantly intercepting Hamas terror cells and arresting
their budding terrorists in the West Bank.
A much discussed issue in Israeli national security and
strategic think tanks is what happens when, by the ballot or by the bullet,
Hamas usurps power in a future Palestinian state.
Israel demands that any
Palestinian state must be demilitarized. This request will be as futile as was
the Jewish state’s appeal that UN forces keep militant Hezbollah terrorists
from southern Lebanon following Israel’s withdrawal in 2000. Today, Hezbollah
has an estimated 120,000 missiles ready to launch at Israel stored in homes and
bunkers along Israel’s northern border. They have constructed a network of
interconnecting terror tunnels that make Hamas’s tunnel system in Gaza look
like a rabbit warren by comparison.
The same applied to the
unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Despite the destruction inflicted
on them in their 2014 war against Israel, Hamas has replenished much of their
armory and missiles, trained a new army of radical terrorists and are
feverishly constructing new stronger terror tunnels with cement provided to
them from Israel.
Now, Hamas has elected one of the
most extreme radical terrorists they can choose to lead them in Gaza and their
affiliates in the West Bank.
55 year old unrepentant terrorist,
Yahya Sinwar, served 22 years in an Israeli prison on serious terrorism
charges. He was released as part of a huge scale prisoner release by Israel for
the return of imprisoned Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who had been kidnapped
by Hamas terrorists.
Among Sinwar’s offences was the
killing of Palestinians who he called “collaborators.” He ordered the killing of a senior Hamas
commander without trial because he perceived him to be a potential rival and
traitor.
He comes to political power from
the military wing of Hamas. The Izz a-Din al-Kassam terror group is linked to
the extreme Islamic Salafist movement. He is close to Muhamad Deif, the chief of
Hamas operations in Gaza considered to be the Chief of Staff of the Hamas
terror army.
It is apparent that the radical
terrorist arm of Hamas now controls their political wing. Sinwar opposes any
compromise with Israel.
This arch-terrorist in Gaza is
matched by similar hard line Fatah candidates in Ramallah.
An unfortunate feature of the global pressure on Israel has
been the unwillingness to address the deep terror promoting agenda of leading
members of the Palestinian Authority.
One of the leading candidates to
replace Mahmoud Abbas as President of the Palestinian Authority is Jibril
Rajoub. He is the chairman of the
Palestinian Olympic Committee and the head of the Palestinian Football
Association.
These are not benign activities
for Rajoub. He exploits sport as a political football to try and expel Israel
from FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, by bringing allegations against
Israel to FIFA forums, as does the PA at
the UN. But behind his diplomatic posturing lies the real face of Rajoub who
promotes and glorifies terror through Palestinian sports competitions,
inculcating the youth to revere terrorist murderers as heroes to be emulated.
One example is Muhannad Halabi who
stabbed a father to death in Jerusalem in October 2015, stabbed the mother and
a two year old child and killed an Israeli man who tried to help the family
before he was shot and killed by an Israeli policeman.
One month after this attack
Jibril Rajoub, in his capacity as chairman of the Palestinian Olympic
Committee, named a table tennis tournament in honor of this terrorist murderer.
Rajoub has little wriggle room to escape his culpability in this crime. The
tournament was promoted under his patronage.
After Halabi’s murderous attack
against an Israeli family Rajoub appeared on official Palestinian TV
encouraging and glorifying his deadly act saying, “I say whoever carries out
acts of heroism we in the Fatah movement bless and encourage them. We consider
them heroes and a crown on the head of every Palestinian beginning with our brother,
Muhannad Halabi.”
Rajoub regularly uses his
official sporting titles to patronize sporting venues and events that honor
deadly Palestinian terrorists.
The warning of collaboration with
Hamas should Jibril Rajoub be elected as leader of the Palestinian Authority
has been clear in his many statements. Following the capture of Gilad Shalit by
Hamas, Rajoub said, “If Hamas wants to kidnap Israeli soldiers let them.
When they kidnapped Shalit we congratulated them.”
Regarding using his overarching
position in sport for normalization with Israel in advance of peace Rajoub said
live on official PA television, “Under no circumstances will there be
normalization. We will bring the Executive Committee in helicopters so they
will see no Jews, no Satan, no Zionist sons of bitches!”
This is the leading candidate to
head the Palestinian Authority and potentially a new State of Palestine.
Another popular candidate is Marwan
Barghouti who is serving five life sentences for murdering Israelis. While in
prison he has been calling for further terror attacks against the Jewish state.
Yet, he is considered a folk hero to Palestinians.
The two headed pincer movement of
a terror-loving Palestine will not become friendly nut crackers given
statehood. They will continue their
stated ambition to annihilate Israel in stages.
As for the current president,
Mahmoud Abbas in late 2015 when referring to Palestinian terror attacks against
Jews in Jerusalem said, in the most lethal Islamic terms, “We bless every
drop of blood that has been spilled in Jerusalem, blood spilled for Allah.
Every martyr will reach Paradise, and every wounded will be rewarded by
Allah.”
He stated that he would not allow
Jews to visit the Temple Mount by saying, “They have no right to defile it
with their filthy feet.”
This is the real face of the man
the world suggests is Israel’s moderate peace-partner.
Anyone who thinks that this type
of Palestine will bring peace and harmony is delusional.
This is
the new face of Hamas. This is the hidden face of the Palestinian Authority.
This is the future face of Palestine.
Anyone hiding these deadly truths
is being deliberately deceptive.
Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy
at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
He is the author of ‘Fighting Hams, BDS and
Anti-Semitism’ and the new best-selling book ‘1917 From Palestine to the
Land of Israel.’
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