{"id":12375,"date":"2023-11-15T19:36:32","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T17:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=12375"},"modified":"2024-01-15T10:51:45","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T08:51:45","slug":"palestinians-can-stop-the-war-by-overthrowing-hamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/palestinians-can-stop-the-war-by-overthrowing-hamas\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinians can stop the war by overthrowing Hamas"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you wanted to build yourselves up rather than destroy us, you could have made Gaza the Mediterranean Riviera<\/span><\/h3>\n

Dear Palestinians,<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

In 2021, when the IDF bombed Gaza, responding to yet another\u00a0of your rocket barrages<\/a>, my son, who served nearby, reported: \u201cThe ground shook. I kept thinking what it must be like for the kids in Gaza….\u201d This sentiment didn\u2019t stop him from defending himself, his family, his country. Similarly, Israeli pilots have aborted numerous justified missions in Gaza to avoid killing civilians. So, let\u2019s be clear. We Israelis don\u2019t enjoy doing what your bloodbath forced us to do. We don\u2019t giddily share videos of dead or dismembered Palestinians. But we\u2019re not apologizing \u2013 and we\u2019re not stopping.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

If you haven\u2019t noticed, you\u2019re stuck. Gazans have nowhere to run. You see through\u00a0the Islamic-Arab summit<\/a>. No one in the Arab world wants you \u2013 especially Egypt. Nasrallah missed his chance to swarm Israel with you, so now Hezbollah\u2019s dithering. And we didn\u2019t fall into Hamas\u2019s trap, rushing wildly into war, blinded by your savagery. Our army is proceeding deliberately, carefully dismantling the dense military infrastructure you built since Israel withdrew from every inch of Gaza in 2005.<\/p>\n

The army has hit 15,000 targets, seized 6,000 weapons \u2013 and there are so many left. Fifteen-thousand targets. Too many Westerners believed your cries that you were still \u201coccupied,\u201d after we disengaged completely, and you were \u201cblockaded\u201d as you amassed materials to build your murder machine. But you overplayed your hand. Israel has zero tolerance for any more Qassams, murderers, rapists, marauders \u2013 and any more Gazan workers who raided \u2013 crossing our border. We cannot stop until we\u2019ve broken your killing machine \u2013 because you taught us on October 7 that we can never again tolerate the intolerable.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Yes, it\u2019s going to be ugly \u2013 even postwar. Actions have consequences. If you wanted to build yourselves up rather than destroy us, you could have made Gaza the Mediterranean Riviera. You blew your chance \u2013 repeatedly. You will now pay for helping Hamas map out bordering villages, for raiding and rejoicing and spreading those despicable videos. Most Israelis want a 1-kilometer buffer zone protecting every Israeli from any of you \u2013 taking land from you, seeding it with land mines, authorizing soldiers to kill anyone who steps on it. It\u2019s warfare 101 \u2013 you attack, you lose, you lose territory.<\/p>\n

Still, you have a choice. You can keep suffering, burying more relatives. Or you can stop the bombing immediately \u2013 altering the narrative. Show that despite collaborating with Hamas for years, eventually you stirred.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

In Gaza,\u00a0walk out of the hospitals<\/a>, your homes, where Hamas holds you as human shields. Tell Israeli forces where the hostages are, where military installations are, where the cowardly leaders cower. Some of you can seize some hostages \u2013 defying Hamas more directly. Initially, they\u2019ll shoot some of you \u2013 film them and persist. They\u2019re PR-conscious cowards. The more you rebel, the less they can control you, the fewer they will kill.<\/p>\n

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Palestinians around the world<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Meanwhile, Palestinians worldwide should rise up, too. Expose Hamas cells to the Israeli authorities \u2013 throughout the territories, in Israeli-Arab villages. They\u2019ve only harmed your people. And in Qatar, unleash your relatives on some Hamas politicos \u2013 these contemptible playboys playing with your lives. Give them the street justice they deserve. Show them you\u2019ve had enough.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Don\u2019t worry, you won\u2019t be betraying Hamas \u2013 they first betrayed you. You\u2019re not just their pawns \u2013 you\u2019re their cannon fodder. With your acquiescence, they robbed you of any shot of a good life, starving your kids, teaching them to hate, as they ruthlessly tunneled down, and scaled up weapons production. They stole hope from you when they seized power in 2007 and crushed anything positive in Gaza. And they manipulated you and the West. Hamas\u2019s Ali Baraka told Russia Today TV, \u201cWe made them think that Hamas was busy with governing Gaza, and that it wanted to focus on the 2.5 million Palestinians\u201d there.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

You\u2019re too smart to swallow the nonsense Islamist killers use to con progressive grievance-junkies. True, the longer this siege extends, the more UN resolutions you can add to your album of useless declarations that never helped you. And the protests will intensify. But, unlike those demonstrating dupes, you and we know you\u2019re not innocent. And we both know that the more vile and violent those demonstrations are, the more alarmed Americans and Europeans will become.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Many of their spoiled students may be too dumb to notice, but most Westerners are realizing the threat jihadists in their midst pose. October 7 has given everyone nightmares of being swarmed by your fellow fanatics in Paris, London, even New York. So please, keep it up \u2013 keep those masks on, advertising your thuggery, ruin Armistice Day commemorations, disrupt classrooms, replace the American flag with Palestinian flags. The backlash will come.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

True, you\u2019re addicted to paralysis and victimhood. You love absolving yourselves of any responsibility, pretending you\u2019re powerless to protect yourselves. Defying Hamas, informing on Hamas, could change history \u2013 and improve your lives.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

I write this, of course, not as a prediction. It\u2019s an invitation \u2013 and a warning: we know you could do more to resist. We hear your ongoing partnership with Hamas as more of your bloodthirsty, Jew-hating, cheers.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

On October 7 you left us Israelis \u2013 and any Westerner with a spine \u2013 no choice. We\u2019re no longer fooled and we\u2019re no longer fooling around. You target civilians \u2013 we still target terrorists. You call it disproportionate \u2013 we call it self-defense. You\u2019ll earn world sympathy as losers, yet again. But we will win, as usual.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

The writer is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, an American presidential historian, and, most recently, the editor of the three-volume set Theodor Herzl: Zionist Writings, the inaugural publication of The Library of the Jewish People.<\/em><\/p>\n

Published on Jerusalem Post<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/section>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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