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Israel Defense Forces fight Hamas terrorists in May 2024. (IDF photo)
[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]
By John Teichert
Real Clear Wire
The world continues to trace the sufferings of the Palestinian people in Gaza back to October 7th, 2023, blindly blaming Israel’s response to Hamas’s barbaric attack as the root cause of all subsequent suffering. Even setting aside the twisted perspective that views Israel’s challenging response as morally equivalent to Hamas’s ruthless and deliberate attacks on civilians, two timelines must be added to our consideration to fully contextualize Palestinian human suffering beyond the clock that started eight months ago. These milestones remind humanity of a long-term strategy of suffering and sacrifice that has been carefully crafted and finely calibrated by Hamas’s terrorist regime.
In January 2006, Hamas gained power by winning the elections in Gaza. In June 2007, these terrorists successfully purged their remaining competitors and removed all alternative governing options in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority and Fatah were not sufficiently radical for Hamas, who eliminated anything that would moderate their authoritarian influence.
Hamas has ruthlessly ruled Gaza for the last seventeen years, creating squalor for the Palestinian people through a plan of single-party rule that provides no redress, no options, and no franchise for the two million people who have suffered under their radical, fundamentalist control. Hamas’s priority has been to remain in power, recklessly seeking their genocidal aims against the Jewish state and eliminating those Palestinians who would challenge their authority. Thrusting “necessary sacrifices” on the Palestinian population has formed a core component of their strategy.
Eight months ago, Hamas raised its strategy of civilian sacrifice to a horrifying level. After a barbaric attack that required an Israeli response, Hamas sprinted back to their sanctuary and surrounded themselves with their already suffering citizens to amp up the human costs. Through Hamas’s deliberate activities that formed military headquarters in schools, established arms depots in hospitals, and magnified collateral damage through the military’s intentional integration into civilian neighborhoods, the Palestinian people faced an onslaught that they couldn’t avoid.
Meanwhile, Hamas’s leader Yehya Sinwar continues to viciously disregard the well-being of the Palestinian people who he has forced to helplessly aid in his cause. Any aid provided or left in place by Israel has been co-opted by Hamas forces for their own nefarious efforts, with the dismantling of the freshwater infrastructure to create rockets as a prime example. He and his Hamas leadership team even threaten Palestinians who seek to ease the costs of human suffering by providing aid to their fellow citizens, because such support undermines Hamas’s aims that are furthered by civilian sacrifice.
Three months ago, President Joe Biden provided mutual support to Hamas’s inhumane strategy. On the verge of worldwide hope for a pre-Ramadan ceasefire, Biden threatened Israel by establishing a redline. Subsequent peace talks were scuttled because the President of the United States had provided top cover to the terrorists while undermining Israel’s negotiating position. Meanwhile, Israeli, and American hostages languish while Palestinian civilians suffer.
Hamas has walked away from every ceasefire offered since then, approaching talks with obvious and reckless bad faith tactics. Their evilly devised plans for collateral damage prompt the world to blame Israel while bringing Hamas closer to its maximalist aims. The more Hamas prompts Palestinian suffering, the stronger their negotiating position becomes to achieve their long-term ends and further the next cycle of genocidal activities by using Gazans as their pawns. Tragically, this cycle of Palestinian suffering will never end until Hamas is eliminated as a ruling entity and as a fighting force.
When the Wall Street Journal published Sinwar’s comments about “necessary sacrifices” a few weeks ago, such sentiments should have come as no surprise to the observant who have followed the “no blood, no news” perspective of the Gazan terrorist regime. This strategy has been a major element of Hamas’s plan for the last eight months. Yet, more importantly, it has been a fundamental component of their ruthless strategy for the last seventeen years. Sadly, for the last three months, this strategy has been unwittingly supported by the United States. Meanwhile, Hamas continues to sacrifice civilians while the world blames Israel, whose suffering is only eclipsed by the Hamas-induced suffering of the Palestinian people themselves.
Brigadier General John Teichert (U.S. Air Force, ret.) is a prolific author and a leading expert on foreign affairs and military strategy. He led as the Commander of Joint Base Andrews and Edwards Air Force Base, served as the U.S. senior defense official to Iraq, and recently retired as the assistant deputy undersecretary of the Air Force, international affairs. General Teichert can be regularly seen on NewsNation, Fox News, and Newsmax. His activities can best be followed on johnteichert.com and LinkedIn.
This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
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