Hamas’s greatest strategic asset is that large segments of the press,
political class, NGO community as well as the UN will effectively side with
them. That makes the next war all the more likely, and encourages more
Hamas-inspired carnage
Trevor Norwitz 17 August 2014
Ban Ki Moon is right to say that, “children killed in
their sleep . . “. is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame.”
No-one can be unmoved by the pictures out of Gaza: the loss of life, the
carnage, the anguish and fear in the faces of women and children.
It is heart breaking. But he is wrong to blame Israel,
especially in such injudicious terms. He, and many others in positions of power
and influence, do a terrible disservice to humanity, to the cause of international
peace and security, and to the Palestinian people (not to mention the Israeli
people), by not stating unequivocally what they know to be the truth: that
overwhelming responsibility for the mayhem in Gaza rests with Hamas (a part of
the Palestinian national unity government).
Yes, alongside their broadsides at Israel, these leaders
also sometimes note that Hamas commits war crimes and angrily “denounce” that
behavior. But angrily denouncing Hamas is as useless as angrily denouncing
cancer, if you are not also willing to apply the treatment that is necessary,
and to address the environmental factors that feed it and encourage its growth.
Hamas’ role in Gaza’s suffering is manifest. They started
this war, and prolonged it by refusing to agree to and then cynically violating
cease-fires. This is a war Hamas wanted, planned and prepared for meticulously
for years, diverting much of the productive capacity of Gaza towards building
their sophisticated network of tunnels to kidnap and kill Israelis, and stockpiling
tens of thousands of rockets to terrorize Israeli population centers.
All but the willfully blind know they use human shields,
hide rockets in, and launch them near, schools, mosques, UN facilities and
other civilian buildings, turn hospitals into command centers, and booby-trap
homes and refugee centers.
Their lawlessness is simply a given. World leaders like
Ban Ki Moon, Laurent Fabius and John Kerry rebuke them but expect nothing of
them, placing all responsibility for avoiding civilian casualties – the very
casualties Hamas aims to maximize – on Israel, as it battles to defend its
citizens from aerial and subterranean terror attacks.
There is no point in just denouncing Hamas. It is a
terrorist organization which exists for an evil purpose – to eliminate a nation
and exterminate a people – and openly embraces cruel and illegal tactics. Its
members are not swayed by criticism. They do not respect life, human rights or
the concept of truth. Just as one cannot reason or negotiate with cancer, one has
to treat a terrorist threat directly and aggressively and eliminate or reduce
the conditions that stimulate its growth.
So what are the conditions that feed and encourage Hamas
and its ilk? Having an ally like Iran to provide a steady flow of rockets
and other weapons is necessary but not sufficient.
Their greatest strategic asset is the knowledge that,
however outrageous their behavior, large segments of the press and political
class (especially in Europe), and the “human rights” and international communities
led by the United Nations will effectively side with them, directing their
wrath primarily at Israel, and protecting them from total defeat, so that they
can proclaim victory from the ruin and devastation they authored.
Hamas knows that, despite the consistent evidence of
their mendacity, their fabrications will be widely disseminated as facts by
news and human rights groups. These lies inflict enormous damage on Israel even
when the truth later emerges. Any honest observer appreciates that the Israel
Defense Forces exert greater efforts to minimize civilian casualties than any
army in history, and actually have a civilian-to-fighter casualty ratio that is
relatively low for modern warfare (despite the fact that Hamas designs its
chosen battlefield specifically to maximize civilian damage).
But Hamas knows that the press will gleefully play the
body-count game, as though its infographics speak to causation or moral
culpability. They also know that every conflagration they provoke causes the
world’s oldest hatred to bubble up again, more virulently each time.
When Kenneth Roth, head of Human Rights Watch (HRW),
arguably the world’s most powerful human rights organization, tweets that,
“Tunnels used to attack or capture soldiers isn't [a human rights violation],”
Hamas is encouraged to dig more tunnels.
When MP David Ward says that he would fire a rocket if he
lived in Gaza, Hamas is urged to fire more rockets.When Business Secretary
Vince Cable decides to suspend UK arms export licences to Israel when Hamas
violates cease-fires and Israel retaliates, Hamas is incentivized to violate
cease-fires.
When Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East and North
Africa director declares it, “abhorrent that Israeli forces are . .blatantly
violating the laws of war" (based solely on interviews with Gaza
residents), when the United Nations Human Rights Commission orders yet another
lopsided anti-Israel “fact-finding” mission, and its High Commissioner Navi
Pillay offers platitudes of moral equivalence accusing “both sides” of
“indiscriminate killing of civilians,” when empty-headed celebrities blabber
incoherently about Israeli “massacres” and “genocide,” then Hamas knows that
its diabolical tactics are working.
The blood of those Palestinian children (and Israel’s
children) is on the hands of those who irresponsibly, even if unwittingly, give
Hamas such support, hope and inspiration.
Israel must, and surely will, investigate those tragic
incidents where civilians were killed, and take appropriate action to ensure
that its rules of engagement are legal, moral, and complied with.
Hamas will do nothing in respect of its myriad flagrant
war crimes, except plan to repeat them. If only the international
community held Hamas and its brethren accountable for their heinous crimes,
this ongoing nightmare for Gaza could be stopped, but sadly it will not.
This war in Gaza was inevitable, just like the coming one
in Lebanon, which will take place when the terrorists of Hezbollah – or their
Iranian puppet-masters – find it opportune to unleash their rocket stockpile at
Israeli cities again.
(Since Israel is not able to limit the flow of weapons to
them – the only reason for the much maligned blockade of Gaza – Hezbollah’s
arsenal is presumably far more potent than that of Hamas.)
In both cases that inevitability is the result of the
abject failure of the international community – principally the United Nations
and its affiliated organs – to live up to their obligations.
Not only did they prevent Israel from completing the jobs
they all knew had to be done, not only did they fail to disarm Hezbollah, not
only did they refuse to hold Hamas and Hezbollah accountable for the carnage
they caused their respective civilian populations last time, but they and the
press and “human rights” community have affirmatively encouraged those
terrorist organizations by their consistent excoriation of Israel.They are
repeating their past mistakes, making the next Gaza nightmare inevitable as
well.
Secretary General Moon was quite right to say “the world
stands disgraced.” But by not accurately pointing to the source of that
disgrace, he is only adding to it.
Trevor
Norwitz is a lawyer in New York, teaches at Columbia Law School, and is a board
member of Advancing Human Rights
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