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Thursday, May 26, 2022

How Iran Had Influenced Hamas Terrorists and Ended a Palestinian State Proposition

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

 Ismail Haniyeh in middle, the prime minister of the Hamas administration in Gaza, and a senior Palestine Liberation Organization delegation dispatched by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Time goes by so fast.  It was 8 years ago on June 2, 2014, that Hamas  dissolved its government of the Gaza Strip so that it could form a unity government in the Palestinian Authority of Judea-Samaria (West Bank) after many months of reconciliation talks. The new group turned itself into a Hezbollah-style state.   

Hezbollah (Party of G0d)  are terrorists locate in southern Lebanon but establishe by Iran, a country whose aim is to destroy and take over Israel. 

 They shoot with rocket attacks, bombings, kidnappings, and suicide bombings.  

241 US Marines were killed by suicide bombers driving a truck and the bombing of US marine barracks in 1983 and embassy was in Beirut in 1983.  

They beheaded US CIA Chief William Buckley in 1985. 

In 1992 in Buenos Aires 29 were killed in bombing of Israeli Embassy. 

In 1994 they killed 96 by bombing Israeli cultural Center in Buenos Aires. 

Altogether, from 1990 to 1995, there were 813 Hezbollah terrorist attacks.  

3 Israeli border guards were kidnapped and murdered in 2000.  183 terrorist attacks happened from May 2000 to May 2004. 

Hamas initiated a war across internationally recognized border of Israel by kidnapping 2 Israeli soldiers and killing 8 and shelling northern Israeli towns in 2006.    

On August 6,2021, at least 20 rockets were launched towards the Shebaa Farms, a mountainside seized from Syria by Israel in 1967 but claimed by Beirut as Lebanese territory. Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the barrage, saying it was a response to Israeli airstrikes in south Lebanon a day earlier. Those airstrikes were part of a retaliation to the unclaimed firing of three rockets toward Israel on August 4.

By doing the unification with PA, Hamas tried to integrate into the general political system while retaining its own  independent, well-equipped armed forces and strove to maintain control of Gaza through its existing grip on local bureaucracy, its wide network of social institutions, and its 200,000 well-trained military cadres and security personnel.  The group recruited 50,000 employees in the public sector since its June 2007 military takeover of the territory. 

This finally gave the Palestinian Authority (PA) some presence in Gaza and lessened the harsh criticism from President Mahmoud Abbas to cautious cooperation with Hamas for a change.  

It all came about because of setbacks for Hamas of the loss of a friendly Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt, the end of weapons smuggling through the Sinai Peninsula, the end of financial subsidies from Iran and Qatar, and the growing resentment of Gaza Palestinians  to their rising unemployment, economic hardship and constant repression.          

By May, Hamas was forced to hold meetings with Iranian officials in Tehran and Hezbollah leaders in Beirut.  Hamas Reps were advised to adopt a better plan than just defending Gaza from Fatah but challenging them in its own West Bank territory instead.

Hezbollah had a plan they used in Lebanon of adding ballots to their bullets, and this was pushed as a model to be copied by Hamas.  Tehran praised the reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.

On April 26th, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman stated, "The Islamic Republic of Iran welcome solidarity among Palestinian groups against the Zionist regime as well as any kind of national reconciliation that results in Palestinian unity.  Iran had approved the deal in advance.                         

Hamas politicians have a military branch, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.  They were not to be disarmed or come under any PA supervision and would continue to grow as a powerful "resistance."  This also applied to its intelligence and security apparatus.

  They were copying Hezbollah armed forces which were far superior to the Lebanese army and various secret services.  Hamas intended to expand its independent military units, which were already larger and better equipped than the PA's national Security Forces.  

Gaza workshops continued to produce M-75 missiles which were capable of reaching Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, even though Abbas went along with demilitarizing their Palestinian state.  Hamas would not disband its intelligence organs, which allowed it to preserve control of Gaza just like Hezbollah forces controlled southern Beirut, southern Lebanon and the Beqa Valley.  

PA units were to be introduced into Gaza to man the border terminals with Egypt and Israel.  They would not be given anything to change the situation on the ground.  

Would the day ever come for Hamas to really implement the Hezbollah model?  They would have to integrate themselves into all the PA positions in order to take over some of them.  

Rami Hamdallah, (born August 10, 1958, ʿAnabtā, West Bank), Palestinian educator and university administrator who served as prime minister (2013; 2014–19) of the Palestinian Authority (PA). He resigned in January 2019 but remained in a caretaker position until March, when a replacement was appointed.

Surprisingly, Hamas did not get any ministers in the reshuffled semi-Technocratic cabinet of PA Prime Minster Rami Hamdallah.  

This is just what Israel did not need, that the Judea-Samarian West Bank changed to an even worse threat with the PA Authority now becoming a major threat to any prospect of resuming serious negotiations with Israel.  In one year, Hamas planned an intact military force and terrorist agenda in not only Gaza, but also would have a solid foothold in the Judea-Samaria and a say in-or veto power, over PA and PLO decisions.  Their hopes of having an armed-to -the-teeth political party overshadowed the former central government and they planned to take over many institutions. 

Western countries are always endorsing the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation to create a Palestine, no matter what conditions are facing Israel.  They seemed to be unaware that Hamas was reentering the "northern provinces" in Judea-Samaria, getting very close.  

On 12 June 2014, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped at the bus/hitchhiking stop at the Israeli settlement of Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion, a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains, directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in Judah (West Bank), as they were hitchhiking to their homes. The three teens were Naftali Frenkel (16, from Nof Ayalon), Gilad Shaer (16, from Talmon), and Eyal Yifrah (19, from Elad). They were murdered.  

 This attack had far-reaching implications for the next events.  It probably helped undermine Hamas's Hezbollah model and strengthened Fatah's hold on  Judea-Samaria with all that this implied for the prospects of any future Israel-Palestinian modus vivendi.  Israel cannot trust a Hamas-PA union government.  

"In July and December 2015, Abbas reshuffled the cabinet and appointed new ministers without consulting Hamas, which was denounced by Hamas. Although Hamas did not recognize the new ministers and rejected the changes, the reshuffling was called "technical and not political", and the new cabinet was presented as a slightly changed existing government, still called "consensus government". In October 2016, Hamas reshuffled its Vice-Ministers of the unity government, without Abbas's consent, thereby creating a de facto new Hamas government in the Gaza Strip."

       Palestinians protest in eastern Khan Younis town in the southern Gaza

                  ]Key Developments in 2021

  • Regionally sponsored talks aimed at bridging the divide between Hamas and Fatah broke down after the PA announced in April that Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for May and a presidential election scheduled for July would be indefinitely postponed.
  • PA president Mahmoud Abbas scheduled municipal elections for December, but they proceeded only in the West Bank, with Hamas boycotting the process and insisting on comprehensive legislative, presidential, and municipal elections.
  • In May, after protests over the threatened eviction of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem prompted Hamas to fire rockets into Israel.  On 11 May, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched hundreds of rockets at Ashdod and Ashkelon, killing two people and wounding more than 90 others. A third Israeli woman from Rishon LeZion was also killed, while two more civilians from Dahmash were killed by a rocket attack.   It seems as if Hamas deliberately targets Israel’s civilian population after dark, resulting in sleepless nights, adding a form of psychological terror to the rocket launches.
     Israeli forces launched a campaign of air strikes in the Gaza Strip. The offensive, which ended with a cease-fire after 11 days, killed about 250 Palestinians, including scores of civilians.
  • The population continued to suffer during the year from the Israeli-imposed blockade, conflict-related destruction, high levels of poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity, and the COVID-19 pandemic. As of the end of December 2021, the Gaza Strip had accumulated some 190,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and more than 1,700 deaths, with less than a third of the population fully vaccinated.  

  • The atmosphere in al-Mina, Gaza’s main port, is a good indicator of political tensions. Israel frequently restrains the zone to Gaza’s fishermen in retaliation to Hamas decisions or anti-occupation protests, and the danger of ammunition being brought in by sea to use against Israel.  It also is brought in via underground tunnels.   This instability affects the livelihoods of about 4,000 fishermen, their families, and thousands more people involved in the industry.

  • The PA has not held a presidential election since 2005, when the Fatah faction’s Mahmoud Abbas won with 62 percent of the vote. Following its win in 2006 legislative elections and a violent rift with Fatah and the Judea-Samaria–based PA in 2007, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. Abbas’s four-year electoral mandate expired in 2009, though he has continued to govern in Judea-Samaria.  
  •  PA municipal voting was held again in Judea-Samaria in December 2021, with a second round set for early 2022, but Hamas did not allow the elections to proceed in the Gaza Strip, insisting that it would participate only in comprehensive legislative, presidential, and municipal elections. 
  • Face it, these two groups, vying for power, will never unite and be equals.  A Palestine is not viable with them.  Their land is not unified, just like the fact that they are not unified.  They are at an impasse.  
  • They do not love or need the land like Israelis love Israel.  Israel is also made up of people on many levels of thinking but they all share one thing;  they are Jews, a very small group in this world, people that are only 0.02% of the world population.  That's 2/100s of a %.  That and the fact that their ancestors have been praying for 2,000 years, 3 times a day to return to their homeland which is Israel; made of 12 tribes in their designated places on the land.  They're different, with a religion no one else follows except small groups already living in other lands, like the USA and England.  Israel already has a population of 20% Arabs living in Israel.   

  • Whereas, Islam is the majority religion in 48 states/countries already, the 2nd largest religion in the world.  Palestinians could enter any of the 48 other than the European ones they have immigrated to already.  


Resource:

Magazine:  The Jerusalem Report, July 14, 2014, p. 8-9, The Hezbollah model

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rami-Hamdallah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Hamdallah_Government

https://freedomhouse.org/country/gaza-strip/freedom-world/2022

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/12/israeli-blockade-on-gaza-eases-but-residents-are-not-hopeful

https://freedomhouse.org/country/gaza-strip/freedom-world/2022

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel%E2%80%93Palestine_crisis#:~:text=On%2011%20May%2C%20Hamas%20and,killed%20by%20a%20rocket%20attack.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/05/20/tel-aviv-hamas-rockets/

Magazine: Israel101, produced by StandwithUs, p: 26 on Hezbollah

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/rockets-were-fired-from-lebanon-into-israel-again-another-game-of-brinkmanship/

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