There is no better time for Hamas to do some soul searching than now, during Ramadan. The sanctity of the month never stopped Arabs and Muslims from planning heinous and violent acts. Recall that even the 1973 Yom Kippur took place during Ramadan. And so Hamas engineered its plans to fall during a time in which the fasting Muslims are driven by emotion and easily driven to incitement. A realistic examination of Hamas' achievements adds up to a terrible failure until now. Hamas' belly is also rumbling, not from the fast but from its financial outlets being shut down: no more bank transfers, no more money from the smuggling tunnels, and even the Palestinian Authority has refused to pay Hamas salaries. The flow of supplies and weapons via Hamas' tunnel network has also been stopped as a result of Egyptian military operations against Islamist terror groups in the Sinai Peninsula. The IDF's response to the murder of the three kidnapped teens two weeks ago and the rocket fire took a toll on Hamas' political and economic recovery efforts and its attempts to escape the clutches of the Israeli-Egyptian hold by forming a unity government with the Palestinian Authority. Hamas' failed efforts resulted in the arrest of Hamas operatives in the West Bank, including some of those released in the Gilad Schalit deal, the destruction of the group's infrastructure in Judea and Samaria, and the thwarting of a manipulative attempt by Hamas to form a unity government with the Palestinian Authority and get Mahmoud Abbas dismissed. Hamas, now in a hopeless situation, has decided to "burn it all down." It is left with undisciplined terrorist groups whose role is to carry out the traditional Palestinian firing of rockets, while Hamas expresses denial. The Palestinian leadership sanctions acts of terrorism and murder in all forms against us, and there are the Knesset members who see these acts as "legitimate resistance to the occupation," while Israel and its leaders condemn the horrific murder of the teen Muhammad Abu Khdeir. For us hate crimes are an extraordinary phenomenon seen by society as even more dangerous than Hamas. For them the murderers are depicted as heroes. The moral gap between the peoples cannot be bridged. The Islamist movement in Israel is Hamas' executive arm and is behind the recent riots. At a time when rockets are fired at Israel, and the West, embroiled in a fight against radical Islam, is supportive, this seems to be a good time to crush Hamas and its military and civilian infrastructure and inflict heavy casualties. This will restore deterrence for the future. During this Ramadan Israel needs to settle things with the Arab Knesset members and authority figures who in their extremist ways have offered justifications for fighting Israel. They implicitly stir unrest, and then falsely claim they cannot stop the rioters. This is a good time to settle things with the Bedouin rioters working on behalf of the Islamist movement. History should have already taught the Palestinians that we cannot be blackmailed and that putting us under threat in fact only puts them in danger. It turns out that the Arab rage over the murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir is nothing more than an attempt to strike Israel from within, as the clash with Hamas continues. The conflict shows once again that the Palestinians do not intend to be part of the peace process or share the land. To them the 1948 war was just a recess. We will remind them of that when we are done dealing with the rioters.
The Ramadan war
מערכת ישראל היום
מערכת "ישראל היום“ מפיקה ומעדכנת תכנים חדשותיים, מבזקים ופרשנויות לאורך כל שעות היממה. התוכן נערך בקפדנות, נבדק עובדתית ומוגש לציבור מתוך האמונה שהקוראים ראויים לעיתונות טובה יותר - אמינה, אובייקטיבית ועניינית.
