Can You Imagine? Gaza is Broke But Still Preparing for War

...As broke and as isolated as they may be, Hamas still thinks it won the war for international public opinion because so many Palestinians died or were made homeless by Israeli efforts to stop the firing of thousands of rockets on its cities and towns. Moreover, the message they have gotten since last summer from the United States is that the Obama administration is doing its best to put daylight between Washington and Jerusalem. That’s a standing invitation for Israel’s foes to attack because they assume the Israelis will be left to face them alone.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
02 June '15..

If you believe the reporting of the New York Times, some people in Gaza are fed up with what passes for a government in the strip. The decision of the Hamas terrorists who run Gaza as an independent Palestinian state in all but name to impose new taxes on their beleaguered subjects was not received with much pleasure. It turns out the levies are required for the Islamist group to pay their 40,000 employees. Though food, medicine and other supplies are shipped into Gaza every day by Israel, a fact that debunks claims of a humanitarian crisis, there’s no question that times are hard for the people who live there. But the cash shortage in Gaza hasn’t changed Hamas’s priorities. One of their main complaints is that a shortage of construction materials caused by Israel has made reconstruction of homes destroyed in last summer’s war impossible. But that hasn’t stopped Hamas from building a new road near the border with Israel in order to facilitate future terror attacks.

The construction is going on directly across the border from Nahal Oz, the Israeli kibbutz that was the target of Hamas terror tunnels during last summer’s war. While there have been steady reports of Iran helping to fund Hamas efforts to rebuild both the tunnels and the Islamists’ fortified strongholds inside the strip, a Hamas official actually said over the weekend that the purpose of the work being done on the Palestinian side of the border was “to create for ourselves convenient opportunities to attack the Zionist enemy.”


Hamas lost its main source of income when Egypt shut down the smuggling tunnels through which it brought in construction materials, luxury items as well as arms and cash to operate. Moreover, much of the money that comes into the strip is from the Palestinian Authority that governs the West Bank but which also pays 70,000 no show employees in Gaza. The inability to square that expenditure with the funds used for Hamas’ largely duplicate force of civil servants was one of the sticking points in the implementation of last year’s Fatah–Hamas unity agreement.

But the juxtaposition of the heartrending Times story about shortages in Gaza with other reports detailing Hamas’s preparations for another terror war should alarm those who purport to care about the plight of the people of the strip. With discontent rising against their rule (in contrast to their popularity in the West Bank, whose people suffer under a different group of tyrants but which didn’t pay the cost of last summer’s pointless fighting), the possibility of another outbreak this summer must be consider possible if not probable. Focusing Palestinians on hatred of Israel is a convenient way of distracting them from the corruption and misplaced priorities of an Islamist ruling group that is willing to fight to the last civilian in order to continue its war on Zionism.

As broke and as isolated as they may be, Hamas still thinks it won the war for international public opinion because so many Palestinians died or were made homeless by Israeli efforts to stop the firing of thousands of rockets on its cities and towns. Moreover, the message they have gotten since last summer from the United States is that the Obama administration is doing its best to put daylight between Washington and Jerusalem. That’s a standing invitation for Israel’s foes to attack because they assume the Israelis will be left to face them alone.

It is imperative for the Obama administration to speak clearly now that if, motivated by the need to distract their subjects and subsidized by Iran as well the fact that they are beset by inroads recently made by ISIS in Gaza, Hamas feels like having another go at the Israelis, the United States won’t shut down the resupply of arms and ammunition as it did during last summer’s war. Just as important, the U.S. and all those who claim to worry about the situation in Gaza must denounce the use of aid materials for war preparations. Though the plight of Gaza is a rallying cry for Israel’s critics, the reality of life there illustrates the toxic nature of a Palestinian political culture that prizes hostility to the Jews over bettering the lives of Arabs. Gaza’s friends should demand an end to the rule of Hamas. Until that happens, there’s not much hope for the hapless people who must live under their rule, and another Gaza Strip war looms large.

Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/06/02/hamas-gaza-strip-preparing-new-war-with-israel/

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