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Post by the Scribe on Oct 10, 2023 16:30:40 GMT
"A people that elect corrupt politicians, impostors, thieves and traitors (or terrorists) are not victims, but accomplices." - George OrwellHow the Palestinians Created Their Own Plight
freebeacon.com/national-security/how-palestinians-created-own-plight/
Essay: Israel is not the one denying the Palestinians an independent state
Mahmoud AbbasMahmoud Abbas / Getty Images
Aaron Kliegman
April 27, 2019
It is easy to forget that, in 1947, when the United Nations recommended the creation of a Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine, the international body also recommended the creation of an Arab state—what would today be a national home for the Palestinians. The idea was to partition the land into two separate entities—in other words, a two-state solution. Indeed, in 1988, the Palestine National Council described palestineun.org/about-palestine/ the partition resolution as what "still provides those conditions of international legitimacy that ensure the right of the Palestinian Arab people to sovereignty." Yet at the time of the resolution, the Arabs—no one used the term "Palestinians" then—boycotted the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine, which the General Assembly empowered to make recommendations about the future government of the territory, rejecting both the partition and a single, binational state. Then the Arabs completely, and unambiguously, rejected the General Assembly's partition plan, believing that, once the British left Mandatory Palestine, they would defeat the Jews and control the entire area. Of course the Arabs failed, despite the help of several armies. The Jewish state of Israel, established in 1948, endured, and the Palestinian Arabs, who could have had their own state, remained stateless.
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Since then, the Palestinians have repeatedly turned down offers of statehood. First, they did not seek the West Bank when Jordan controlled it from 1949 to 1967. Only when the land was back in Israeli control following the Six-Day War did the Palestinians again call it disputed. Twelve years later, Israel worked to offer the Palestinians autonomy, which would have been a major step toward full independence, to no avail. Then in 2000 and 2008, Israel offered the Palestinians control of virtually all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with a capital in East Jerusalem. Each time the Palestinians rejected the offer, even waging a violent uprising against the Israelis following the failure in 2000. One would be hard-pressed to find another national independence movement, beyond the Palestinian one, that has turned down formal offers of statehood in the territory they claim. Indeed, the Palestinians have, time and again, set new standards for stubbornness.
And yet, despite this history, most of the world seems to blame Israel for the Palestinians' situation. Just look at the recent wave of articles and comments assailing the Jewish state that followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election victory earlier this month. Naturally, the New York Times led the charge, "reporting" that, with Netanyahu's reelection, Palestinian families see "no light at the end of the tunnel." In a front-page feature, the Times discusses how the Palestinians are despairing about the stalemate in the peace process. Importantly, the article notes that many Palestinians see the Palestinian Authority, or P.A., for the corrupt, ineffective regime that it is, and that at least some want to make peace with Israel. But look at how the Times portrays the general state of the peace process:
www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/world/middleeast/israel-west-bank-palestinians.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur
Palestinians have wanted to shake free of Israeli domination since the West Bank was first occupied in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. For more than a quarter-century they have waited for the United States-led peace process to deliver them a state of their own.
That is fair enough, but what is the very next paragraph?
But on the eve of Israel's April 9 elections, Mr. Netanyahu said he planned to begin applying Israeli sovereignty over West Bank land, which the Palestinians have long counted on for an eventual state. For many of them, his victory has pushed a two-state solution far beyond the already distant horizon, where it existed in the minds of Palestinian politicians.
So the Palestinians had some hope, according to the Times, until Netanyahu's victory less than three weeks ago. And now the peace process, which of course had been making such public progress over the last 10 years, is finally dead. This narrative is at best delusional, and at worst intentionally misleading. It omits the fact that, for decades, the Palestinians have repeatedly refused to compromise on any agreement that would acknowledge the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, even if that agreement would also create an independent Palestinian state alongside it. Time after time, the Palestinians have shown that thwarting Israel is more important than realizing their own goals. Until the Palestinians care more about their own happiness than denying Israelis theirs, there will never be peace.
David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, contributed his own anti-Israel screed to the pile. Remnick writes that, through political cunning and ideological mettle, Netanyahu has "put an end to the two-state expectations raised by the Oslo peace accords." Furthermore, the Israeli premier has "not only extinguished any pretense of coming to a settlement with the Palestinians, he now entertains the idea of annexing the Jewish settlements on the West Bank … The political discussion in Jerusalem was once about trading land for peace; Netanyahu might now seek to trade the rule of law for annexation." Remnick also wrongly describes the peace process as making progress until Netanyahu destroyed the whole project in recent weeks. Again, the clear suggestion here is that Israel is solely, and to its shame, responsible for the Palestinians' current plight. This is just not true.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/22/the-trump-netanyahu-alliance
A discussion of animosity toward Israel would not be complete without mentioning the progressive wing of American politics. Enter Sen. Bernie Sanders, who this week called Netanyahu's government racist. "As a young man I spent a number of months in Israel, [and] worked on a kibbutz for a while. I have family in Israel. I am not anti-Israel," Sanders said at a CNN town hall event. "But the fact of the matter is that Netanyahu is a right-wing politician who I think is treating the Palestinian people extremely unfairly." Sanders defined himself as "100 percent pro-Israel" and said the Jewish state "has every right in the world to exist, and to exist in peace and security and not be subjected to terrorist attacks" before dropping the r-bomb. "The goal is to try to unite people and not just support one country, which is now run by a right-wing, dare I say, racist government," he said. Sanders's comments came two weeks after another Democratic presidential candidate, Beto O'Rourke, similarly called Netanyahu a "racist."
www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Bernie-Sanders-calls-Netanyahu-government-racist-587653
To Sanders and O'Rourke, Israel's leader is mainly a racist for how he treats the Palestinians. The clear implication is that Israel is at fault for the Palestinians having poor standards of living and no state—never mind the fact that the Palestinian Authority has effective independence to govern in the West Bank, and that Hamas, a terrorist organization, has total control over the Gaza Strip. If Sanders and O'Rourke really wanted to help the Palestinian people, they would point their fingers at the Palestinian leadership, not Israel.
Too many influential voices in the West, especially but not exclusively on the political left, spend their time absolving the Palestinians of any wrongdoing and paint Israel as some demonic entity. In so doing, while portraying Palestinians as helpless victims, they deny the Palestinians agency, or the ability as human beings, with free will and the capacity to reason, to make their own decisions. The Palestinians are incapable of driving events, according to this anti-Israel (and really anti-Palestinian) narrative, for all responsibility lies with the Jews.
This view is wrong for biological reasons—Palestinians are in fact sentient beings who can think for themselves—but also for historical ones. Palestinians have made deliberate decisions that left them stateless. Just look at what Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator, recently told P.A. TV. Erekat explained that, in 2008, Israel offered the Palestinians even more territory than the full area of the West Bank and Gaza, agreed to take 150,000 Palestinian refugees, and proposed for Jerusalem that "what's Arab is Arab, and what's Jewish is Jewish"—in other words, the best deal realistically possible for the Palestinians. And yet, P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas, who serves in the same role today, rejected the offer. So do not expect the Palestinians to accept a deal—any deal—now. Until the Palestinians accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state on what they deem Muslim, Palestinian land, and until the Palestinians realize they cannot destroy Israel and control all of its territory, they will never get a state.
The Palestinians could learn a lesson from the Jewish Zionists who created Israel. In seeking a state in Palestine, the Zionists used shrewd diplomacy and went about painstaking work over decades to reach their goal. They were visionaries grounded in hard-nosed realism who not only made moral, emotional, and historical arguments for their case, but also appealed to the brain, showing those leaders with the power to help them why supporting the Zionist cause was in their interests. Take the Soviet Union, which, contrary to popular belief, was as important as the United States in passing the partition resolution. Zionist diplomats, such as Eliahu Sasson, observed that the Soviets sought to counter the British in the Middle East, and therefore could view the establishment of a Jewish state as a means by which to eject Britain from the region. Moreover, as Martin Kramer notes, Zionist leaders, recognizing the importance of Soviet support for their cause, labored extensively to convince Moscow that, despite not being communist, they were kindred spirits that valued progressivism and collectivism.
mosaicmagazine.com/essay/israel-zionism/2017/11/who-saved-israel-in-1947/
And then, when the United Nations proposed its plan, thus endorsing the Zionist goal, the Jews took what they could get. Sure, the proposal gave them less land than they wanted—much of which was desert—and Jerusalem was to be an international zone surrounded by Arab territory. But national independence movements do not reject offers of statehood—except the Palestinians.
The point is that the Zionists did not have maximalist goals and were very practical. Moreover, they adapted to changing circumstances and deftly navigated the waters of high diplomacy with the world's great powers. Simply put, the Zionists put in the legitimate work to make their dream become reality. The Palestinians have not, seeking grand declarations of statehood at the U.N. without the prerequisite efforts to give them true legitimacy, which include negotiating with the Israelis. Meanwhile, the Palestinians, unlike the Zionists, make only crude, emotional pitches for statehood, motivated at their core by hate rather than aspiration. They do not show foreign leaders why a Palestinian state would help them, or the world more broadly. Even the Jews, who have much stronger legal, historical, and religious ties to the land of Israel, did not focus on the treatment they received during 2,000 years of exile while pushing for a Jewish state in the 1930s and 1940s. And then of course there is the Palestinian corruption, incitement, and terrorism, none of which makes for a promising state. If the Zionist approach to achieving statehood was a graceful ballet, the Palestinian one is a bomb hidden inside a teddy bear: a brute approach masquerading as a heartfelt plea for justice.
The Palestinians could take a few notes. So too could the media and anti-Israel politicians, who only perpetuate the conflict by giving the Palestinians a pass on accepting responsibility for their own stateless plight.
Published under: Israel , Palestinian Authority , United Nations
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 10, 2023 16:34:09 GMT
A Short History of Palestinian Rejectionism
By Dr. Edy Cohen
February 16, 2020
besacenter.org/palestinian-rejectionism/
The Mufti of Jerusalem, Yasser Arafat, Saeb Erekat, Mahmoud Abbas, images via Wikimedia Commons
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,449, February 16, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The consistent and enduring Palestinian rejection of any and all peace initiatives with Israel, most recently the “Deal of the Century,” calls into question the commitment of the Palestinian leadership not only to peace but to the very welfare and safety of the Palestinian people.
Taking into account all the peace initiatives proposed to end the conflict between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs over the last 83 years, we must consider the possibility that the Palestinians—or at least their leaders—do not want to establish their own state.
Their sight is currently set on the big prize—the entire state of Israel—and they are playing for time. In the meantime, they plan to continue to subsist on monies donated by the Arabs and the Europeans. Many of the Arab states have grown disenchanted with this enterprise, and their assistance, particularly from the Saudis, has been discontinued in recent years.
President Trump has also reduced the flow of US support. Only the Europeans remain committed to the implacable Palestinian narrative.
A survey of Palestinian rejectionism
The Jerusalem Mufti Hajj Amin Husseini, the leader of the Palestinian Arabs from the early 1920s to the late 1940s, said in his testimony to the British Peel Commission, established in January 1937 to find a way forward for cooperation between Arabs and Jews in Palestine, “Most residents of Jewish lands will not be awarded citizenship in our future country.” The Mufti suggested that the Jews be deported from Palestine. Rejecting the idea of a Jewish state, he promised that if such a state were established, every last Jew would be expelled from a Palestinian Arab state.
The UN partition plan
In November 1947, the same Mufti refused to adopt the UN partition plan that offered to establish two states, one Jewish, the other Arab. The Mufti rejected a two-state solution until the day he died, a choice ordinary Palestinians may well regret. Had he agreed to the UN plan, they would have gained a much larger area than what is on offer today.
Yasser Arafat
The successor to the Mufti, Yasser Arafat, continued to reject any legitimacy for the State of Israel, refusing even to acknowledge its existence. For many years, he raised the PLO banner of a military and terrorist struggle against Israel. In addition to masterminding decades of bloody terror in the streets of Israel, Arafat was responsible for devastation across the Middle East, including a civil war in Lebanon (1975-1991) and Jordan’s Black September (1970). He also threw the PLO’s support behind Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991.
When Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, Arafat’s PLO called for Egypt to be boycotted. The Arab states adopted that boycott and prevented Cairo from participating in the Arab League from 1977 until 1989. Most Arab ambassadors in Egypt were recalled and Arabs visiting Egypt were considered either traitors or spies.
The Oslo “Peace Process”
The Palestinians responded to Israel’s attempts to implement the Oslo Accords by sending waves of suicide bombers to the streets and buses of the cities of Israel, a blatant violation of their commitment to the agreements and a clear statement of their rejection of the idea of peace with Israel. At the July 2000 at Camp David summit, Israel PM Ehud Barak offered Arafat a series of far-reaching concessions as part of a comprehensive peace arrangement. In return, Arafat was asked to end the conflict. The PLO summarily rejected the Israeli proposals and never offered a counterproposal. Instead, the PLO-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) initiated a massive premeditated wave of violence. Arafat’s war of terror (the so called “al-Aqsa Intifada”) was unparalleled in the scale and relentlessness of its terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. A total of 1,184 Israelis were murdered.
Disengagement
In August 2005, the government of Israel, headed by PM Ariel Sharon, carried out the unilateral evacuation of all Israeli villages from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank. In response, the Palestinians have been launching missiles and rockets on Israeli towns and villages from the Gaza Strip for years, some of which reaching as far as Tel Aviv.
Instead of using the enormous Israeli concession as an opportunity to achieve peace, the Palestinians used it to empower Iranian-backed terrorist organizations. In June 2007, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in a violent coup. Ever since the Hamas takeover, the villages of southern Israel have been subjected to a more-or-less nonstop downpour of rockets and missiles fired from Gaza. The number of rockets/missiles and mortar shells fired into Israel from Gaza since 2007 is in the tens of thousands.
Mahmoud Abbas
In 2008, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert offered Arafat’s successor as PLO Chairman and PA president Mahmoud Abbas a sweeping peace proposal. Abbas rejected it outright. He claimed that “the gaps are too wide,” meaning there was too great a distance between what the Palestinians demanded and what the Israelis were offering. “I will wait until all the Israeli settlements have been frozen,” he said.
According to Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinians, “We are not in a market or a bazaar. I came here to determine the boundaries of Palestine from 1967 without budging an inch, without removing one stone from Jerusalem or any of the holy places to Islam or Christianity in Jerusalem.” The Palestinians refused Olmert’s offer because they found his unprecedented territorial concessions insufficient and because they insisted on the right to manage the holy sites in Jerusalem in place of the Jordanians.
Deal of the Century
The Palestinian leadership rejected the current US proposal a year ago, before they had seen it. They also refused to participate in the economic conference held in Bahrain at the end of June 2019 and prevented other Palestinians from participating.
As soon as the plan was published, it was a given that Abbas would oppose it strongly. “We say a thousand times no, no, no to the Deal of the Century,” he said. “We refused this deal from the beginning and we were right. Two days ago, they said to listen. Listen to what? Shall we get a country without Jerusalem for every Palestinian, Muslim, or Christian child?” he asked.
Mahmoud Abbas is now calling the deal a conspiracy that “will never pass… Our strategy focuses on the struggle to end the occupation. The plans to eliminate the Palestinian agenda will fail and fall away.”
As has been said many times, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Their leadership claims that every suggestion is a conspiracy and every initiative a trap. Making peace takes courage. Will a Palestinian Sadat ever arrive?
View PDF
This is an edited version of an article that appeared in Israel Today on February 2, 2020.
Dr. Edy Cohen is a researcher at the BESA Center and author of the book The Holocaust in the Eyes of Mahmoud Abbas (Hebrew).
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 10, 2023 17:09:46 GMT
Never-before-seen Photos of Palestinian Mufti With Hitler Ties Visiting Nazi Germany
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2017-06-15/ty-article-magazine/revealed-photos-of-palestinian-mufti-visiting-nazi-germany/0000017f-ef6e-d0f7-a9ff-efefa25a0000
The six pictures of Haj Amin al-Husseini visiting Nazi Germany are opening on the auction block at $10,000
Jun 15, 2017
A new catalog published by the Kedem Auction House contains a valuable historical item: six previously unknown photographs from a visit by the mufti of Jerusalem to Nazi Germany.
'The Kedem photos are apparently unknown even to historians and researchers of the Nazi period.'
Himmler Wished Mufti Success in Fight Against 'Jewish Invaders'
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2017-03-30/ty-article-magazine/himmler-wished-mufti-success-in-fight-against-jewish-invaders/0000017f-e47f-d75c-a7ff-fcff65360000
Who Exactly Was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem?
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2015-10-22/ty-article/who-exactly-was-the-grand-mufti-of-jerusalem/0000017f-dc83-db5a-a57f-dcebf3770000
Netanyahu Clarifies: Nazis, Not Mufti, Decided on Final Solution
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2015-10-30/ty-article/netanyahu-clarifies-nazis-not-mufti-decided-on-final-solution/0000017f-e86c-dc7e-adff-f8ed337b0000
Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini’s connection to Nazi Germany has made headlines several times in recent years thanks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who used him as an example of Palestinian attitudes toward Israel to bolster his claim that Israel has no Palestinian partner.
Granted, Netanyahu exaggerated when he claimed in 2015 that Husseini had persuaded Hitler to launch the Final Solution, but the storm that erupted over that statement did raise awareness of Husseini’s Nazi ties.
Two months ago, the National Library of Israel made its own contribution to raising awareness of this story when it published a telegram to Husseini from Heinrich Himmler in which the SS chief wished him success in his battle against “the Jewish invaders.”
The six photos that Kedem is now offering for sale show Husseini “during a tour apparently held at a camp” in Nazi Germany circa 1943, the auction house’s website says. The photos, three of which are on the site, show Husseini with several senior Nazi officials in uniform as well as government staffers in civilian dress.
Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, in Nazi Germany ,1943.Credit: Kedem Auction House
Meron Eren, Kedem’s co-owner, said the photos were purchased from a document dealer in Germany “by someone who understood the importance of what he saw in the pictures,” and the anonymous buyer is now offering them for sale. The opening bid is set at $10,000, but Kedem predicts that the photos could ultimately fetch up to $30,000.
Though other photos of the mufti in Germany, including pictures of him with Hitler and Himmler, are readily available via a Google search, the Kedem photos are apparently unknown even to historians and researchers of the Nazi period.
All six photos have a label on the back saying “Photo-Gerhards Trebbin,” indicating that they were developed in the German city of Trebbin.
No other details about the photos are available, but Kedem’s catalog speculates that the other people shown in them include Mile Budak, a Croatian politician from the Ustase party who was Croatia’s envoy to Germany from 1941 to 1943, Iraqi politician Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, and Austrian politician Arthur Seyss-Inquart, famous for his role as Reichskommissar in the occupied Netherlands.
Also on that list is Fritz Grobba, who was Germany’s ambassador to Iraq and later headed the German Foreign Ministry’s Middle East desk. Grobba had close ties with both Husseini and Gaylani.
Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in Nazi Germany ,1943. Credit: Kedem Auction House
Husseini, born in 1895, fled British Mandatory Palestine in 1937. After some time in Lebanon and Iraq, he went to fascist Italy and from there to Nazi Germany.
There, he was in contact with Foreign Ministry officials and senior SS and Gestapo officers and even met with Hitler more than once, the first time in 1941. But he never realized his goal of obtaining a German-Italian declaration recognizing the independence of Arab states and their right to work to prevent the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in the Holy Land.
It’s worth recalling that other Muslim clerics at that time acted very differently toward the Nazis. Imam Si Kaddour Benghabrit, for example, saved the lives of Jews by hiding them in his Paris mosque. His story was even made into a movie.
The old-new pictures of Husseini in Nazi Germany highlight the importance of public auction houses as a source of historical knowledge. Sometimes, a perusal of an auction house’s catalog isn’t a bad substitute for a history lesson.
Haj Amin al-Husseini and Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, 1941Credit: German Federal Archives / Wikimedia Commons
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 10, 2023 18:10:26 GMT
Why Did The Palestinians Run Away in 1948?
historynewsnetwork.org/article/782
History Q & A
by Yoav Gelber
Mr. Gelber is a professor in the Department of Land of Israel Studies at the University of Haifa. He also serves as the chairman of the university's School of History.The Nakba did not start or end in 1948
www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/5/23/the-nakba-did-not-start-or-end-in-1948
Key facts and figures on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.keep in mind there were almost a million Jews displaced or removed from their homes in Arab countries as well
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 12, 2023 3:15:09 GMT
This is one of the best explanations of Hamas and the Palestinian relationship I have heard. Don't listen to the nonsense from conservative media, especially the self serving talk show host...radio or tv. They will try to spin things around to blame the left, blame Biden, etc. i.e. same old crap and fear mongering and then invoking God to rationalize their views and gain religious listener support and $$$$.
Keep in mind most terrorists around the world and domestic just happen to be conservatives in their own sphere of influence. Everything is relative and they all seem to be related in one way or another.
www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/us/domestic-terrorist-groups.html
www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/survey-2023-terrorism-threat-landscape
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism
  How was Hamas able to launch such a devastating attack on Israel?
www.npr.org/2023/10/11/1205099876/how-was-hamas-able-to-launch-such-a-devastating-attack-on-israel
October 11, 20231:32 PM ET
Heard on Fresh Air
Fresh Air
Terry Gross square 2017
Terry Gross
43-Minute Listen ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/fa/2023/10/20231011_fa_01.mp3?d=2583&size=41331192&e=1205099876&t=progseg&seg=1&sc=siteplayer&aw_0_1st.playerid=siteplayer
Download
Transcript
Terrorism expert Daniel Byman explains the origins of the war between Israel and Hamas, and where it may lead. His books include A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism.
Sponsor Message
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The war between Israel and Hamas that began with Hamas' shocking invasion of Israel is built on what my guest calls deadly foundations. Those deadly foundations are the subject of today's interview with Daniel Byman. We'll also talk about where this war might lead. Byman has written extensively about the Middle East and terrorism, including the book "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism." He's a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown University. In the past few days, he's written several articles about the war for the publication Foreign Affairs.
Shortly after we finished recording our interview this morning, Israel announced the formation of a new emergency government that will include Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a top rival from the opposition, Benny Gantz.
Daniel Byman, welcome back to FRESH AIR. A question we've all been wondering is, why now? Why did - I know it's an anniversary, and terrorists seem to love anniversaries. But beyond that, why do you think Hamas chose this moment to stage this shocking attack on Israel?
DANIEL BYMAN: We don't yet have a great answer to the question of why now, but let me present several possibilities. Some people have talked about the international environment, that Saudi Arabia is normalizing relations with Israel, and Hamas and Iran want to disrupt that. And that may be one reason. I tend to look myself at some of the more domestic reasons. Hamas has a rivalry with the Palestinian Authority, which has power on the West Bank, and Hamas wants to show Palestinians that it is more steadfast in its defense of Palestinian rights and otherwise is contrasting itself with what it would describe as the subservience of the PA to Israel.
And also, I think most importantly is Hamas' position in Gaza. Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007, but it's had difficulty governing it effectively. And part of this is due to international pressure and Israeli pressure on Gaza - tremendous economic restrictions. And Hamas has been dealt, in its eyes, a losing hand. It can't demonstrate that it's providing a better future for Gazans. And at the same time, it can't burnish its credentials as what it would call resistance, that it's slowly becoming more political. So from Hamas' point of view, it's losing as a governing entity, and it's losing as a violent one. And this is a way of dramatically trying to restore its image as a resistance actor.
GROSS: There's also been so much dissent within Israel over the Netanyahu government, which is a far-right government. And the Netanyahu government was trying to weaken the judiciary, the Supreme Court, and give Congress more power. And many people have said that's because Netanyahu was facing charges of bribery and fraud, breach of trust. And I'm wondering if you think Hamas might have seen this as an opportune moment because Israel itself has been so divided. There have been massive protests against the Netanyahu government.
BYMAN: Hamas has always, in its propaganda, at least, portrayed Israel as weak politically, that it lacks the political will if Palestinians will simply push it hard. And certainly, the last year has seen tremendous divisions within Israel. And it's plausible that Hamas would seek to take advantage of this, believing that if it hits Israel hard, it would discredit Netanyahu and, in general, cause more divisions within Israel. I would say two things about this. One is that, in general, Israelis have a history of coming together under pressure. And I think the latest attacks, as horrific as they are, the only silver lining I can see is that Israelis have put aside many of their differences and are coming together in the face of what they feel is a brutal attack.
The other is that one thing Israelis didn't disagree on as much as they used to in the past is policy towards the Palestinians. This is an issue that, in my view, unfortunately, the political right in Israel has largely won, that there isn't a strong peace movement in Israel. There aren't many people calling for restoring the peace process. So although Israel has very big divisions politically, the Palestinian issue and the broader peace process question, which used to be so divisive, has - is much less so in recent years.
GROSS: Something that I think separates this crisis from previous ones in Israel is that the U.S. is directly involved in the sense that there are American hostages, and there are Americans who were killed in the attacks. How do you think that's going to affect the U.S. response?
BYMAN: For the United States, this is really uncharted territory. In the past, when the U.S. has considered Israel and the region, it's focused on the security of a very close ally. It's focused on deterring adversaries like Iran. But the death of a large number of Americans, the fact that several - and as of this recording, I don't know the exact number, but there are probably several hostages in Hamas' control - is really a game changer. This is a direct threat to the lives and security of Americans and as President Biden has to focus on this issue. It also complicates how the United States thinks about military operations. There is a possibility that an Israeli retaliation in Gaza might inadvertently lead to the death of an American hostage. There is a possibility that Hamas, to deter Israel, might threaten the lives of American hostages. So the United States is in this much more directly than in the past, where it was really a question of how to support an ally in a difficult time.
GROSS: And if we just pull back a little bit, the U.S. is already involved in the war in Ukraine, supplying arms to Ukraine and providing - I think providing intelligence as well. So now the U.S. is involved because of the hostages and because Israel is an ally in the war between Israel and Hamas. Are they connected in any way? Do you see Russia's attack on Ukraine as it all connected? Not directly, but, like, in the Venn diagram, is there a place where they overlap?
BYMAN: I think there is some overlap when we take several steps back. So what we're seeing is a world reaction to a decline in both U.S. power and U.S. engagement in certain parts of the world. The United States has been trying to reduce its engagement in the greater Middle East for over a decade now. President Obama tried. President Trump continued that. And for President Biden, China and Russia have been priorities, not the Middle East. And when the United States disengages, it gives more freedom of action to local actors. And these, at times, can be U.S. allies - so we saw countries like Saudi Arabia becoming much more aggressive. But they can also be adversaries, and Iran has been trying to take advantage of the reduced U.S. presence. And part of what Iran does is support a range of militant actors, and these include groups in Iraq and Yemen but also groups focused on Israel, like the Lebanese Hezbollah and especially Hamas.
And as the United States under President Biden has tried to restore its global presence, the United States has been trying to make choices, with Russia being one of the big foes. But Russia has ties to the Middle East, and it is increasing its support for Iran and otherwise trying to portray itself as the alternative to the United States. So I don't think Russia was directly tied to the latest round of violence, but I think the broader geopolitical environment does matter for what happens in the Israeli-Palestinian context.
GROSS: Do you foresee the possibility of a larger regional war or perhaps even a world war?
BYMAN: Unfortunately, it is at least possible that this war will widen, perhaps dramatically. We've seen the Lebanese Hezbollah do attacks into Israel. We've also seen attacks from Syria that may be from Iranian-linked groups, although we're still not sure. There are reasons that Hezbollah might be cautious. It's fought Israel in the past, and it's been devastating in particular for Lebanon, but also for Hezbollah. And the organization has tried to walk a careful line between showing that it remains anti-Israel, but avoiding provoking a larger conflict.
At the same time, Hezbollah right now wants to show solidarity with Hamas. Hezbollah also works very closely with Iran, which also supports Hamas and wants to stir the pot in the region. And passions will be high. And as we start to see more and more Palestinians die from the Israeli response, there will be on pressure of groups like Hezbollah to escalate. However, part of the reason the United States has deployed an aircraft carrier into the Eastern Med is to try to limit and stop escalation. Whether that will succeed is unknown, but this escalation concern is very much on the mind not only of Israelis, but of the United States and its allies.
GROSS: Can you talk a little bit more about the connection between Hezbollah and Hamas? They're both political parties and Islamic fundamentalist militant groups.
BYMAN: So Hezbollah and Hamas share many similarities but also are quite different in many ways. Hezbollah is a Lebanese group that was really created with Iranian help and works very closely with Iran. It's incredibly formidable, maybe the most dangerous militant group in the world. Hamas, of course, is a Palestinian group and has before this shown less capability, doesn't have the arsenal of Hezbollah, doesn't have the military force, although many of our assumptions, I think, need to be revisited.
But historically, Hezbollah has worked very closely with Iran, done international terrorism against the United States, as well as other targets. It sent people to Iraq and Yemen and - to work with Iranians there. While Hamas has been much more focused very narrowly on the Palestinian arena. The two, however, began to work together in the 1990s with Hezbollah providing training to Hamas. And, in general, often when Iran works with groups like Hamas, it does so with Hezbollah people embedded. They're very skilled themselves, and at the same time they speak Arabic; they're Arabs; and thus often have better connections to Arab communities than do - than does Iran, which is Persian in origin.
GROSS: And there've already been clashes between Israel and Hezbollah this week. So there's reason for concern. I know that Hamas is on the U.S.'s list of terrorist groups. Is Hezbollah officially listed as a terrorist group as well?
BYMAN: Hezbollah is also designated as a terrorist group.
GROSS: Is Hezbollah part of the government in Lebanon?
BYMAN: Hezbollah plays multiple roles in Lebanon, including being part of the government. So it, in a de facto way, administers parts of southern Lebanon, as well as other areas where it's strong. It's held government ministries. It has a presence in parliament. So it's very much part of the Lebanese political, economic and social establishment, as well as being a very dangerous militant and terrorist group.
GROSS: You know, everybody has been asking, how could Israel have missed what was going on, the planning for this invasion by Hamas? And I want to ask you that question because you are the author of the book "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israel Counterterrorism." So this was obviously coming under the category of failure, massive failure. How do you think this might have happened?
BYMAN: This is a question that I think commissions and press investigations are going to be trying to answer for months and even years to come. And I want to confess, I did not think Hamas was capable of such a large-scale, sophisticated operation before it happened. So I can't point fingers without pointing one at myself. But there are multiple possible failures here. The biggest one is simply a failure of collection, that Hamas was able to hide the training, the import of large numbers of rockets and missiles into Gaza, the development of new tactics like using gliders and really just a mass-scale operation under the noses of Israeli intelligence.
And Israel has put a lot of effort into knowing what is going on within Hamas and within Gaza in general and using a wide range of intelligence systems to do so. So that basic collection problem seems to have been missing. And add to it a failure of defensive measures where there do not seem to have been enough military and police forces near Gaza for contingencies such as what happened in case intelligence fails. And this is something that I also believe is linked to the broader policies Israel pursued in Gaza, where the Netanyahu government seemed to think that the very limited economic incentives it was giving Hamas in terms of work permits into Israel, that this was a way of keeping Hamas satisfied, of keeping Palestinians satisfied and that because of their improved economic situation, as limited as it was, that they would not consider a large-scale attack.
So to me, there are multiple failures in terms of assessments of Hamas and assessments of Israeli policies. And all this shows what's really one of the most difficult things for those of us who study terrorism, which is that terrorist groups are adaptive, that when they see challenges, they try to devise new ways of overcoming them. And Hamas has come up with new ways of attacking Israel. So whenever we think about this challenge, we have to recognize that defensive measures are very important but that terrorist adversaries are likely to try to overcome them.
GROSS: Do you think that Hamas looked at what Ukraine has been able to do in fighting against Russia's invasion and some of their tactics?
BYMAN: I haven't seen direct indications that Hamas tacticians have been looking at the Ukraine example. What I would say, though, is Hamas in general has emphasized the idea of resistance with a moral component, that they believe that Israel's technological superiority will only get Israel so far. And they point to the Lebanese Hezbollah in particular as an example of a group that through its own tactical cleverness, but especially through its willingness to sacrifice, was able to expel the Israelis from Lebanon in 2000, and in 2006, fight Israel in a 34-day war to a draw. And Hamas thinkers have emphasized that a lot of what Hezbollah did successfully was show Israel that was willing to keep attacking even in the face of heavy casualties.
And Hezbollah leaders with their Iranian backers have also pushed this point more broadly, that the way to take on Israel - and they would say the way to take on the United States - is not to be afraid of death, to show a willingness to put your life on the line and for communities to sacrifice. And they contrast that with American and especially Israeli casualty sensitivities, where a few deaths on the Israeli side is a national calamity, while they would say on their side, it's a cause for celebration of those who died heroically in the struggle.
GROSS: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman. He's a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown University. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a professor at Georgetown University. He's an expert on the Middle East and terrorism and the author of several books, including "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism."
Let me ask you a few basic questions about Hamas. How would you describe Hamas in terms of what it stands for?
BYMAN: So Hamas has gone through a tremendous evolution since it was formally created in 1987. But at its core, it tries to mix two different basic goals. One is Palestinian nationalism, that Hamas is seeking a Palestinian state on the territory of what it would consider the full borders of Palestine. So that would include all of Israel, as well as what is now the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In addition, it is a religious movement, and it wants a particular form of Islamic government. So it differentiates itself from other Palestinian movements, especially its historical rival, Fatah, which was more secular in its orientation.
Over the years, however, Hamas was seen to have moderated on at least some of these goals in practice, if not formally, that it has recognized Israeli power and that the Israeli state and Israeli people are not going anywhere and also that it has shown some willingness to recognize that there are other forms of government and that it will negotiate with different political partners. So there is a maximal Hamas view, but then there's also a pragmatic Hamas. And they've shown different sides over the years since their creation.
GROSS: In its founding mission statement - I'm not sure what it's officially called - it calls for, you know - what? - the eradication of the state of Israel. What's the wording?
BYMAN: I think that's correct. That is eradication. I would have to check. But I think that sentiment is right, that...
GROSS: That's the gist of it.
BYMAN: ...Israel is...
GROSS: Yeah. So one thing I'm not sure of - what does that mean? Does that mean that Israel should be, you know, not a Jewish state, but just a state and have Palestinians and Israelis not only have equal rights, but, you know, have the right of return for Palestinians? Or does it mean that Jews in Israel should be killed? Like, what - how do you interpret it?
BYMAN: So when Hamas made that original statement, its goal was very, very maximal, that Israel was a fundamentally illegitimate state, and it saw this in the context of colonialism. So the people who are Israelis, Hamas, said, no, they're really Europeans or others from the Arab world, and they're invaders. So just like the French in Algeria, just to pick one example, they should be kicked out. And, you know, either they die in the process, or they return to their home countries.
Obviously, any Israeli is going to tell you that Europe is not a place where Israelis want to return to. And Hamas is ignoring the tremendous legacy of Jewish history that led to the formation of Israel. Over time, although Hamas' rhetoric at time continues to be quite extreme, it has come to terms with the reality of Israel. And part of that is simply power disparity. Israel is a powerful, wealthy country. And even as bloody as the last few days have been, Hamas and the Palestinians stand no chance of eradicating Israel.
So the question really is, how much of a compromise would Hamas be willing to settle for, if any? And this has been an exceptionally difficult question for Hamas, where some of its leaders are more pragmatic and some are not. And the challenge for Hamas has been balancing these tensions, where it wants to show that it can responsibly govern a place like Gaza, but it also wants to show that it remains committed to fighting Israel. And Hamas has wavered back and forth between these two. And I would have said four or five days ago, it was more focused on governing Gaza. But the last few days have shown that it wants to double down on its resistance credentials.
GROSS: Well, we have to take another break here. So let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman, and he's a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's a professor at Georgetown and author of books about the Middle East and terrorism, including "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism." We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. We're talking about the Hamas attack on Israel and what the world consequences are for this, in addition to the consequences for Israel. And we're also kind of looking at the background of this attack - at Hamas, at Israeli policy. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman, and he is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's a professor at Georgetown University. He's an expert on the Middle East and terrorism. And his many books include "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism."
Tell us a little bit about how and when Hamas was founded.
BYMAN: So after the 1967 war, Israel takes over the Gaza Strip. And this is a fundamental change for Gaza, because previously it had been under Egyptian control. And the Egyptian government at the time was brutally opposed to political Islam and especially its manifestation as the Muslim Brotherhood. So when Israel takes over, Israel sees the primary threat as leftist and nationalistic Palestinian voices, not Islamist ones. And also, Israel, as a democratic state, is not going to suppress religious activity in general. So you see a tremendous growth of Islamic activity in Gaza under Israel in the 1970s and 1980s.
But a key moment is really 1987. Then you have the outbreak of the First Intifada, where ordinary Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza rise up against what they consider an unjust occupation. And this catches everyone by surprise. Now you have this - really this storm that is shaking the Palestinian arena. And for the Muslim Brotherhood, they have to engage. They are being taunted. The more secular types associated with Fatah say, you know, look, if you want to fight for Palestinian rights, the Muslim Brotherhood is doing nothing. But you also have a small group, Palestine Islamic Jihad, that remains active today, that is saying if you're an Islamist who wants to fight Israel, join us, not the Brotherhood.
So in 1987, the Brotherhood in Gaza forms Hamas as a - what it would call a resistance organization. Initially, it's pretty weak. A lot of its leaders are quickly arrested. They try operations, but they don't work really well. But over time, it grows more and more powerful. And a lot of that is because of its links to Palestinian society. So the Muslim Brotherhood and then Hamas ran hospitals and ran schools and ran charities. And they were deeply embedded, and a lot of their activity was not violent. But this sort of peaceful and social activity aided its credentials. It made it a credible organization. It gave it access to lots of ordinary Palestinians. So when this organization declares itself, it starts out on a much firmer foundation than many other terrorist groups would.
GROSS: How did Hamas gain control over Gaza? And we're talking about, like, 2007. What happened?
BYMAN: In the 1990s, there was a peace process where many people, myself included, really hoped that there would be a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And Gaza was run by Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. In 2000, the Second Intifada breaks out. And this is an incredibly bloody event that lasts for five years and continues on several years after that in a lesser form, where over a thousand Israelis die and over 5,000 Palestinians die. And when Yasser Arafat ran the Gaza Strip, his security services were incredibly brutal against Hamas and tried to aggressively crush it. And Hamas was quite weak, with many of its leaders in jail, and was only able to do a few limited operations in the late 1990s. But when the Second Intifada breaks out, one thing that Arafat does is he opens up the prisons. So Hamas becomes much stronger with many of its leaders returning.
In addition, and probably more importantly, Hamas' message becomes stronger. Hamas is able to say to ordinary Palestinians, look, negotiations get you nowhere. The way to take on Israel is to fight. So Hamas becomes much more popular. Israel, meantime, targets Arafat, targets the Palestinian Authority. So their message is weaker, but they're also operationally weaker. As the Intifada is ending, Israel decides to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. But the politics are so poisonous that it refuses to negotiate with moderate Palestinian leaders. It's saying to its own people, openly, we're doing this on our own terms. We're not doing this as part of a negotiation. But the result is when Israel withdraws in 2005, Hamas looks even stronger. Hamas says, Israel is now out of Gaza and it's not because of the Palestinian Authority. It's not because of negotiations. It's because of resistance. It's because of our fighting. And it gains a lot of credibility.
In 2006, there are elections in the Palestinian territories, and this is something pushed by the United States. And Hamas wins these elections. Now, it wins for two reasons. One is that the Palestinian Authority is seen as inept when it comes to governing. Many Palestinians rightly considered it highly corrupt and also very ineffective on things like basic services, such as picking up the trash or providing law and order. But Hamas also gains, because the Palestinian Authority was so overconfident, it bungled the election. Sometimes in the same district, the anti-Hamas candidates would run three or four candidates. And Hamas - the Hamas candidate might win 30% of the vote, but that was more than his rival. So Hamas wins the election without actually winning a majority of Palestinians. There's...
GROSS: But people always refer to how Hamas seized power, and you're talking about, like, winning an election. So what happened in between there?
BYMAN: So in 2006, Hamas wins the election. But this is disputed, and there's a question of, does Hamas control Gaza or - and how many rights does the Palestinian Authority have? And there is economic isolation. And Hamas believes that Israel and the Palestinian Authority and the United States are plotting to overthrow it. So there is a dispute about who has what political power, but Hamas simply seizes power in 2007. And many people refer to this as a Hamas coup. So from Hamas' point of view, it had democratic legitimacy because of 2006. From the point of view of its Palestinian rivals, Hamas simply threw all the procedures and rules out the window when it seized power.
GROSS: So Hamas governs the Gaza Strip. It's also a military group. It's shown its strength as fighters. How has it been at governing?
BYMAN: So Hamas has both strengths and weaknesses at governing. It has governed Gaza better than its predecessors. So Gaza was governed by Egypt and then by Israel and then by the Palestinian Authority. And in all those cases, basic services were poor. And that includes things like trash collection or fighting crime, which are very important to citizens on a day-to-day basis. And Hamas has done a better job in many cases than its predecessors. But Hamas has not been able to bring economic prosperity. And part of that is that it's not an organization that is focused on economics or trying to improve the investment climate or other basics for that. But Hamas would say it's also because of the economic pressure that Israel and its allies have placed on Gaza, that there's been a partial blockade on what goes in out of Gaza. And in a way, Israeli policy was very much designed to do this.
Israel was trying to message ordinary Palestinians that they should stick with the more pro-Israel Palestinian Authority and reject Hamas. And as a result, Israel has tried to limit economic development on Gaza, even as it's tried to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. And since Hamas has been in power for 17 years now, that meant that we have a generation of Gazans who have grown up with Hamas leadership and many of whom have been quite frustrated by it. They feel trapped in Gaza. And while they certainly blame Israel, they also blame Hamas.
GROSS: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman. He's a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown University. He's an expert on the Middle East and terrorism. And his books include "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a professor at Georgetown University. He's an expert on the Middle East and terrorism and the author of several books, including "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism."
As we've witnessed, Hamas has thousands of missiles. And it has - what? - tens of thousands more?
BYMAN: That's probably correct, and a very wide range, some short range, but many that are able to hit deep into Israel.
GROSS: Gaza is a small territory. And how does Hamas manage to get those missiles and to hide them? And I know a lot of them are hidden, like, underneath homes and perhaps underneath mosques. That's what Israel claims. But nevertheless, tens of thousands of missiles. How do you get them in, and how do you hide them?
BYMAN: So Hamas' capability comes from two overlapping sources. Iran has provided a range of missiles to Hamas, and some of these are smuggled in through tunnels, usually from Egypt. In addition, Iran has provided components of system. So you could smuggle them part by part. But perhaps most important, Iran has provided knowhow. So it's taught Hamas how to make these missiles. And that's the second source, is indigenous production. And, you know, go back a few decades, and we saw Hamas using these sorts of strikes, but it was very limited, right on the border of Gaza, just a few kilometers into Israel. Each year, it seemed, the range of these systems would grow. So more and more of Israel was threatened by Hamas.
In recent years, Israel has felt protected by antimissile systems, like Iron Dome, that have shot down missiles that have threatened population centers. But Hamas seems to have been able to smuggle in or acquire or build huge numbers which have simply overwhelmed the Iron Dome system, that so many were fired that Iron Dome could only shoot down a few of them. And that is a tremendous failure of Israeli intelligence, in my view. And as your question points out, the Gaza Strip is small, and Israel has covered it with intelligence assets for some time now. So to be able to hide these weapons, even in tunnels, even underneath various homes and mosques, is still quite an accomplishment. But Hamas has pulled it off. We have to recognize this as a Hamas success.
GROSS: I want to ask you about countries that support Hamas. We've talked a little bit about Iran. I want to ask you about Qatar. They're, I think, in an unusual situation. They've provided a billion dollars in aid to Hamas. But the U.S. has a major military base in Qatar, and I can't quite reconcile that. So why don't you try to explain what's going on?
BYMAN: So Qatar is one of those countries that has tried to punch above its diplomatic weight. It's a very small country, but it's a very rich country, and it's had a very active foreign policy for over a decade now. When the Arab Spring happened in 2011, Qatar saw a chance to increase its influence by working with various governments or movements associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the political Islamist movement that is the origin of Hamas. And it supported this in Egypt. It supported it in other countries. And so Hamas saw this as an opportunity to find an additional patron. And Israel, in some ways, perhaps surprisingly, was willing to cooperate with Qatar on this.
And part of it was because Israel does not want - or did not want, I should say - a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. It didn't want economic development, but it didn't want the people to starve. It wanted basic hospital services. So the question was, could the government in Qatar provide services to Palestinians that would not increase the military capacities of Hamas? And that's always a difficult line because whenever you're providing assistance of any sort, it frees up money for other projects, including military spending. It also means that Hamas can employ its people in these jobs, and they can draw salaries. So it's hard to kind of separate these completely. But the emphasis was on Qatar doing more social and economic projects, while that stands in contrast to something like Iran that has provided military support.
GROSS: The Saudis and Israel were starting to normalize relations. What do you think the war is going to do to possibly change that - interrupt it, prevent it?
BYMAN: In the short term, the war is a tremendous setback to Saudi-Israeli normalization. The Saudi-Israeli normalization was primarily about a shared enemy, Iran, and also Saudi Arabia's desire to get some support from the United States. It was suggesting U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's nuclear program and also a U.S. security guarantee for the kingdom. The expectation was Saudi Arabia would make some demand on the Palestinian front, but that it would be very modest because given Israel's political dynamics, Israel couldn't make real moves on that, and the Saudis knew it.
But with the Palestinian issue front and center, it's impossible for Saudi Arabia to make progress with Israel unless Israel makes very significant concessions on the Palestinian issue, which is simply not going to happen in an Israeli political context. So that very basic issue, which many people hoped would be on the backburner, is now front and center. Now, perhaps in six months, progress can resume. But in the short term at least, this is going to be very difficult.
GROSS: Do you think that Iran saw some kind of normalizing between the Saudis and Israel as a threat to Iran?
BYMAN: Certainly Iran's leaders saw Israel's normalization with Saudi Arabia and its previous normalization with countries like the UAE and Bahrain as a threat to Iran, in part because these countries have been quite explicit that they see Iran as a threat, and they believe working together against Iran is very important. So it's not surprising that Iran would seek to disrupt this. And it's trying to do that politically, but it's also trying to do it by supporting different militant groups. We still don't know...
GROSS: Like Hamas.
BYMAN: Exactly. Like Hamas and like Hezbollah. And there have been some reports that Iran was involved in this particular operation. I've seen indications that they have and a lot of people saying they haven't. It's hard for me to know at this stage, but it's, at the very least, part of why Iran has funded Hamas, provided weapons to Hamas, trained Hamas is so it can attack Israel, is so can target Iran's enemies. And in the last few days at least, from an Iranian point of view, that has paid off.
GROSS: Let's take another short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman. He's a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's a professor at Georgetown and author of several books about the Middle East and terrorism, including "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Daniel Byman, who has written extensively about the Middle East, and he's a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's a professor at Georgetown and author of several books, including "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism."
We've been talking about Gaza 'cause that's where Hamas is, but, you know, there's also the West Bank. And I'm wondering what you think this means, this war means for the West Bank and for what Israeli policy will be in the West Bank. And again, you know, the elected governing body in the West Bank is Fatah, which had been headed by Yasser Arafat. And Mahmoud Abbas became the successor, and he's been in power a very long time. He's in his 80s. He's considered out of touch by many people. So can we focus on the West Bank a little bit?
BYMAN: So in 2021, the West Bank saw the worst violence it had seen in many years. In 2022, it got worse. And this year, it seems on track to be even worse. So many of us were focused on violence in the West Bank, not Gaza, as the challenge for Israel. And part of this was because of the growth in settlements, the abuse of actions of Israeli settlers and a general sense among Palestinians in the West Bank that life was getting worse. So there was more support for different militant actors, including some terrorist groups that seemed completely new, that weren't tied to traditional organizations.
And part of the problem was that the traditional leadership led by Mahmoud Abbas was discredited. It was seen as corrupt. It was also seen as acting as an arm of Israeli intelligence, that it was arresting Palestinians rather than helping them fight Israel. The Palestinian Authority is, in my view, simply a relatively standard, corrupt and brutal government. It rules by providing a core group of people with some perks and privileges. It doesn't govern particularly well, and it has effective but fairly brutal security services that crack down on Palestinian dissent of any sort.
So it was discredited, and that's a broader problem, not just for the Palestinians, but also for Israel, that Israeli policies have helped discredit Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. And as a result, there's not someone to turn to who can govern territories like Gaza. It's hard to put someone like the Palestinian Authority in power there now because they are discredited, because of their ineptitude and their ties to Israel.
GROSS: What is your worst fear about what this new war might lead to? And do you have any hope that the end might resolve in a step forward, that whatever settlement is eventually reached or whatever victory is eventually reached might lead to some kind of brighter future?
BYMAN: My worst fear is that the conflict goes from being one between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to a much broader one, that unrest on the West Bank grows and spills over and the situation there becomes much more violent, that the Lebanese Hezbollah becomes more involved, and that we start to see violent attacks on Israelis or other violence around the world, and that what is right now a very bloody but limited conflict becomes part of the broader struggle against the West in the Middle East, against the United States and its allies, and something that really shapes the politics of countries around the world. I worry that this latest fighting will end up with a much worse situation. But at times, we have seen hope come out of very difficult circumstances.
As many people have observed, we're at the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war. And that was a war that, from Israel's point of view, seemed like a debacle - many Israelis dead, a successful surprise attack by Egypt and Syria. But the U.S. secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, was able to see an opportunity there. And he, along with Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, eventually made significant progress on peace that culminated in a peace deal between Israel and what had been its greatest enemy, Egypt. So out of war and disaster, you can have peace and more opportunities. But that's going to be exceptionally difficult in these circumstances. Israelis are - were already embittered against Palestinians, believing that the Second Intifada showed that they were committed to violence. And this will only reinforce that perception. The United States is not putting an emphasis on restarting peace negotiations in the Middle East. And as a result, I think it's going to be very difficult to take a very sad and bloody situation and have a silver lining to it in the end.
GROSS: As somebody who has studied Middle East relations for many years, what's it like for you to watch things fail and fail and fail and then get worse and worse with periods of getting better, but then getting worse?
BYMAN: It's incredibly disheartening that you have hope, and that hope could be in the 1990s with peace talks. It could be 2011 with what seemed like the outbreak of democracy in the Arab world. And then you see things worse off five years, 10 years later. And you see friends in the region who went from being optimists to having no hope. You see a generation that doesn't have political prospects and often doesn't have economic prospects. And as someone who analyzes and provides recommendations, you feel that your own contribution is something that has, at the very best, been ineffective, but perhaps has contributed to broader problems, that the solutions have not been taken, and that as a result, our kind of collective failure to move this forward shows that, as an analytic community, as a policy community, we need to do much better.
GROSS: Daniel Byman, thank you so much for talking with us.
BYMAN: My pleasure.
GROSS: Daniel Byman is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown University.
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GROSS: Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guest will be Marty Baron, who was the executive editor of The Washington Post during the Trump presidency and when the Post was acquired by Jeff Bezos, as well as the transition that followed. Baron's new memoir is called "Collision Of Power: Trump, Bezos, And The Washington Post." I hope you'll join us.
FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Ann Marie Baldonado, Therese Madden, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley, and Susan Nyakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 20, 2023 3:00:10 GMT
great interview. a must to listen to or read the transcript.
MIDDLE EAST
How was Hamas able to launch such a devastating attack on Israel?
www.npr.org/2023/10/11/1205099876/how-was-hamas-able-to-launch-such-a-devastating-attack-on-israel
October 11, 20231:32 PM ET
Heard on Fresh Air
Fresh Air
Terry Gross
43-Minute Listen ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/fa/2023/10/20231011_fa_01.mp3?d=2583&size=41331192&e=1205099876&t=progseg&seg=1&sc=siteplayer&aw_0_1st.playerid=siteplayer
Transcript
Terrorism expert Daniel Byman explains the origins of the war between Israel and Hamas, and where it may lead. His books include A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism.
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TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The war between Israel and Hamas that began with Hamas' shocking invasion of Israel is built on what my guest calls deadly foundations. Those deadly foundations are the subject of today's interview with Daniel Byman. We'll also talk about where this war might lead. Byman has written extensively about the Middle East and terrorism, including the book "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism." He's a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown University. In the past few days, he's written several articles about the war for the publication Foreign Affairs.
Shortly after we finished recording our interview this morning, Israel announced the formation of a new emergency government that will include Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a top rival from the opposition, Benny Gantz.
Daniel Byman, welcome back to FRESH AIR. A question we've all been wondering is, why now? Why did - I know it's an anniversary, and terrorists seem to love anniversaries. But beyond that, why do you think Hamas chose this moment to stage this shocking attack on Israel?
DANIEL BYMAN: We don't yet have a great answer to the question of why now, but let me present several possibilities. Some people have talked about the international environment, that Saudi Arabia is normalizing relations with Israel, and Hamas and Iran want to disrupt that. And that may be one reason. I tend to look myself at some of the more domestic reasons. Hamas has a rivalry with the Palestinian Authority, which has power on the West Bank, and Hamas wants to show Palestinians that it is more steadfast in its defense of Palestinian rights and otherwise is contrasting itself with what it would describe as the subservience of the PA to Israel.
And also, I think most importantly is Hamas' position in Gaza. Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007, but it's had difficulty governing it effectively. And part of this is due to international pressure and Israeli pressure on Gaza - tremendous economic restrictions. And Hamas has been dealt, in its eyes, a losing hand. It can't demonstrate that it's providing a better future for Gazans. And at the same time, it can't burnish its credentials as what it would call resistance, that it's slowly becoming more political. So from Hamas' point of view, it's losing as a governing entity, and it's losing as a violent one. And this is a way of dramatically trying to restore its image as a resistance actor.
GROSS: There's also been so much dissent within Israel over the Netanyahu government, which is a far-right government. And the Netanyahu government was trying to weaken the judiciary, the Supreme Court, and give Congress more power. And many people have said that's because Netanyahu was facing charges of bribery and fraud, breach of trust. And I'm wondering if you think Hamas might have seen this as an opportune moment because Israel itself has been so divided. There have been massive protests against the Netanyahu government.
BYMAN: Hamas has always, in its propaganda, at least, portrayed Israel as weak politically, that it lacks the political will if Palestinians will simply push it hard. And certainly, the last year has seen tremendous divisions within Israel. And it's plausible that Hamas would seek to take advantage of this, believing that if it hits Israel hard, it would discredit Netanyahu and, in general, cause more divisions within Israel. I would say two things about this. One is that, in general, Israelis have a history of coming together under pressure. And I think the latest attacks, as horrific as they are, the only silver lining I can see is that Israelis have put aside many of their differences and are coming together in the face of what they feel is a brutal attack.
The other is that one thing Israelis didn't disagree on as much as they used to in the past is policy towards the Palestinians. This is an issue that, in my view, unfortunately, the political right in Israel has largely won, that there isn't a strong peace movement in Israel. There aren't many people calling for restoring the peace process. So although Israel has very big divisions politically, the Palestinian issue and the broader peace process question, which used to be so divisive, has - is much less so in recent years.
GROSS: Something that I think separates this crisis from previous ones in Israel is that the U.S. is directly involved in the sense that there are American hostages, and there are Americans who were killed in the attacks. How do you think that's going to affect the U.S. response?
BYMAN: For the United States, this is really uncharted territory. In the past, when the U.S. has considered Israel and the region, it's focused on the security of a very close ally. It's focused on deterring adversaries like Iran. But the death of a large number of Americans, the fact that several - and as of this recording, I don't know the exact number, but there are probably several hostages in Hamas' control - is really a game changer. This is a direct threat to the lives and security of Americans and as President Biden has to focus on this issue. It also complicates how the United States thinks about military operations. There is a possibility that an Israeli retaliation in Gaza might inadvertently lead to the death of an American hostage. There is a possibility that Hamas, to deter Israel, might threaten the lives of American hostages. So the United States is in this much more directly than in the past, where it was really a question of how to support an ally in a difficult time.
GROSS: And if we just pull back a little bit, the U.S. is already involved in the war in Ukraine, supplying arms to Ukraine and providing - I think providing intelligence as well. So now the U.S. is involved because of the hostages and because Israel is an ally in the war between Israel and Hamas. Are they connected in any way? Do you see Russia's attack on Ukraine as it all connected? Not directly, but, like, in the Venn diagram, is there a place where they overlap?
BYMAN: I think there is some overlap when we take several steps back. So what we're seeing is a world reaction to a decline in both U.S. power and U.S. engagement in certain parts of the world. The United States has been trying to reduce its engagement in the greater Middle East for over a decade now. President Obama tried. President Trump continued that. And for President Biden, China and Russia have been priorities, not the Middle East. And when the United States disengages, it gives more freedom of action to local actors. And these, at times, can be U.S. allies - so we saw countries like Saudi Arabia becoming much more aggressive. But they can also be adversaries, and Iran has been trying to take advantage of the reduced U.S. presence. And part of what Iran does is support a range of militant actors, and these include groups in Iraq and Yemen but also groups focused on Israel, like the Lebanese Hezbollah and especially Hamas.
And as the United States under President Biden has tried to restore its global presence, the United States has been trying to make choices, with Russia being one of the big foes. But Russia has ties to the Middle East, and it is increasing its support for Iran and otherwise trying to portray itself as the alternative to the United States. So I don't think Russia was directly tied to the latest round of violence, but I think the broader geopolitical environment does matter for what happens in the Israeli-Palestinian context.
GROSS: Do you foresee the possibility of a larger regional war or perhaps even a world war?
BYMAN: Unfortunately, it is at least possible that this war will widen, perhaps dramatically. We've seen the Lebanese Hezbollah do attacks into Israel. We've also seen attacks from Syria that may be from Iranian-linked groups, although we're still not sure. There are reasons that Hezbollah might be cautious. It's fought Israel in the past, and it's been devastating in particular for Lebanon, but also for Hezbollah. And the organization has tried to walk a careful line between showing that it remains anti-Israel, but avoiding provoking a larger conflict.
At the same time, Hezbollah right now wants to show solidarity with Hamas. Hezbollah also works very closely with Iran, which also supports Hamas and wants to stir the pot in the region. And passions will be high. And as we start to see more and more Palestinians die from the Israeli response, there will be on pressure of groups like Hezbollah to escalate. However, part of the reason the United States has deployed an aircraft carrier into the Eastern Med is to try to limit and stop escalation. Whether that will succeed is unknown, but this escalation concern is very much on the mind not only of Israelis, but of the United States and its allies.
GROSS: Can you talk a little bit more about the connection between Hezbollah and Hamas? They're both political parties and Islamic fundamentalist militant groups.
BYMAN: So Hezbollah and Hamas share many similarities but also are quite different in many ways. Hezbollah is a Lebanese group that was really created with Iranian help and works very closely with Iran. It's incredibly formidable, maybe the most dangerous militant group in the world. Hamas, of course, is a Palestinian group and has before this shown less capability, doesn't have the arsenal of Hezbollah, doesn't have the military force, although many of our assumptions, I think, need to be revisited.
But historically, Hezbollah has worked very closely with Iran, done international terrorism against the United States, as well as other targets. It sent people to Iraq and Yemen and - to work with Iranians there. While Hamas has been much more focused very narrowly on the Palestinian arena. The two, however, began to work together in the 1990s with Hezbollah providing training to Hamas. And, in general, often when Iran works with groups like Hamas, it does so with Hezbollah people embedded. They're very skilled themselves, and at the same time they speak Arabic; they're Arabs; and thus often have better connections to Arab communities than do - than does Iran, which is Persian in origin.
GROSS: And there've already been clashes between Israel and Hezbollah this week. So there's reason for concern. I know that Hamas is on the U.S.'s list of terrorist groups. Is Hezbollah officially listed as a terrorist group as well?
BYMAN: Hezbollah is also designated as a terrorist group.
GROSS: Is Hezbollah part of the government in Lebanon?
BYMAN: Hezbollah plays multiple roles in Lebanon, including being part of the government. So it, in a de facto way, administers parts of southern Lebanon, as well as other areas where it's strong. It's held government ministries. It has a presence in parliament. So it's very much part of the Lebanese political, economic and social establishment, as well as being a very dangerous militant and terrorist group.
GROSS: You know, everybody has been asking, how could Israel have missed what was going on, the planning for this invasion by Hamas? And I want to ask you that question because you are the author of the book "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israel Counterterrorism." So this was obviously coming under the category of failure, massive failure. How do you think this might have happened?
BYMAN: This is a question that I think commissions and press investigations are going to be trying to answer for months and even years to come. And I want to confess, I did not think Hamas was capable of such a large-scale, sophisticated operation before it happened. So I can't point fingers without pointing one at myself. But there are multiple possible failures here. The biggest one is simply a failure of collection, that Hamas was able to hide the training, the import of large numbers of rockets and missiles into Gaza, the development of new tactics like using gliders and really just a mass-scale operation under the noses of Israeli intelligence.
And Israel has put a lot of effort into knowing what is going on within Hamas and within Gaza in general and using a wide range of intelligence systems to do so. So that basic collection problem seems to have been missing. And add to it a failure of defensive measures where there do not seem to have been enough military and police forces near Gaza for contingencies such as what happened in case intelligence fails. And this is something that I also believe is linked to the broader policies Israel pursued in Gaza, where the Netanyahu government seemed to think that the very limited economic incentives it was giving Hamas in terms of work permits into Israel, that this was a way of keeping Hamas satisfied, of keeping Palestinians satisfied and that because of their improved economic situation, as limited as it was, that they would not consider a large-scale attack.
So to me, there are multiple failures in terms of assessments of Hamas and assessments of Israeli policies. And all this shows what's really one of the most difficult things for those of us who study terrorism, which is that terrorist groups are adaptive, that when they see challenges, they try to devise new ways of overcoming them. And Hamas has come up with new ways of attacking Israel. So whenever we think about this challenge, we have to recognize that defensive measures are very important but that terrorist adversaries are likely to try to overcome them.
GROSS: Do you think that Hamas looked at what Ukraine has been able to do in fighting against Russia's invasion and some of their tactics?
BYMAN: I haven't seen direct indications that Hamas tacticians have been looking at the Ukraine example. What I would say, though, is Hamas in general has emphasized the idea of resistance with a moral component, that they believe that Israel's technological superiority will only get Israel so far. And they point to the Lebanese Hezbollah in particular as an example of a group that through its own tactical cleverness, but especially through its willingness to sacrifice, was able to expel the Israelis from Lebanon in 2000, and in 2006, fight Israel in a 34-day war to a draw. And Hamas thinkers have emphasized that a lot of what Hezbollah did successfully was show Israel that was willing to keep attacking even in the face of heavy casualties.
And Hezbollah leaders with their Iranian backers have also pushed this point more broadly, that the way to take on Israel - and they would say the way to take on the United States - is not to be afraid of death, to show a willingness to put your life on the line and for communities to sacrifice. And they contrast that with American and especially Israeli casualty sensitivities, where a few deaths on the Israeli side is a national calamity, while they would say on their side, it's a cause for celebration of those who died heroically in the struggle.
GROSS: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman. He's a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown University. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a professor at Georgetown University. He's an expert on the Middle East and terrorism and the author of several books, including "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism."
Let me ask you a few basic questions about Hamas. How would you describe Hamas in terms of what it stands for?
BYMAN: So Hamas has gone through a tremendous evolution since it was formally created in 1987. But at its core, it tries to mix two different basic goals. One is Palestinian nationalism, that Hamas is seeking a Palestinian state on the territory of what it would consider the full borders of Palestine. So that would include all of Israel, as well as what is now the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In addition, it is a religious movement, and it wants a particular form of Islamic government. So it differentiates itself from other Palestinian movements, especially its historical rival, Fatah, which was more secular in its orientation.
Over the years, however, Hamas was seen to have moderated on at least some of these goals in practice, if not formally, that it has recognized Israeli power and that the Israeli state and Israeli people are not going anywhere and also that it has shown some willingness to recognize that there are other forms of government and that it will negotiate with different political partners. So there is a maximal Hamas view, but then there's also a pragmatic Hamas. And they've shown different sides over the years since their creation.
GROSS: In its founding mission statement - I'm not sure what it's officially called - it calls for, you know - what? - the eradication of the state of Israel. What's the wording?
BYMAN: I think that's correct. That is eradication. I would have to check. But I think that sentiment is right, that...
GROSS: That's the gist of it.
BYMAN: ...Israel is...
GROSS: Yeah. So one thing I'm not sure of - what does that mean? Does that mean that Israel should be, you know, not a Jewish state, but just a state and have Palestinians and Israelis not only have equal rights, but, you know, have the right of return for Palestinians? Or does it mean that Jews in Israel should be killed? Like, what - how do you interpret it?
BYMAN: So when Hamas made that original statement, its goal was very, very maximal, that Israel was a fundamentally illegitimate state, and it saw this in the context of colonialism. So the people who are Israelis, Hamas, said, no, they're really Europeans or others from the Arab world, and they're invaders. So just like the French in Algeria, just to pick one example, they should be kicked out. And, you know, either they die in the process, or they return to their home countries.
Obviously, any Israeli is going to tell you that Europe is not a place where Israelis want to return to. And Hamas is ignoring the tremendous legacy of Jewish history that led to the formation of Israel. Over time, although Hamas' rhetoric at time continues to be quite extreme, it has come to terms with the reality of Israel. And part of that is simply power disparity. Israel is a powerful, wealthy country. And even as bloody as the last few days have been, Hamas and the Palestinians stand no chance of eradicating Israel.
So the question really is, how much of a compromise would Hamas be willing to settle for, if any? And this has been an exceptionally difficult question for Hamas, where some of its leaders are more pragmatic and some are not. And the challenge for Hamas has been balancing these tensions, where it wants to show that it can responsibly govern a place like Gaza, but it also wants to show that it remains committed to fighting Israel. And Hamas has wavered back and forth between these two. And I would have said four or five days ago, it was more focused on governing Gaza. But the last few days have shown that it wants to double down on its resistance credentials.
GROSS: Well, we have to take another break here. So let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman, and he's a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's a professor at Georgetown and author of books about the Middle East and terrorism, including "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism." We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. We're talking about the Hamas attack on Israel and what the world consequences are for this, in addition to the consequences for Israel. And we're also kind of looking at the background of this attack - at Hamas, at Israeli policy. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman, and he is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's a professor at Georgetown University. He's an expert on the Middle East and terrorism. And his many books include "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism."
Tell us a little bit about how and when Hamas was founded.
BYMAN: So after the 1967 war, Israel takes over the Gaza Strip. And this is a fundamental change for Gaza, because previously it had been under Egyptian control. And the Egyptian government at the time was brutally opposed to political Islam and especially its manifestation as the Muslim Brotherhood. So when Israel takes over, Israel sees the primary threat as leftist and nationalistic Palestinian voices, not Islamist ones. And also, Israel, as a democratic state, is not going to suppress religious activity in general. So you see a tremendous growth of Islamic activity in Gaza under Israel in the 1970s and 1980s.
But a key moment is really 1987. Then you have the outbreak of the First Intifada, where ordinary Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza rise up against what they consider an unjust occupation. And this catches everyone by surprise. Now you have this - really this storm that is shaking the Palestinian arena. And for the Muslim Brotherhood, they have to engage. They are being taunted. The more secular types associated with Fatah say, you know, look, if you want to fight for Palestinian rights, the Muslim Brotherhood is doing nothing. But you also have a small group, Palestine Islamic Jihad, that remains active today, that is saying if you're an Islamist who wants to fight Israel, join us, not the Brotherhood.
So in 1987, the Brotherhood in Gaza forms Hamas as a - what it would call a resistance organization. Initially, it's pretty weak. A lot of its leaders are quickly arrested. They try operations, but they don't work really well. But over time, it grows more and more powerful. And a lot of that is because of its links to Palestinian society. So the Muslim Brotherhood and then Hamas ran hospitals and ran schools and ran charities. And they were deeply embedded, and a lot of their activity was not violent. But this sort of peaceful and social activity aided its credentials. It made it a credible organization. It gave it access to lots of ordinary Palestinians. So when this organization declares itself, it starts out on a much firmer foundation than many other terrorist groups would.
GROSS: How did Hamas gain control over Gaza? And we're talking about, like, 2007. What happened?
BYMAN: In the 1990s, there was a peace process where many people, myself included, really hoped that there would be a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And Gaza was run by Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. In 2000, the Second Intifada breaks out. And this is an incredibly bloody event that lasts for five years and continues on several years after that in a lesser form, where over a thousand Israelis die and over 5,000 Palestinians die. And when Yasser Arafat ran the Gaza Strip, his security services were incredibly brutal against Hamas and tried to aggressively crush it. And Hamas was quite weak, with many of its leaders in jail, and was only able to do a few limited operations in the late 1990s. But when the Second Intifada breaks out, one thing that Arafat does is he opens up the prisons. So Hamas becomes much stronger with many of its leaders returning.
In addition, and probably more importantly, Hamas' message becomes stronger. Hamas is able to say to ordinary Palestinians, look, negotiations get you nowhere. The way to take on Israel is to fight. So Hamas becomes much more popular. Israel, meantime, targets Arafat, targets the Palestinian Authority. So their message is weaker, but they're also operationally weaker. As the Intifada is ending, Israel decides to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. But the politics are so poisonous that it refuses to negotiate with moderate Palestinian leaders. It's saying to its own people, openly, we're doing this on our own terms. We're not doing this as part of a negotiation. But the result is when Israel withdraws in 2005, Hamas looks even stronger. Hamas says, Israel is now out of Gaza and it's not because of the Palestinian Authority. It's not because of negotiations. It's because of resistance. It's because of our fighting. And it gains a lot of credibility.
In 2006, there are elections in the Palestinian territories, and this is something pushed by the United States. And Hamas wins these elections. Now, it wins for two reasons. One is that the Palestinian Authority is seen as inept when it comes to governing. Many Palestinians rightly considered it highly corrupt and also very ineffective on things like basic services, such as picking up the trash or providing law and order. But Hamas also gains, because the Palestinian Authority was so overconfident, it bungled the election. Sometimes in the same district, the anti-Hamas candidates would run three or four candidates. And Hamas - the Hamas candidate might win 30% of the vote, but that was more than his rival. So Hamas wins the election without actually winning a majority of Palestinians. There's...
GROSS: But people always refer to how Hamas seized power, and you're talking about, like, winning an election. So what happened in between there?
BYMAN: So in 2006, Hamas wins the election. But this is disputed, and there's a question of, does Hamas control Gaza or - and how many rights does the Palestinian Authority have? And there is economic isolation. And Hamas believes that Israel and the Palestinian Authority and the United States are plotting to overthrow it. So there is a dispute about who has what political power, but Hamas simply seizes power in 2007. And many people refer to this as a Hamas coup. So from Hamas' point of view, it had democratic legitimacy because of 2006. From the point of view of its Palestinian rivals, Hamas simply threw all the procedures and rules out the window when it seized power.
GROSS: So Hamas governs the Gaza Strip. It's also a military group. It's shown its strength as fighters. How has it been at governing?
BYMAN: So Hamas has both strengths and weaknesses at governing. It has governed Gaza better than its predecessors. So Gaza was governed by Egypt and then by Israel and then by the Palestinian Authority. And in all those cases, basic services were poor. And that includes things like trash collection or fighting crime, which are very important to citizens on a day-to-day basis. And Hamas has done a better job in many cases than its predecessors. But Hamas has not been able to bring economic prosperity. And part of that is that it's not an organization that is focused on economics or trying to improve the investment climate or other basics for that. But Hamas would say it's also because of the economic pressure that Israel and its allies have placed on Gaza, that there's been a partial blockade on what goes in out of Gaza. And in a way, Israeli policy was very much designed to do this.
Israel was trying to message ordinary Palestinians that they should stick with the more pro-Israel Palestinian Authority and reject Hamas. And as a result, Israel has tried to limit economic development on Gaza, even as it's tried to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. And since Hamas has been in power for 17 years now, that meant that we have a generation of Gazans who have grown up with Hamas leadership and many of whom have been quite frustrated by it. They feel trapped in Gaza. And while they certainly blame Israel, they also blame Hamas.
GROSS: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman. He's a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown University. He's an expert on the Middle East and terrorism. And his books include "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a professor at Georgetown University. He's an expert on the Middle East and terrorism and the author of several books, including "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism."
As we've witnessed, Hamas has thousands of missiles. And it has - what? - tens of thousands more?
BYMAN: That's probably correct, and a very wide range, some short range, but many that are able to hit deep into Israel.
GROSS: Gaza is a small territory. And how does Hamas manage to get those missiles and to hide them? And I know a lot of them are hidden, like, underneath homes and perhaps underneath mosques. That's what Israel claims. But nevertheless, tens of thousands of missiles. How do you get them in, and how do you hide them?
BYMAN: So Hamas' capability comes from two overlapping sources. Iran has provided a range of missiles to Hamas, and some of these are smuggled in through tunnels, usually from Egypt. In addition, Iran has provided components of system. So you could smuggle them part by part. But perhaps most important, Iran has provided knowhow. So it's taught Hamas how to make these missiles. And that's the second source, is indigenous production. And, you know, go back a few decades, and we saw Hamas using these sorts of strikes, but it was very limited, right on the border of Gaza, just a few kilometers into Israel. Each year, it seemed, the range of these systems would grow. So more and more of Israel was threatened by Hamas.
In recent years, Israel has felt protected by antimissile systems, like Iron Dome, that have shot down missiles that have threatened population centers. But Hamas seems to have been able to smuggle in or acquire or build huge numbers which have simply overwhelmed the Iron Dome system, that so many were fired that Iron Dome could only shoot down a few of them. And that is a tremendous failure of Israeli intelligence, in my view. And as your question points out, the Gaza Strip is small, and Israel has covered it with intelligence assets for some time now. So to be able to hide these weapons, even in tunnels, even underneath various homes and mosques, is still quite an accomplishment. But Hamas has pulled it off. We have to recognize this as a Hamas success.
GROSS: I want to ask you about countries that support Hamas. We've talked a little bit about Iran. I want to ask you about Qatar. They're, I think, in an unusual situation. They've provided a billion dollars in aid to Hamas. But the U.S. has a major military base in Qatar, and I can't quite reconcile that. So why don't you try to explain what's going on?
BYMAN: So Qatar is one of those countries that has tried to punch above its diplomatic weight. It's a very small country, but it's a very rich country, and it's had a very active foreign policy for over a decade now. When the Arab Spring happened in 2011, Qatar saw a chance to increase its influence by working with various governments or movements associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the political Islamist movement that is the origin of Hamas. And it supported this in Egypt. It supported it in other countries. And so Hamas saw this as an opportunity to find an additional patron. And Israel, in some ways, perhaps surprisingly, was willing to cooperate with Qatar on this.
And part of it was because Israel does not want - or did not want, I should say - a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. It didn't want economic development, but it didn't want the people to starve. It wanted basic hospital services. So the question was, could the government in Qatar provide services to Palestinians that would not increase the military capacities of Hamas? And that's always a difficult line because whenever you're providing assistance of any sort, it frees up money for other projects, including military spending. It also means that Hamas can employ its people in these jobs, and they can draw salaries. So it's hard to kind of separate these completely. But the emphasis was on Qatar doing more social and economic projects, while that stands in contrast to something like Iran that has provided military support.
GROSS: The Saudis and Israel were starting to normalize relations. What do you think the war is going to do to possibly change that - interrupt it, prevent it?
BYMAN: In the short term, the war is a tremendous setback to Saudi-Israeli normalization. The Saudi-Israeli normalization was primarily about a shared enemy, Iran, and also Saudi Arabia's desire to get some support from the United States. It was suggesting U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's nuclear program and also a U.S. security guarantee for the kingdom. The expectation was Saudi Arabia would make some demand on the Palestinian front, but that it would be very modest because given Israel's political dynamics, Israel couldn't make real moves on that, and the Saudis knew it.
But with the Palestinian issue front and center, it's impossible for Saudi Arabia to make progress with Israel unless Israel makes very significant concessions on the Palestinian issue, which is simply not going to happen in an Israeli political context. So that very basic issue, which many people hoped would be on the backburner, is now front and center. Now, perhaps in six months, progress can resume. But in the short term at least, this is going to be very difficult.
GROSS: Do you think that Iran saw some kind of normalizing between the Saudis and Israel as a threat to Iran?
BYMAN: Certainly Iran's leaders saw Israel's normalization with Saudi Arabia and its previous normalization with countries like the UAE and Bahrain as a threat to Iran, in part because these countries have been quite explicit that they see Iran as a threat, and they believe working together against Iran is very important. So it's not surprising that Iran would seek to disrupt this. And it's trying to do that politically, but it's also trying to do it by supporting different militant groups. We still don't know...
GROSS: Like Hamas.
BYMAN: Exactly. Like Hamas and like Hezbollah. And there have been some reports that Iran was involved in this particular operation. I've seen indications that they have and a lot of people saying they haven't. It's hard for me to know at this stage, but it's, at the very least, part of why Iran has funded Hamas, provided weapons to Hamas, trained Hamas is so it can attack Israel, is so can target Iran's enemies. And in the last few days at least, from an Iranian point of view, that has paid off.
GROSS: Let's take another short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Daniel Byman. He's a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's a professor at Georgetown and author of several books about the Middle East and terrorism, including "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Daniel Byman, who has written extensively about the Middle East, and he's a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's a professor at Georgetown and author of several books, including "A High Price: The Triumphs And Failures Of Israeli Counterterrorism."
We've been talking about Gaza 'cause that's where Hamas is, but, you know, there's also the West Bank. And I'm wondering what you think this means, this war means for the West Bank and for what Israeli policy will be in the West Bank. And again, you know, the elected governing body in the West Bank is Fatah, which had been headed by Yasser Arafat. And Mahmoud Abbas became the successor, and he's been in power a very long time. He's in his 80s. He's considered out of touch by many people. So can we focus on the West Bank a little bit?
BYMAN: So in 2021, the West Bank saw the worst violence it had seen in many years. In 2022, it got worse. And this year, it seems on track to be even worse. So many of us were focused on violence in the West Bank, not Gaza, as the challenge for Israel. And part of this was because of the growth in settlements, the abuse of actions of Israeli settlers and a general sense among Palestinians in the West Bank that life was getting worse. So there was more support for different militant actors, including some terrorist groups that seemed completely new, that weren't tied to traditional organizations.
And part of the problem was that the traditional leadership led by Mahmoud Abbas was discredited. It was seen as corrupt. It was also seen as acting as an arm of Israeli intelligence, that it was arresting Palestinians rather than helping them fight Israel. The Palestinian Authority is, in my view, simply a relatively standard, corrupt and brutal government. It rules by providing a core group of people with some perks and privileges. It doesn't govern particularly well, and it has effective but fairly brutal security services that crack down on Palestinian dissent of any sort.
So it was discredited, and that's a broader problem, not just for the Palestinians, but also for Israel, that Israeli policies have helped discredit Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. And as a result, there's not someone to turn to who can govern territories like Gaza. It's hard to put someone like the Palestinian Authority in power there now because they are discredited, because of their ineptitude and their ties to Israel.
GROSS: What is your worst fear about what this new war might lead to? And do you have any hope that the end might resolve in a step forward, that whatever settlement is eventually reached or whatever victory is eventually reached might lead to some kind of brighter future?
BYMAN: My worst fear is that the conflict goes from being one between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to a much broader one, that unrest on the West Bank grows and spills over and the situation there becomes much more violent, that the Lebanese Hezbollah becomes more involved, and that we start to see violent attacks on Israelis or other violence around the world, and that what is right now a very bloody but limited conflict becomes part of the broader struggle against the West in the Middle East, against the United States and its allies, and something that really shapes the politics of countries around the world. I worry that this latest fighting will end up with a much worse situation. But at times, we have seen hope come out of very difficult circumstances.
As many people have observed, we're at the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war. And that was a war that, from Israel's point of view, seemed like a debacle - many Israelis dead, a successful surprise attack by Egypt and Syria. But the U.S. secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, was able to see an opportunity there. And he, along with Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, eventually made significant progress on peace that culminated in a peace deal between Israel and what had been its greatest enemy, Egypt. So out of war and disaster, you can have peace and more opportunities. But that's going to be exceptionally difficult in these circumstances. Israelis are - were already embittered against Palestinians, believing that the Second Intifada showed that they were committed to violence. And this will only reinforce that perception. The United States is not putting an emphasis on restarting peace negotiations in the Middle East. And as a result, I think it's going to be very difficult to take a very sad and bloody situation and have a silver lining to it in the end.
GROSS: As somebody who has studied Middle East relations for many years, what's it like for you to watch things fail and fail and fail and then get worse and worse with periods of getting better, but then getting worse?
BYMAN: It's incredibly disheartening that you have hope, and that hope could be in the 1990s with peace talks. It could be 2011 with what seemed like the outbreak of democracy in the Arab world. And then you see things worse off five years, 10 years later. And you see friends in the region who went from being optimists to having no hope. You see a generation that doesn't have political prospects and often doesn't have economic prospects. And as someone who analyzes and provides recommendations, you feel that your own contribution is something that has, at the very best, been ineffective, but perhaps has contributed to broader problems, that the solutions have not been taken, and that as a result, our kind of collective failure to move this forward shows that, as an analytic community, as a policy community, we need to do much better.
GROSS: Daniel Byman, thank you so much for talking with us.
BYMAN: My pleasure.
GROSS: Daniel Byman is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown University.
(SOUNDBITE OF STEVE REICH AND LONDON SINFONIETTA'S "VARIATIONS FOR VIBES, PIANOS, AND STRINGS: II. SLOW")
GROSS: Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guest will be Marty Baron, who was the executive editor of The Washington Post during the Trump presidency and when the Post was acquired by Jeff Bezos, as well as the transition that followed. Baron's new memoir is called "Collision Of Power: Trump, Bezos, And The Washington Post." I hope you'll join us.
FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Ann Marie Baldonado, Therese Madden, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley, and Susan Nyakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF STEVE REICH AND LONDON SINFONIETTA'S "VARIATIONS FOR VIBES, PIANOS, AND STRINGS: II. SLOW")
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 20, 2023 3:09:00 GMT
New York Post
Here’s all of the evidence that shows Hamas was responsible for hospital explosion
Story by Jesse O’Neill •
1d
Hamas immediately blamed Tuesday’s explosion at the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City on Israel and claimed more than 500 people were killed in a heinous targeted war crime.
But after an investigation and widespread protests in the Arab world, the Israel Defense Forces determined that the terror group’s Islamic Jihad arm was actually behind the disaster and had exaggerated the death toll in its attempts to frame it as a false flag attack.
Here’s how Israel backed up its claim:
IDF briefing
On Wednesday, IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari released the findings of his military’s After Action Review, which concluded “a barrage of around 10 rockets was fired by Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery” at 6:59 p.m., the same time word came of an explosion at the medical center.
idfanc.activetrail.biz/ANC1810202362
He said investigators found that “there was no IDF fire” that hit the hospital and radar systems tracked Hamas rockets fired from close proximity to it.
He also cited videos that showed a failed rocket falling in the hospital compound and said investigators found no evidence of “craters and structural damage” that would have been consistent with an airstrike.
“The IDF acts in accordance with international law,” Hagari said, noting that some media outlets “ran with Hamasâ lies.”
Here’s all of the evidence that shows Hamas was responsible for hospital explosion
© Provided by New York Post
Bodies of Palestinians killed in an at the Ahli Arab Hospital, lie at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City Tuesday.ZUMAPRESS.com
“In conclusion, this incident shows how allegations â in this case, false and baseless allegations made by terrorists â against Israel can spread and inflame tensions in the region,” he said, referring to widespread protests in the Arab world.
Hagari said Hamas was also “inflating the number of casualties” in its narrative of the events.
Hamas audio recording
The IDF also released an audio recording Wednesday morning of what it said were two Islamic Jihad terrorists conceding responsibility for the accidental attack.
nypost.com/2023/10/18/idf-releases-audio-of-terrorists-admitting-they-fired-at-hospital/
âIs it from us?â one operative is heard asking on the recording, according to the IDFâs translation.
âIt looks like it,â his cohort replies.
Islamic Jihad struck a Hospital in Gazaâthe IDF did not.
Listen to the terrorists as they realize this themselves: pic.twitter.com/u7WyU8Rxwz
t.co/u7WyU8Rxwz
— Israel Defense Forces (@idf) October 18, 2023
The purported members of Islamic Jihad are then heard acknowledging that the shrapnel of the missile âare local pieces, and not Israeli shrapnel,â from rockets fired from the âcemetery behind the hospital.â
âBut God bless, it couldnât have found another place to explode?â one of them asked.
US defense assessment
President Biden, in Israel to show solidarity with the staunch US ally, told reporters Wednesday that Israel was not to blame for the attack, citing âthe data I was shown by my Defense Department.â
Based on what Iâve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,â Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Tel Aviv press conference.
While we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday,â Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in a statement, according to CNN.
www.cnn.com/2023/10/18/politics/us-intel-gaza-hospital-blast/index.html
Independent analysis
Several independent analysts said their preliminary investigations supported the IDF’s claims, including GeoConfirmed, a group of volunteers that uses geolocation data and other publicly available information to evaluate incidents.
The group said on X that “a missile launched by a Palestinian group [which] exploded mid-air (reason unknown) and one piece fell on the hospital causing an explosion.”
It also cited Australian Strategic Policy Institute Cyber, Technology & Security researcher Nathan Ruser’s debunking of footage that purported to prove the IDF had launched an air strike at the hospital.
Here’s all of the evidence that shows Hamas was responsible for hospital explosion
© Provided by New York Post
Palestinians take part in a protest in support of the people in Gaza, after the blast at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza that Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed on each other.REUTERS
Ruser said he had proven that the footage was actually “from a totally different incident, hour after the hospital blast and shows a strike 1.5-4km away.”
We have none of the indicators of an airstrikeânone,â Michael Knights, an expert on security and military issues at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told The Wall Street Journal.
www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-tries-to-back-up-claims-it-didnt-attack-gaza-hospital-a8cc3405
What you have instead is a scene that very clearly was hit by a rolling fireball,” he said adding that was consistent with the Israeli militaryâs explanation that a rocket misfired. Knights also said he doubted that would have resulted in a “mass casualty incident.”
Other Hamas rocket misfires
Israel also noted that 450 rockets had “misfired and fell inside Gaza” in the 11 days since war broke out, and the IDF released an infographic of the failed launches to support its assertion about the hospital explosion.
idfanc.activetrail.biz/1810202309876543672
Video footage showing no impact craters
The IDF also released aerial footage of the hospital compound filmed Wednesday morning which does not show any of the impact that would have been caused by an Israeli missile.
videoidf.azureedge.net/3a30da33-256a-4ac1-b1f0-af5818b1cd42
It instrad illustrates a lack of a large crater in the parking lot where the explosion occurred.
So letâs walk through it.
We now have video of the scene showing the explosion is from the parking lot and the buildings are in tact. There is no crater, no building demolished. This is inconsistent with the type of bomb many were suggesting yesterday. pic.twitter.com/HFKKxS8kvr pic.twitter.com/SpgG3Ktbiy
t.co/HFKKxS8kvr
— AG (@aghamilton29) October 18, 2023 Hospital statement
The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East runs the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, and on Wednesday officials walked back a statement blaming Israel, according to The Journal.
Hosam Naoum, the Anglican archbishop in Jerusalem, reportedly declined to assign blame when asked by reporters and said the hospital’s parking lot was directly hit by the explosion, not the medical facility |
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 20, 2023 3:16:27 GMT
disgraceful performance by Tlaib. She appears to be blind to what HAMAS is all about and who actually bombed the hospital in Gaza.
Rashida Tlaib Breaks Down In Tears During Furious Speech Against Biden Over Israel
17,133 views Oct 18, 2023
At a rally in Washington, D.C., Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) slammed President Biden's response to Israel retaliating against Gaza after Hamas's massive terror attack.
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 27, 2023 20:41:38 GMT
The problem with Hamas for many Palestinians
www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/10/27/hamas-problem-palestine
09:44 traffic.megaphone.fm/BUR1918060961.mp3
Resume
October 27, 2023
Scott Tong and Adeline Sire
Yasmine Mohammed is a self-described ex-Muslim. (Courtesy of Yasmine Mohammed)
It might seem obvious that the Palestinian people are different and distinct from Hamas, the Islamist militant group that runs Gaza. But Yasmine Mohammed argues that many people still conflate the two.
www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/opinions/israel-hamas-gaza-palestinians-oppose-terror-mohammed/index.html
www.yasminemohammed.com/
Mohammed is a Canadian author and activist who heads the charity Free Hearts Free Minds, which supports LGBTQ communities and unconventional thinkers in Muslim countries. Her father was a Palestinian, and her mother is Egyptian.
WBUR is a nonprofit news organization. Our coverage relies on your financial support. If you value articles like the one you're reading right now, give today.
secure.wbur.org/WebModule/Donate.aspx?P=ARTICLE&PAGETYPE=PLG&CHECK=HtGGMPCN%2fc4Is4srHLu1%2b%2bzWDeZ%2beA1M
After her mother remarried, Mohammed grew up in a fundamentalist Islamic home in Vancouver, and at age 19, she was forced to marry a man who turned out to be an Al-Qaeda operative. She managed to escape that life. She has also left the Muslim faith.
Her views can be controversial, and 'Yasmine Mohammed' is a pen name she says she uses because of personal safety concerns.
Mohammed remembers her father, who grew up in Gaza, calling Hamas “the ugly face of the Palestinian struggle.”
She says he was upset that people could equate terrorism with Palestinian resistance.
www.peacecomms.org/videos/v/e22derlacl8yz7adh68z9mkswwe3t4
“People don't want the face of the resistance to be terrorists,” she says. “It’s like calling ISIS the face of Syrians or Iraqis. This is an unfortunate situation. Hamas have been getting so much funding from Iran and other Islamist countries ... It’s easy for them to become the voice of the Palestinian people because all the other voices are being completely silenced.”
She says Hamas has cracked down on protest movements in Gaza like We Want to Live. There are other movements like the campaign Whispered in Gaza, which provides anonymous testimonies shared on social media.
“They're talking about how unhappy they are under the Hamas leadership and how tyrannized they are,” she says.
Mohammed says Gaza is not the only place where the voices of the people have been silenced.
“We saw a very similar thing happening when the Iranian people were fighting against the Islamic regime. People assume, ‘Oh, it's your leadership and you voted them in. So, therefore, you must agree with what they do,'" she says. "But we have to remember, Hamas was voted in 18 years ago. The Iranian regime was voted in 40 years ago, and these are not functioning democracies where people can just vote them out,” she says.
In her memoir, “Unveiled,” Mohammed argues that radical Islam is empowered by Western liberals. She says you can see that at some of the rallies that have taken place around the world since the attacks of Oct. 7 in Israel.
“It's personified in the people chanting, ‘gas, the Jews’ in Sydney, Australia, or chanting ‘Khaibar, Khaibar,’ which is in reference to the slaughter of Jewish people by the prophet Mohammed. We want to support Muslim people 100%, and we want to support especially free-thinking Muslim people,” she adds, “but that does not mean that we should be out on the streets supporting Hamas.”
Mohammed says that the Palestinian people do not want their way out of this crisis to be through violence or killing innocent civilians.
“That is not how they want to be seen to the world," she says.
Adeline Sire produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Grace Griffin adapted it for the web.
This segment aired on October 27, 2023.
Who were the militants who attacked Israel?
www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/10/27/israel-attack-hamas
NPR spoke with a neighbor and family member of one perpetrator for clues on where they come from.
Resume
07:09 traffic.megaphone.fm/BUR4226893588.mp3
2 hours ago
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 28, 2023 0:05:02 GMT
Israeli spokesperson equates humanitarian aid with 'supplying the resources the enemy needs'
MSNBC
23,013 views Oct 14, 2023 #Gaza #Israel #HumanitarianAid
Asked about allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy told Tom Llamas that "Israel does not have an obligation to continue supplying the resources the enemy needs in order to continue advancing its assault against Israeli civilians."
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Post by the Scribe on Nov 17, 2023 6:45:31 GMT
Jordan as Palestine: A paradigm shift for a two-state solution
www.jns.org/jordan-as-palestine-a-paradigm-shift-for-a-two-state-solution/
Israel should not be expected to bear the burden of providing the Palestinians with a national homeland.
MOSHE DANN
(May 3, 2018 / JNS)
The problem with “the two-state solution”—creating a sovereign independent Palestinian state west of the Jordan River—is that a Palestinian state already exists east of the Jordan River; it’s called Jordan. Its population is predominantly “Palestinian,” and it is located in the eastern part of what was once called “Palestine.” Demographically and geographically, therefore, Jordan is a Palestinian state.
The Oslo Accords, however, removed the “Jordanian option” from the range of possible alternatives. Instead, Yasser Arafat, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority were installed as the rulers of what was intended to be another Palestinian state west of the Jordan River. The so-called “peace plan” failed not only because of Palestinian terrorism, but because of opposition to Israel’s existence. Moreover, the P.A., which includes Hamas and other Arab terrorist organizations, and the PLO never intended it to work. Their goal is to destroy Israel.
Although Arafat signed the Oslo Accords on behalf of the PLO and the PLO was obligated to remove the clauses in the Palestinian National Covenant that call for the destruction of Israel, it never did. Although an ad hoc form of the PLO’s Palestinian National Council met in April 1996 and approved amending the Covenant in principle, it did not change the Covenant; it merely gave a PNC committee the authority to do so or to draw up a completely new charter. Nor did they specify which articles would be changed or how that would be done. By leaving the Covenant intact, the PLO sends a clear message that it has not renounced violence nor accepted Israel’s right to exist.
Moreover, since the P.A. did not sign the accords, it is not bound by them; it is accountable, if at all, only to the PLO, which Mahmoud Abbas also heads.
Rather than understand why the Oslo Accords and what became known as “the two-state-solution” failed and reconsider alternatives, its architects, planners and supporters cling to their fantasies. Coaxing and bribing Palestinians to make a deal always fail because that would mean ending the conflict and accepting Israel—a betrayal of what Palestinianism is all about.
Establishing a second Palestinian state—or third if one includes Hamastan in the Gaza Strip—would lead to destabilization and increase the chances for violence between competing entities, gangs and militias that could spill over into Israel. Cross-border attacks are inevitable. Jordan might seek to expel its “Palestinian” citizens to the new state. And a power struggle would ensue over who represents the Palestinians and what constitutes the territorial basis for “Palestinian national identity.” With Islamist forces waiting to take advantage of any power vacuum, the area would plunge into a Somalia-like chaos.
Rather than abandon the idea of achieving Palestinian self-determination by establishing another failed state, the problem can be resolved by changing one word: “the” to “a.” Recognizing that Jordan fulfills the definition of a Palestinian state would defuse the toxic demand for another Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank of Jordan”).
A “two-state solution” approach accepts the idea of “two states for two peoples” based on the reality of an already existing sovereign state on territory designated as “Palestinian,” where three-fourths of its inhabitants are “Palestinian.” According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, there were nearly 4 million Arabs of Palestinian descent living in Jordan in 2009, about half of whom were registered as refugees in 2014 and about 20 percent of whom live in UNRWA-sponsored “camps.” Most, but not all, Palestinian residents have Jordanian citizenship; Jordan is the only Arab country that granted citizenship to Palestinians.
Arabs living in Israel and P.A.-controlled areas who consider themselves “Palestinian” and seek national self-determination can affiliate with a Palestinian-Jordanian state and move there if they wish. Those who prefer to stay in Israel can be allowed to do so with full civil, but not national rights—as is now the case.
Promoting Jordan as the Arab Palestinian state is consistent with international law and the British Mandate that created Jordan in 1922 as part of a “two-state-solution.” It would resolve the problem of national self-determination for Arabs living in Judea and Samaria and for those in Israel as well.
Unlike previous “Jordan is Palestine” plans, this plan does not intend or require that anyone move or border changes. Jordan recognized the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers, the Dead Sea and Arava as the international boundary in its peace treaty with Israel. The P.A. can continue to function as a political entity on condition that all incitement and terrorist activity cease.
Recognizing Jordan as a Palestinian state while maintaining its status as a monarchy, reflects the national identity of a majority of its population. Highly popular Queen Rania is considered a Palestinian (via her parents). Palestinians are a growing segment of Jordan’s political life and its parliament. Jordan is viable with a relatively stable economic and political structure. It has vast areas of unused land, but lacks people and water.
In order for Jordan to absorb large numbers of people and flourish, it needs water, which would allow it to extend its population centers eastwards. Utilizing abundant water sources in Turkey and or the Caspian Sea—the largest body of fresh water in the world—could turn eastern Jordan into an oasis, providing agricultural products, enabling business and industrial centers, and creating regional stability and economic development.
The possibility that Jordan could become an economic-trade center was recently given gravity when Israel’s Minister of Transportation proposed a rail link between Haifa and Jordan, which would connect European markets with Jordan, and from there to the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. The recently rebuilt rail line between Haifa and Beit Shean is the beginning of this plan.
Non-Israeli Arabs who wish to remain under Israeli sovereignty as permanent residents could apply for Israeli citizenship; or they could choose to remain as citizens in P.A.-administrated areas; or they could continue as Jordanian citizens living in Israel. The choice should be theirs.
Arabs living in UNRWA-administered towns in Lebanon and Syria should be given the opportunity to become citizens in their host countries; they should be absorbed into the countries where they exist or allowed to emigrate. International-aid programs should be operated only by countries, not UNRWA.
Let there be no misunderstanding. I oppose Palestinianism and a Palestinian state whose only purpose—according to the PLO and Hamas Charters and its leaders—is the eradication of Israel. Preaching hatred and fomenting terrorism in their schools and media, it glorifies jihadism and promotes “martyrdom.” Why support that?
I do not suggest or intend in any way the overthrow of the current Jordanian government. Jordan is a strategic partner, and hopefully, will continue to be. The Jordanians, however, have a responsibility towards Arab Palestinians, and Israel should not be expected to bear the burden of providing them with a national homeland.
A two-state solution—Israel and Jordan—is in the national interests of both countries. It will bring peace and prosperity, and ensure the security and stability of the region. A Jordanian-Israeli confederation will replace failure and despair with opportunity and hope; it will inspire creativity, cooperation and freedom—the raison d’être of nation-states.
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Post by the Scribe on Dec 12, 2023 22:02:22 GMT
OPINION
Here’s how the Palestinians got their name
www.thejewishstar.com/stories/heres-how-the-palestinians-got-their-name,22410
Posted April 3, 2023
Visitor examines a Philistine Map in the Corinne Mamane Museum of Philistine Culture in Ashdod, Israel. In 135 CE, the Romans renamed the land of Israel as “Palestine,” referencing the Philistines — who had disappeared by the 6th century BCE.
ED WEINTROB, THE JEWISH STAR
The Palestinians can call themselves whatever they want, but they cannot hijack 3,000 years of history.”
By James Sinkinson
Arabs living in what Jews call the Land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria, call themselves “Palestinians” after “Palestine,” the non-Jewish term for the region.
They did not do so until quite recently, but nonetheless, many Arabs in the region and their sympathizers have co-opted the words “Palestine” and “Palestinian” to give their national movement a sense of longevity, credibility and ownership.
The word “Palestine” is not Arab or Middle Eastern in origin. It dates back 1,900 years and is derived from a people who were not native to the region — the Philistines, a people from the Aegean Sea who were closely related to the ancient Greeks. They lived on the coast of what is now the Gaza Strip and Israel, but had disappeared by the 6th century BCE.
The name associated with them, however, did not die out. The Romans, in a fit of spite, reapplied the term “Palestine” to the Land of Israel centuries later, after they defeated a Judean uprising in 135 CE.
In effect, the Romans sought to erase the association between the Land of Israel and the Jewish people.
The “Palestine” moniker continued to be used long after the Roman Empire fell. When Muslim armies conquered the region in 629 CE, they Arabized the name to “Filastin.” This term cannot be found in the Quran, while the name “Israel” is mentioned several times.
The regional name “Palestine” endured. During the Middle Ages, it became common in early modern English and was employed by the Crusaders. But for nearly 2,000 years, it never referred to a country or a group of people.
In short, for most of recorded history, there were never any “Palestinians.”
After World War I, the modern contours of “Palestine” were established. The British Mandate for Palestine originally consisted of present-day Israel, Gaza, Judea and Samaria, and Jordan.
During the British Mandate period, the term “Palestinian” usually referred to Jews living in the Mandate, as well as their institutions.
Before Israel was founded, several prominent Jewish and Zionist organizations used the name “Palestine.” These included the Palestine Post newspaper and the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, which are now the Jerusalem Post and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
At the time, many Arabs in British Mandatory Palestine considered themselves part of Greater Syria rather than “Palestinians.” In 1937, a local Arab leader told the Palestine Royal Commission, “There is no such country [as Palestine]. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented! Our country for centuries was part of Syria.”
Arab historian Philip Hitti echoed this sentiment shortly before Israel declared independence, saying, “There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not.”
The watershed moment for the “Palestinian” national movement came after the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel won control of Judea and Samaria from Jordan. The words of author Walid Shoebat of Bethlehem sum up the profound shift in local Arabs’ identity: “On June 4, 1967, I was a Jordanian, and overnight I became a Palestinian.”
Since 1967, a whole national mythology has been created around the terms “Palestine” and “Palestinian.” For example, the Palestinian Arabs have claimed to be descendants of the Canaanites who preceded the ancient Israelites and Philistines in the Holy Land.
In 2018, Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations’ Security Council, “We are the descendants of the Canaanites that lived in the land 5,000 years ago and continued to live there to this day.”
But most Palestinians trace their origins to prominent tribes in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Egypt. Yasser Arafat was born in Egypt. Even the Kanaan family in Nablus (Shechem) traces its ancestry to Syria. In any case, the Canaanites had disappeared more than 1,600 years before the Arabs first arrived in the Holy Land.
Preposterously, Palestinians have even asserted that Jesus was a Palestinian. In a 2013 Christmas message, Abbas called Jesus a “Palestinian messenger.” In 2019, Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour posted on Twitter, “Jesus was a Palestinian of Nazareth.”
We beg the pardon of Mr. Abbas and his fellow fantasists, but Jesus was a Jew from Judea, which was named Judea because it was and still is the homeland of the Jewish people.
While Arabs in the region are free to call themselves whatever they want, they are not free to hijack the 3,000-year history of the Holy Land for themselves. In the end, the name “Palestine” represents the Jews’ original dispossession of their homeland 1,900 years ago. |
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