In his handle to Israel’s Knesset following the discharge of 20 residing hostages by Hamas, President Donald Trump mentioned a number of issues that mirror wishful pondering. Amongst them: “The forces of chaos which have plagued the area are completely defeated.” “The enemies of all civilization are in retreat.” And the “lengthy and painful nightmare is lastly over.”
Whereas the president and his group of negotiators are rightly given full credit score for attaining this second (even by many Democrats), there isn’t any proof that Israel’s enemies see it his approach. This battle could also be over, however Israel’s enemies don’t share the identical view.
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) retains tabs on what terrorist teams and others are saying a couple of post-Gaza future. It has compiled 20 examples that present the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) actual intensions. Within the PA’s Oct. 2 publication there was this: “It might be essential to discover a strategy to persuade Hamas to utterly go away the realm for a yr or two. Later, when issues change into clearer, we are able to search for methods to carry Hamas again to operation.”
After Trump gained re-election final November, PMW President Itamar Marcus informed The Washington Free Beacon: “(Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud) Abbas and his individuals hate Trump. They assume he’s less than their stage of humanity. They mock the best way he appears. They mock the best way he talks. Now that Trump would be the president once more, they assume they will play him, however he ought to acknowledge precisely who they’re. They see themselves as in a camp with Russia and China and the Islamic world, and they’re diametrically against American coverage world wide.”
In a Sept. 29 speech to the U.N. Normal Meeting, Abbas claimed the PA had “rejected violence and terrorism” and “adopted a tradition of peace.” And but the day earlier than, the PA’s official day by day continued to glorify the terrorist murderers who killed six in an assault in Jerusalem three weeks earlier as Palestinian and Islamic heroes. That is one other instance of the duplicity by which Israel’s enemies have engaged a minimum of since 1948 when the trendy state was restored in its historical Jewish homeland.
Want extra examples for why this newest “peace” is just not what the West has been hoping for?
Palestinian colleges aren’t educating kids to put down their rhetorical arms towards Israel, however to ratchet them up. PMW discovered a younger woman in a Hebron faculty who mentioned that the Oct. 7 bloodbath and hostage taking by Hamas was a “stunning dream…We woke as much as the sounds of laughter…it was inconceivable to specific the feelings in our hearts, and we by no means imagined such satisfaction in our individuals on our faces. The sense of honor that we felt is indescribable.”
Don’t depend on “journalists,” who’ve been pressured and threatened by Hamas to hold solely their storyline, to inform the reality. As Marcus wrote for PMW on Sept. 1: “Journalists in Gaza, whether or not working for Palestinian media or international newspapers, know that deviating from Hamas’s model of occasions locations their freedom and even their lives in peril. Survival comes first; reality comes second.”
Celebrating the discharge of hostages and mourning the useless is a authentic response to the tip of the present Gaza battle. However Israel, the U.S. and the remainder of the civilized world mustn’t have interaction in self-delusion, particularly since Israel’s enemies haven’t repealed their charters calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, nor have they heard from Allah that he has modified his thoughts and informed Muslims to depart at peace with Israel.
Provided that indeniable reality, primarily based on historical past and customary sense, this isn’t the time for Israel to beat its swords into ploughshares.
Readers could e-mail Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Search for Cal Thomas’ newest e-book “A Watchman within the Evening: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).
