TEL AVIV, ISRAEL MAY 15, 2021: Multiple Iron Dome (kippat barzel) missiles intercept and destroy short-range rockets launched from Gaza during Operation Guardian of the Walls. Long exposure image
The Palestinian–Israeli War, better described as the Hamas–Israeli War, began on May 10, when the Palestinians/Hamas attacked Israel with rockets. Ultimately, for 11 continuous days and nights, Hamas shot more than 4,000 rockets into Israel across a wide spectrum of the land.
In return, Israel unleashed massive retaliatory strikes against much more focused targets, aiming mostly at Hamas leadership. A cease-fire was declared on May 21.
If the analysis goes no further than Hamas against Israel, the real protagonist will have achieved its objective without paying any price for the death and destruction caused. This description can’t possibly be accepted by the Biden administration. It would stand in the way of their obsession with reversing all things Trump, without any further analysis.
This war was a proxy war. It can be best described by comparing it to one of the scenes in “The Godfather” when Vito Corleone explains to his consigliere, Tom Hagen, who was really behind the attempt to kill him and destroy his family: “Tattaglia is a pimp. He never could have outfought Santino. But I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini all along.”
Substitute Hamas for Tattaglia and the Islamic Republic of Iran for Barzini, and it becomes: “Hamas is a pimp. It never could have outfought Israel. But I didn’t know until this day that it was Iran all along.”
Ben Hunt, who used the quote on the investing website Epsilon Theory as an example of erroneous financial analysis, observed: “Once Vito understood why Philip Tattaglia was going after him, that he was just a stooge for Emilio Barzini, everything changed for the Corleone family.”
Can Biden make the same deduction?
But what ultimately saved the Corleone family wasn’t just the observation of Barzini’s causal influence, it was the strategy that adjusted to the new reality of why.
Can Biden adjust his strategy?
To get there, it’s necessary to go beyond the obvious: Biden appears to rely solely on others. Unfortunately, they’re mostly the same ideologues who were conned into the 2015 agreement with the Regime of Terror. It would take a massive admission of serious error in judgment. The safety and security of Israel, and ultimately of the United States, hangs in the balance. Sometimes, just sometimes, even corrupted politicians and exalted advisers can act in the best interests of their country.
Iranian Support
For decades, the Regime of Terror has been supporting Hamas. It dates to at least 1987. It first started with organizational and operative support from Iran through Hezbollah to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). In 1993, Iran publicly pledged $30 million in annual support directly for Hamas’s anti-Israel offensive.
This was repeated regularly until there was a separation between Hamas and Hezbollah because of Hezbollah’s and Iran’s role in Syria, where Assad was slaughtering his own people. But genocide never really stood for long between terrorists who were possessed with common goals such as their pathological desire to destroy Israel and, ultimately, the United States. This rift was mended at the urging of the Regime of Terror, by reminding the Assad regime, Hezbollah, and Hamas of their common goals.
In October 2017, Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’s second in command, led a Hamas delegation to Tehran and met with Quds Force Commander the late Qassem Soleimani, who assured them of Iran’s support. Slightly thereafter, in November 2017, al-Arouri met in Beirut with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. According to media reports at the time, both sides agreed to place their disagreements over Syria behind them so they could stand together against Israel.
This created a virtual blank check for Hamas for money, weapons, training, and cooperation. Iran has since supplied Hamas with cash, anti-tank missiles, IEDs, and training in modern warfare. Most importantly, it has assisted Hamas in the procurement of much-longer-range and more sophisticated missiles, 4,000 of which have just been used to attack Israel.
Remember, Hamas is a pimp. It has been the Regime of Terror making it possible for Hamas to do damage to Israel, culminating in this war as an exercise that could yield valuable intelligence about Israeli defenses. Iran may be using Hamas, but unlike Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and most of the media, they realize that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are both entirely dysfunctional. They’re governed by incompetent terrorists in Gaza, and thoroughly corrupt former terrorists in the West Bank.
Unlike the “ivory tower” elite in the United States and much of Western Europe, Iran isn’t going to trust pimps to carry out its national objective, the destruction of Israel. So, Iran has built its own terrorist organization funded and controlled entirely by Tehran. It’s called “Al-Sabirin.” It operates in both Gaza and the West Bank. It gives Iran flexibility for both independent and coordinated terrorist attacks and actions in the Palestinian Authority and beyond.
There’s little doubt that some of Obama’s major investment in the Regime of Terror was used to fund Al-Sabirin. Even worse, according to Gen. Jack Keane, it’s likely that some of the billions Obama gave Iran were used to purchase the rockets used to attack Israel. Biden seems to be ready to make similar infusions of cash into a regime that utilizes at least 50 percent of its funds for terrorism. Are Obama or Biden or both so removed from reality that it never occurred to them that’s why the terrorists required so much of the money in cash?
Looking for an Opportunity
The proximate cause of the massive rocket attacks was allegedly Israel’s rough treatment of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who were at the Al-Aqsa mosque on May 8 for the closing days of Ramadan. It was also allegedly aggravated by Israeli property owners who wanted to evict Palestinian families from East Jerusalem.
As usual, the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-U.S. media suppressed two key facts. Like all of Europe, Israel placed a limitation on gatherings because of the CCP virus hysteria. The limit for the Al-Aqsa mosque was a very generous 10,000 people. When the crowds became more like 30,000 or 40,000, Israeli police attempted to get them to comply, and violence broke out. Within days, rockets were launched from Gaza, one landing right outside Jerusalem. This was obviously a set-up and the prelude to 11 days of launching 4,000 rockets aimed at targets throughout most of Israel.
The biased media also never made clear that the Palestinians who were to be evicted hadn’t paid rent for years or that their lease had expired. A landlord-tenant dispute hardly explains Hamas’s massive, continuous rocket attack on mostly civilian targets.
The real reason for this disproportionate response lies with the Regime of Terror seeking an opportunity to observe any weaknesses they could discern in an all-out challenge to the Iron Dome, Israel’s very effective missile defense system. It was also payback for the Trump administration’s elimination of the Iranian terrorist-in-chief Soleimani.
They certainly wouldn’t have done this while Trump was in office; much like the recent aggressiveness of North Korea, Russia, and China, they have no fear of Biden. They realize his obvious cognitive impairment, and they will push as hard and as far as they can. Maybe even more proximate, Iran has blamed Israel’s Mossad for the attack on the Natanz nuclear power facility. It has described it as terrorism and an act of war. This follows last November’s assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the mastermind of the covert Iranian nuclear weapons program.
These attacks on the Regime of Terror’s nuclear mastermind and its nuclear program were carried out within Iran, a “police state” where protesters are shot down in the streets. These penetrations along with the 2 1/2 years of endless protests in almost every Iranian city, exposes for the world to see, that, like all maniacal dictatorships, it’s one day away from being overthrown.
The only question is to correctly predict the day or the hour, but it will inevitably happen. Remember the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the demise of the Soviet Union, even the deposing of Mubarak and Qaddafi came as somewhat of a surprise when it actually happened.
Now that it’s clear that Hamas and much of the Palestinian Authority is a proxy for Iran and a partner with the Regime of Terror in expanding terrorist attacks, it would seem that Biden policies would be altered. Despite all of this, however, the Biden administration seems intent on renewing the nuclear agreement with the Regime of Terror and making the Palestinian Authority into an independent nation.
Biden proclaims he will always be loyal to Israel, but everything he does is inconsistent with the best interests of Israel or even potentially fatal to Israel.
Not Ready to Be a Nation
The Palestinian Authority has once again demonstrated it isn’t ready to become a nation. In the West Bank, the Fatah allegedly steals much of the money given to them by the United States. In the Gaza Strip, Hamas uses whatever they can get their hands on to buy rockets and munitions to kill Jews and hopefully, some Americans. Their latest actions reveal clearly that if the Palestinian Authority did become a state, it would be allied with, and part of, the aspirational Iranian empire.
But, even this doesn’t seem to pierce the obsession with another deal with Iran. Maybe Biden and his handlers can’t get beyond just undoing everything Trump accomplished to make the region safer and the United States more secure.
Hamas’s last bold action against Israel was during the previous Democrat administration, which also included Biden and a president also anxious to please Iran. Biden even seems willing to end or loosen the sanctions and give Iran billions, such as the money he released to the Palestinian Authority a few weeks ago. All this movement toward an agreement with a homicidal dictatorship committed to destroying the State of Israel belies Biden’s statement of support.
It’s also contradicted by the goal of a two-state solution. An administration focused on protecting Israel and seriously considering the best interests of the United States would realize that that goal long ago became not only unrealistic but also very dangerous. There’s simply no good reason for us to take dysfunctional populations governed by leaders in the north who allegedly steal their money and in the south by terrorists and make them an independent nation. Creating another state sponsor of terrorism that will be subjugated to the biggest state sponsor of terrorism isn’t only fatal to Israel but presents great danger to the United States.
To this day in the Palestinian Authority, children are taught to hate and kill Israelis, Jews, and Americans.
Yet, all this compelling evidence of the dangers of a Palestinian state doesn’t prevent Democrats from drawing a moral equivalency between a developed nation and assemblage of terrorists and crooks. The current U.S. secretary of state announced that there’s much more of a burden on Israel to avoid killing children. How ridiculous. The burden is the same for everyone not to kill children. In the case of the Palestinians, it’s much greater because they deliberately use children as human shields to protect their terrorist bosses and their most destructive munitions.
What’s wrong with Biden, his administration, and the Democratic Party? Biden has only now, after much criticism, named an ambassador to Israel. Trump did it a month before his inauguration, and Obama, the day after. Asleep at the switch is the kindest description.
Therefore, all the talk of a two-state solution and a Palestinian state is liberal fantasy—which is a fatal fantasy. With this obvious difference between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, it’s impossible to understand the Biden administration continuing to argue for a two-state solution. It would mean we were establishing a new country controlled by the Ayatollah, governed by terrorists and crooks, and extending the empire Iran is trying to establish in the Middle East.
Similarly, one would think this will end any discussion of a new nuclear deal with Iran. This of course, depends on whether Biden, this administration, and the Democratic Party can discern the best interests of the United States.
A much more constructive approach would be to impose conditions on Palestinians toward becoming a nation. Simply make it clear they’re too dangerous to the safety and security of Israel, the United States, and many other lawful nations to become an independent state at this time. But if they can refrain from terrorism for a designated period of 5 to 10 years, cease teaching hatred and murder to their children, and assure through transparent accountability that the money they receive reaches the people, then they will be able to make a credible case.
Rudy Giuliani is the former mayor of New York City.
