As Israel’s necessary drive to eliminate Hamas proceeds, everyone’s motives are growing ever more clear: The terrorists wanted their Oct. 7 atrocities to set the Middle East ablaze to derail the prospects of Arab-Israeli peace — and the “pro-Palestinian” protesters across the West really want Israel eliminated.
Hamas’ intent was obvious to us from the start; even The New York Times woke up, with a report last week that “in the bloody arithmetic of Hamas’s leaders, the carnage is not the regrettable outcome of a big miscalculation. Quite the opposite, they say: It is the necessary cost of a great accomplishment — the shattering of the status quo and the opening of a new, more volatile chapter in their fight against Israel.”
And that the intent was to “set off a sustained conflict that ends any pretense of coexistence among Israel, Gaza and the countries around them.”
Indeed, The Washington Post now reports that “Hamas envisioned deeper attack in Israel on Oct. 7,” as its leaders “intended to strike a blow of historic proportions with the expectation that their actions would compel an overwhelming Israeli response.”
In essence, diplomacy starting with the Trump-era Abraham Accords had Jerusalem building ties across the Arab world, with the Saudis poised to regularize relations to create a unified front against Iran that could also eventually lead to a two-state solution for Palestinian — a solution that would shut out Hamas and Iran’s other terrorist pawns.
So Hamas’ brain trust in Qatar (consulting closely with their paymasters in Tehran) decided to force Israel to go into Gaza to root out their fighters there, betting this would push Arab opinion back into “destroy Israel” mode.
For a taste of how well it’s working, consider the “pro-Palestine” rallies in the West, such as the nearly half a million in London Saturday, or Friday night’s demonstration in the city.
Perhaps 2,000 gathered in Columbus Circle, chanting “We don’t want a Jewish state. We want ’48!” — meaning Palestine before Israel’s founding — as well as “from the river to the sea,” more code for destroying the Jewish state.
Oh, and: “Settlers, settlers go back home! Palestine is ours alone!”
Funny: Most Israelis today are the descendants not of Europeans who went there in the wake of the Holocaust, but of Jews who’d dwelt in the Middle East since forever, many driven out of surrounding nations after 1948.
The Arab world was finally becoming reconciled to Israel’s existence, with real peace dawning.
Hamas enacted the worst pogrom since the Holocaust to prevent peace, and the protests around the world aren’t really about the plight of Gazans now but the existence of Israel.
Consider the lines drawn.