The View from Hamas Periscopes

And from the windows of their 5 Star Qatari Hotels

As the nearly endless Israeli concessions to the Biden Administration re-election staff (or CREEP for those who are old enough to remember) regarding the so called “hostage deal” (for Israel is not negotiating with Hamas or Qatar or even Egypt but with the United States) the question remains what will Hamas accept?  

Hamas has not changed its war aims which are to weaken the morale of the Israeli public and assure its own survival to fight another day.  Israel, on the other hand, via pressure from the Biden-Blinken crew along with pressure of US funded demonstrations from certain families of hostages have managed to change the its strategy and the conversation from complete victory over Hamas to negotiating so as to release whatever hostages Hamas is willing to give at the cost of whatever it is that Hamas wants.

The thoughts of well over 300,000 young men and women left their jobs, businesses and families to fight for the official government policy of destroying Hamas – and over 600 of them died doing that – does not appear seem to matter to the powers that be.   Nor do the thoughts of the wives, husbands, children and parents of these reservists.   I would add to that that the opinions of the quiet but large majority of Americans doesn’t seem to matter much either.

But what do Hamas leaders see now as they look out onto the world?  

Hamas leaders in Gaza look out of the periscopes of their tunnels and the leaders in Qatar peer out of the windows of their 5 start hotels and they look to the West and see what the press is portraying as mass and passionate support of their cause amongst the young of the Untied States.  While the majority of the American people are most probably disgusted with the “students” at Columbia, Hamas understands that there is endless money from the Soros type “charities” and always a willing and hungry press to report, in as positive a light as possible, these protests.  Antisemitism is now both cool and intellectually acceptable in ways that they never dreamed of.   And it didn’t take a financial crisis or other classic anti-Semitic event to cause it but rather it took Jews becoming victims of barbarity – yet again. 

As the Gazan Hamas leaders look north-northeast they see Israeli leadership that makes concession after concession as it pulls nearly all its combat troops out of Gaza.  They are living now through the same “operations” that they survived and thrived through over the last 15 years – aerial bombing and artillery fire – pointed at specific buildings.   They are seeing the ex-IDF generals encouraging concessions and the IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi declaring that the IDF is strong enough to allow the government to make “tough” choices. 

What they don’t see is the IDF’s massive firepower.  What they don’t see is revenge.  What they don’t see – what they don’t think they see – is an Israeli public in a fighting spirit. They are correct for the first two observations but incorrect as to the last.  

What else does Hamas see?   Hamas sees a strong Axis of Russia-China-Iran and North Korea.  They see China crossing a Biden red line of not supporting the Russian war effort.   Did China look to the $10 billion given to Iran in spite of sanctions and realize that they had carte blanche to make Russia their very own proxy in Europe?  Hamas  sees how  one sub-Saharan African country after another throws out French and American soldiers and relies on Russia and China instead. They  see that the north is a war of attrition and that the Israeli towns and villages on the border are empty of people.  They look right across the border and do not see Kfar Aza and Be’eri being rebuilt now.

They look to the Hague and see that they have gotten away with ISIS-like barbarism while Israel is on the dock even as it lost soldiers in order not to hurt civilians.

Is it any wonder why Hamas will never release all the hostages?  Even the most irrationally cruel people know how to act rationally when the time comes.   Rationally speaking, the behavior of Netanyahu, Galant, Gantz and Eizenkot along with the rhetoric and threats of Biden-Blinken, Cammeron  and the State Department tells Hamas to just keep on saying no.  Put that on top of the absurdity of what is the ICC, the UN and the whole farce that is “humanitarian aid” and you get a strong, confident Hamas who cares not for the destruction of Gaza and the death of its people.   Add to the mix the obsession with the “two state solution” as a reward for barbarism and Hamas can only continue to say no.

At each Hamas rejection, Israel, the US and the entire West ought to have turned their heads from Hamas and Gaza and let the IDF do what needs to be done.  Instead, the pressure on Israel for concessions just increased. 

There are too many “war solves no problems” people in places of power – even in Israel and even in the IDF.  War is horrible and risky and ought to be avoided when possible, but war is the only thing that can solve the problem that is Hamas. 

War will solve the problem of Hamas looking out at the world and wondering how they got so lucky.