The Hamas apologists showing up in such great numbers over the past thirty-six hours must contend with what Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki said just days ago in Buenos Aires.

They are running an authoritarian, fascist system and it’s for this reason that leaders of Hamas know they are losing the support of the people. It’s they who sent us signals that they wanted to open a dialogue. The leadership of Hamas in Damascus, by contrast, is more intransigent because they live far away and receive the support of Iran. Hamas is starting to split. We are trying to liberate Hamas from the influence of Iran and talking to the leadership in Gaza.

This is what the PA says it wants of Hamas in Gaza. What does the rest of the world want?

The apologists also amply demonstrate what I wrote about in The Mystery of Judgment. Hamas and its belligerent supporters are represented as an unavoidble situation, like a natural occurrence. Its presence and its actions just are, like an oil spill, with no BP, and Israel must manage the situation. Israel may manage the situation well or poorly, but only Israel is considered by these apologists as having any moral agency. Hamas and the Turkish so-called Foundation for Human Rights, Liberties, and Humanitarian Relief (IHH), whose members occupied the only one of six ships on which there was violence, have none. Of Hamas, we know what their fellow Palestinians think. And what of IHH?

According to the Danish Institute for International Studies (pdf) (H/T Elder or Ziyon)

[T]he phenomenon of charitable front groups that provide support to Al-Qaida is by no means exclusively limited to the Arabian Peninsula. Indeed, elsewhere in the Muslim world, other such entities have been established with near equal success – as in Turkey, with the so called Foundation for Human Rights, Liberties, and Humanitarian Relief (IHH). Turkish authorities began their own domestic criminal investigation of IHH as early as December 1997, when sources revealed that leaders of IHH were purchasing automatic weapons from other regional Islamic militant groups.43 IHH’s bureau in Istanbul was thoroughly searched, and its local officers were arrested. Security forces uncovered an array of disturbing items, including firearms, explosives, bomb-making instructions, and a “jihad flag.” After analyzing seized IHH documents, Turkish authorities concluded that “detained members of IHH were going to fight in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya.”

According to a French intelligence report, the terrorist infiltration of IHH extended to its most senior ranks. The report, written by famed counterterrorism magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere, revealed that IHH President Bulent Yildrim had directly conspired in the mid-1990s to “recruit veteran soldiers in anticipation of the coming holy war [jihad].

Here are Gaza flotilla participants before their departure, singing songs of historic Islamic victory over Jews and declaring their intent of only two possible endings to their mission – breaking the blockade or “martyrdom.”

These were not “aid workers.” They were political belligerents and provocateurs, who, in fact, achieved their goal. This evidence is there to be seen and understood, and acknowledged, by those not predisposed to ignore it. These were not random “innocent” ships and crews on the open sea; the announced intention of those on the ships was to break a blockade being imposed by a national military that is party to a conflict. Despite the pronouncements of some who wish to believe it, neither the blockade nor the contact with ships in international waters is illegal. The ship captains of the flotilla refused requests by the Israeli navy to alter their course and mission. They always knew that the Israeli navy would not permit them to break the blockade. They always knew that a refusal to alter course would lead to some form of contact. They knew, as any of us would know, that resisting – not to speak of attacking – would lead to conflict. If they captured or killed IDF soldiers, that would be a “victory.” If what happened were to happen, that, too, would be a “victory,” the kind that “martyrs” achieve.

Five vessels submitted to the Israeli intervention. One vessel did not, and its occupants attacked the Israeli soldiers even as they still descended onto the ship. Israel did not make those decisions. The occupants of the vessels made those decisions.

Writes Barry Rubin:

Hamas has now ruled the Gaza Strip for about five years. Yet it has preferred continued war with Israel, a full-scale military mobilization, and hardline policies rather than working for the development of the area and jobs for the people.

Yet who is blamed for the status of that area today?

The blockade has definitely had a downward effect on living standards in the Gaza Strip. And of course there are two blockades since Egypt’s government, which doesn’t want Hamas’s close associates, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to seize power and execute is leaders, also maintains an embargo.

Those of humane sympathy who believe the blockade of Gaza should be lifted – which was the professed reason for the flotilla – if their concerns for the lives of Gazans extends beyond criticism and condemnation of Israel, have a course of action they can follow. They can support the Palestinian authority in its own desire to alter conditions in Gaza under an “authoritarian, fascist system.” They can call for actions by Hamas that can lead to the end of the blockade.

A declared final end to violent attacks on Israeli can wait.

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. (Article 13, the Hamas Covenant)

An end to anti-Semitic instruction in schools and the expressed goal to rule over all other religions, or else, can wait.

Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions – Islam, Christianity and Judaism – to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam. Past and present history are the best witness to that.

It is the duty of the followers of other religions to stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam in this region, because the day these followers should take over there will be nothing but carnage, displacement and terror. (Article 31, the Hamas Covenant)

Will its supporters, for now, just call for Hamas publicly to recognize the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, and to remove from the Hamas covenant all incitement to kill Jews?

Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem). (Article 7, the Hama Charter.)

Do those who care for the people of Gaza care enough to demand this of Hamas? These are good things to ask for, aren’t they? A rejection of genocide and public recognition of another’s right to exist? What humanitarian, what advocate of human rights can say no?

So that the blockade might be lifted. So that the Palestinian people may live and prosper in peace. Hamas must end the blockade of Gaza now.

The free Gaza movement.

AJA

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