HaEtzni: Smash Hamas, But Not Totally
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) Former MK Elyakim HaEtzni writes that the international community’s desire to see Hamas destroyed is suspicious – and means that it is hoping that a Fatah–run state will be established on the Hamas ruins.
Writing in the weekly B’Sheva this week, the outspoken lawyer – a former Knesset Member from the pro-Land of Israel Techiyah (Revival) party – decries the fact that the current war is being presented as a war against fanatic terrorists, and not as part of the comprehensive war on behalf of the Land of Israel.
It will thus turn out that Israel will have bled and its soldiers will have died on behalf of the establishment of an enemy state in its own territory.
“The official propaganda machine wants us to believe,” HaEtzni writes, “that Fatah, which is an older and more murderous terrorist organization than Hamas, has undergone a gender-change operation to become a peace-loving, secular peace partner.”
In fact, though, HaEtzni explains that both Hamas and Fatah have the same goal – the destruction of Israel: “They are different only in their tactics. Fatah believes in our liquidation via peaceful means, and is therefore considered ‘moderate,’ while Hamas likes its liquidations dripping with blood, and so is considered ‘extremist’ and ‘terrorist.’
Though Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, President Shimon Peres, U.S. President George W. Bush and others would have us believe that the goal is to eradicate the terror threat emanating from Hamas, the real goal is very different, HaEtzni explains:
“The Road Map and the Annapolis Summit force Israel to agree to carve out a piece of its historic homeland for a state for ‘moderate’ Palestinians. But as long as Gaza is controlled by ‘extremists,’ such a state cannot be established. This is why Olmert, Livni and the others want to destroy Hamas – even though they deny it.
“Olmert, Livni, Egypt’s half-hearted condemnations of Israel, Peres’s objections to a ceasefire, Europe’s stance – all of these show that they wish to destroy Hamas simply so that control of the area should pass on to Fatah. The Quartet will then declare that ‘extremist terrorism has been liquidated,’ and the State of Palestine will be declared with great fanfare, in accordance with the Road Map. It will thus turn out that Israel will have bled and its soldiers will have died on behalf of the establishment of an enemy state in its own territory.”
“The conclusion therefore is,” HaEtzni writes, “to smash Hamas, and to neutralize its motivation to fire rockets at us – but not to liquidate them completely; Hamas should rather remain, together with Fatah, as two Palestinian terrorist gangs that will prevent each other from becoming a state!”
“The fact is that Hamas won democratic elections, became the majority in the legislature, and formed a government. But the hypocritical West, including Israel, recognizes democratic rules only when the victors are ‘one of us’…”