Every time the government of Israel attacks Gaza mercilessly, using the rationale that it is only interested in wiping out Hamas's military capabilities, it is worth reminding ourselves that the Israeli government created Hamas in the first place.
The track records of both the criminal Israeli government and of Hamas's criminal leadership is one of terrorism, torture, collective brainwashing, cruel punishment, oppression, censorship of the press, and backstabbing their allies. The last one is the most ungodly.
The victims in this senseless struggle are the peoples of Israel and Palestine. As far as leadership goes, it does not get worse than the leadership of Israel and Hamas in modern political history. The leaders of Israel and Hamas should both be held responsible for the current war, as well as any and all future wars in Gaza.
An excerpt from, "How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas" by Andrew Higgins, The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2009:
"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.Mr. Cohen says he now curses Hamas, which was, in his words, "Israel's creation." So it is only right and just that we also curse Mr. Cohen, along with the Israeli government, and the leadership of Hamas.
In its recent war in Gaza, Israel didn't set the destruction of Hamas as its goal. It limited its stated objectives to halting the Islamists' rocket fire and battering their overall military capacity. At the start of the Israeli operation in December, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told parliament that the goal was "to deal Hamas a severe blow, a blow that will cause it to stop its hostile actions from Gaza at Israeli citizens and soldiers."
Walking back to his house from the rubble of his neighbor's home, Mr. Cohen, the former religious affairs official in Gaza, curses Hamas and also what he sees as missteps that allowed Islamists to put down deep roots in Gaza.
He recalls a 1970s meeting with a traditional Islamic cleric who wanted Israel to stop cooperating with the Muslim Brotherhood followers of Sheikh Yassin: "He told me: 'You are going to have big regrets in 20 or 30 years.' He was right."
