By John F. Di Leo, Opinion Contributor
In recent weeks, the Israelis have successfully targeted and terminated three of the major leaders of the Hamas terror network: Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, and Rafa Salama.
And many in the Western world, particularly Democrat party politicians in the United States, are bemoaning this as a terrible thing.
How?
Hamas is a terrorist organization. Ever since their inception, their aim has been to kill as many innocent people as possible, as often as possible, in the hopes of wiping out the Jewish population of Israel and taking over the entire country themselves.
This sounds like an exaggeration, but it isn’t. This is the stated purpose of Hamas. It’s in their charter. Their goal is to wipe out the Jews of Israel, take over the country, and rule it themselves.
You’ve heard them say so; they chant it all the time. That’s what their mantra, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” really means to them. Free of Jews, Christians, Hindus, Bahai’is, atheists – everybody.
Free of everybody but muslims – and vanquished people willing to fully submit to islam.
The leaders of Hamas are not people who tolerate dissent or difference. The Hamas crowd – along with the PLO bunch that predated them – are believers in total war, a 1400 year marathon war, a jihad in the interest of taking over the entire world. This is how they justify to themselves the horrible conditions in which they put their own people.
Hamas has kept the people of Gaza poor, weak and hopeless for generations. They receive countless billions in foreign aid from dozens of countries and dozens more non-governmental organizations; they spend the money on weaponry and lavish lifestyles for the Hamas leadership.
And despite all this charity, their people remain destitute, living in hovels, and following orders, serving their state’s war engine in whatever way they’re told.
“Store these weapons under your bunks.” “Yes sir.”
“Hide this ammunition under the floorboards.” “Yes sir.”
“Strap this bomb to your child’s back and put him on an Israeli bus.” “Yes sir.”
“Join in the public celebration when we murder 1400 innocent people on October 7.” “Yes sir.”
“Help house these hostages for us, keep them secret over the months; as a reward, you can abuse them yourself, just try to keep them alive.” “Yes sir.”
For one to commit horrific acts of terror oneself is bad enough; the leaders of Hamas forced or brainwashed their countrymen to join them in such terrorism, generation after generation. There are no words in English for such a sin.
So when the news is announced, now and then, that leaders of that evil organization have been found and eliminated from this plain, the only rational responses are a sigh of relief, a recognition that justice has been done, perhaps a moment of joy that the world is a marginally safer place with these vermin gone.
But that’s not how America’s Democrat politicians are taking it. They wring their hands and say that “it will make the peace process more difficult.” They say that Israel overreacted to the demonic attacks of October 7. They even go so far as to claim that Israel’s effort to protect its people from a clear, proven, and constant threat constitutes a war crime.
Remember, we’re talking here about the leaders of one of the world’s most lethal, vicious, and longstanding terrorist networks. No human being with a heart could possibly mourn any of them.
Remember the intifadas of the past 30 years. Remember the thousands of street attacks, rocket attacks, café attacks, bus attacks, pizzeria attacks that all led up to last October 7’s day of hell and the torment of hostages in the long months since.
And remember that these recently announced executions were the ringleaders of all those barbaric crimes.
These terrorist leaders – Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, and Rafa Salama – are therefore a perfectly proper military target for Israel at all times. Any complaint about Israel’s successful identification and termination of these monsters is out of line.
These Hamas bosses have spent their careers not only plotting and carrying out terrorist activities, but forcibly roping their countrymen into the same crimes, getting their friends, neighbors, families and other countrymen to join them in these terrorist activities.
Hamas is therefore specifically outside the protections of the United Nations – by definition – because they are EXACTLY what the Geneva Convention is about: Honorable treatment for honorable combatants, and that rule’s absolutely necessary corollary: specifically withholding such honorable treatment from dishonorable combatants.
Terrorists must not get the polite treatment that proper uniformed soldiers in wartime get. Terrorists are violating the laws of humanity; they need to be excised so the cancer doesn’t spread.
There is only one way to view the reactions in the headlines:
When you see American politicians deriding Israel for properly meting out justice to terrorists – when you see American politicians calling for ceasefires and capitulations in favor of Hamas – when you see American politicians proposing to grant statehood to Gaza and put Hamas in charge of a new and independent nation – all this has only one meaning: those politicians are siding with the terrorists.
There is no middle ground here.
Israel must protect its people; Israel must defend its innocent civilians from again being the victims of Hamas terror.
There is no in-between in this situation.
Either you are on the side of the innocents or you are on the side of the terrorists.
“Never Again” Is Now.
Copyright 2024 John F. Di Leo
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