Has Hamas destroyed the Palestinian cause, the answer to a large extent is, yes. It has done so by resorting to heinous crimes against the humanity without taking into account the repercussions this would have upon the cause, people and the sentiment it believes it “represents”. There is no doubt in it that Hamas is a peripheral force among the Palestinian people which is mainly confined to Gaza strip comprising around 400 sq. km having more than two million population with a high density of concrete jungles. It is believed that Hamas was funded, armed and technically guided by the ‘forces’ outside the Middle-East region, however, it kept the timing of the terror attack on Israel close to its chest and took the whole world by surprise and shock.
Though these terror and fundamentalist groups have small space and influence in the population they belong to, yet they assume control on major instrumentalities of the society and the state and try to dictate their terms. Hamas is far away from the main Palestinian struggle for the establishment of an independent Palestine state but has assumed potential to damage the cause on a long term basis. The struggle of Palestine was earlier represented by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) headed by Yaser Arafat who shunned violence and took to peaceful resolution of the issue by means of negotiations and dialogue. It was mainly due to his leadership that Palestine issue got recognition at an international level. He was convinced about the ground realities of geopolitics and sought a solution keeping in view that the state of Israel was a stark reality and the Jews had a legitimate right on their homeland.
Yaser Arafat struggled for the recognition of the genuine rights of the Palestinian people throughout his life and was in agreement with the idea of two states, Israel and Palestine, side by side. It was during his time that the initiative for an autonomous region for Palestine within the state of Israel was approved and was recognised as the first step towards the creation of an independent sovereign Palestine state, eventually. He got support for his cause from the international community and India also lent its support while recognising the right of Israel to exist.
Right from the time the Britishers left Palestine; and the goal of the establishment of the state of Israel was realised in 1947-48, the Middle East has seen three conventional wars between Israel on one side and all the Arabian nations on the other side. In all these three wars, there were lessons for the Middle East to learn and they learnt them and went for the course correction in due course of time. Egypt was the first country of the Arabian Legion that joined hands with Israel after the 1973 war between Israel and the Arabs. This opened gates for the Arabs and Palestinians to look behind, take lessons and move forward.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is a governing body that has overseen parts of the West Bank in Israel since the mid-’90s of the 20th century. Its creation was supposed to pave the way for an independent Palestinian state, but today it is considered to have little real power. The PA is dominated by Fatah, a ‘secular’ political party founded by diaspora Palestinians after 1948. Fatah was also the driving force of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), an umbrella organisation comprising several political parties, which claimed to represent Palestinians worldwide. It was a product of the Oslo Accords between the Israeli government and the PLO, then led by Yasser Arafat.
Hamas has been the de facto governing body in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when it ousted the Palestinian Authority from power. Primarily in Gaza; it also maintains a presence in the West Bank; Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon; and a few other places. Its connections with the terror operatives in the world are known to all in Israel. But their preparations for deadly actions of 7th October 2023, somehow, escaped the “ever vigilant & elegant” intelligence system of Israel. Officially speaking, all leading Arabian countries have been deadly against any sort of terrorism including the Islamic terrorism. They have awarded capital punishments to people having any sort of allegiance to terror outfits in their countries. Surprisingly for many, they have tried and sentenced even Hamas extremist elements in their countries all along, in the past. They treated Hamas as an extremist outfit and didn’t allow their activities within their jurisdiction. They don’t take Hamas as a representative organisation of Palestine and treat it with disgust.
Israel and Arabs were coming closer day by day and were making announcements to that effect, their high political and diplomatic dignitaries had started visiting each other, and there was all likelihood that a peace settlement in regard to the establishment of Palestine as a sovereign and independent state would come up in near future. Hamas, by its brutal and sudden attacks on Israel and on the hundreds of citizens of scores of nations on Saturday, the 7th October, in the madness of all sorts, destroyed the future of the whole region and made the world known that it was the deadliest terror force after ISIS, Al-Qaida and Lashkare-Toiba etc.
There are innumerable reports available as on date suggesting what did happen or what was done to the people taking part in the party near Gaza strip on the occasion of annual Jewish holiday and in it’s neighbourhoods in Israel on the fateful day. Hamas, in its bravado (while taking pride) released on its own, the shameful media coverage of its misdeeds exposing themselves as the biggest perpetrators of the heinous crimes including rapes, molestation, kidnappings, beheading and torturing people and mutilating the naked dead bodies of the young women belonging to different nations and religions. Though the electronic media, social media and the print media are bombarded with the reporting, audio and video recordings of the ghastly action of Hamas in this regard but it would be most appropriate here to bring to the notice of the readers the reporting done by one young Muslim lady journalist belonging to the Channel named ‘United with Israel’.
The journalist, Aharish Lucy, reports on her channel on 12 October 2023, “I am sorry to say that I am using my microphone, to send a message to the world. As a journalist, this is my only weapon. Since Saturday morning the State of Israel is under attack, our beloved country is under attack. We are under an attack of a brutal, barbaric, inhuman terror organisation. Not an entity, not a government, not a leadership, but a terror organisation. Hamas murdered and slaughtered in cold blood innocent babies, children, elderly women and men in their homes, in their beds. Hamas kidnapped and took captive innocent babies, children, elderly women and men.
Hamas has targeted and fired thousands of rockets and missiles on innocent babies, children, elderly women and men, civilians, citizens of the sovereign state of Israel. And we the citizens of the state of Israel, all of us left & right, secular and religious Jews, Christians, Drews, Muslims, minorities and immigrants from all over the world stand together in this fight. We are together in this fight, fighting for our future, and mostly for the future of our children. Don’t be mistaken. We experience difficulties and disagreements and major disputes like any other country on this globe, but it doesn’t mean that we will not protect ourselves and our children, our homeland.
And for everyone there who is not condemning this inhuman massacre? Try to imagine for a second that you are waking up on Saturday morning with your children sleeping next to you. Waking up to the sounds of sirens and then in a sprint of a second a terrorist comes into your home, your safer shelter, and starts murdering your family in front of your eyes. Can you imagine that? Look into the victim’s eyes, look into our eyes, in the eyes of all the citizens of this land, and stand with us on the right side of history”.
That explains the unsaid, Israel has been forced to respond, forced to retaliate and forced to take all necessary and difficult measures that have potential to ensure its citizens that the history won’t be repeated. Terrorism of the sort won’t revisit them and the perpetrators would be incapacitated, punished and decimated for ever. India has stood with its friend Israel in its difficult time to fight and defeat terrorism. Indians have shown their complete sympathy with the victims of terror in tune with their national resolve in this regard. The civilized world has been pitted against the evil of terrorism and aggression against a sovereign state. Visibly, battle lines are drawn and are stark and tragic.
Muslim nations feel embarrassed to support Hamas publicly. UAE and Bahrain have condemned Hamas and it’s actions openly and Saudi Arabia is taking a cautious stand. Though Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkie have been in discussion with each other on the subject, yet the Islamic nations have no consensus on the issue keeping in view their public pronouncements about terrorism. Moreover, Israel has gathered the support of more than 85 nations of the world and it is determined to finish the war with an end to Hamas. It seems now that a long drawn battle is in the pipeline. But in the process, the cause of Palestine stands destroyed for a long time, if not for ever.
