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| Political Commentator, Douglas Murray |
This is perhaps the best analysis of the current political situation vis a vis President Biden, Hamas, and Israel ever given. Douglas Murray is an Oxford educated scholar.
I happen to agree with Murray and have said pretty much the same thing, myself. More than once. What makes Murray’s analysis more compelling is that - although he is a political conservative and can be expected to view world events through a politically conservative lens - his credentials as an Oxford educated scholar gives him far more gravitas than do mine. And certainly more gravitas than protesters in Israel whose emotions blind them to the realties he so clearly addresses. The protestors think it is a good idea to give Hamas whatever they want in order to get the hostages back. Is it? I believe Douglas Murray answers that question very succinctly.
So without any further commentary, Murray’s wise words as he stated them in an interview with Piers Morgan (video below) follow.
But there again, if I can say so appears it's the same thing, which is the presumption that it's Netanyahu who is uncompromising. We end up with this again because Netanyahu is a democratically elected leader. And so it's assumed that some pressure can be brought to bear on him. In my view, it is not Netanyahu who's uncompromising, it's Hamas uncompromising.
They could have handed back to the hostages last October. They could have not done this. I mean, they could have tried to build a state since 2005 when Israel withdrew from the Gaza and handed the place over to them. Hamas could have used the billions of dollars and euros that British and European and American taxpayers gave them since 2006. They could have used those billions of dollars to build up Gaza. They could have made a booming, in the good sense of the term, Mediterranean paradise.
They could have created wealth for their people.
But you know what they did?
They built down instead of upwards, they built a tunnel network bigger than the London Underground for all of those years.
And they squirreled away the money just like Yasser Arafat did before, and they made themselves rich. Why was Ismail Haniyeh worth billions of dollars? Why does Khaled Mashal, why is he worth billions of dollars?
Why are their children like princelings who live in apartment complexes in Doha because they took the money of Americans, and Brits, and Europeans, and they took it for themselves and kept the people of Gaza in commiseration and poverty?
There has been, since 2005, a complete counterfactual of what could have happened, but the Hamas leadership didn't want that. They have said themselves, they want to use Palestinian children and their lives in order to pressurize the world.
These are fanatics. They want the death of their own citizens, their own citizens, in order to get world opinion turned against Israel. Again.
How do you negotiate with that?
The assumption always is in the West today, because we're so sort of fat and lazy in our expectation that peace is the norm and that historically it's the norm. We're so full of our own expectations and presumptions that we always think that wars end by some kind of compromise and coming around the table.
To use the cliche - they don't.
Historically, most wars end because one side wins and one side loses. And one of the reasons in my view why there is this endless rounds of war in this region is because the Israelis are never allowed to win. And Hamas in this case are always allowed to withdraw. And I think that that is simply to set up the precursor for the next conflict.
If Hamas comes out of this with a fighting capability, then there will be another round of this war in a couple of years.
So when David Lammy (British Sec. of State) and others say, “What we need to have is a peace deal,” - I'd say, “On what terms?”
Everybody wants peace except for Hamas and the fanatics. Everybody else wants peace. All of these people in the south, these Kibbutzniks and the partygoers and others who were murdered on the seventh, all dreamed of peace with their Palestinian neighbors and brothers and sisters.
Who stopped that peace being possible? Hamas from 2005 and again to this very day.