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The Unseen Hand Behind Hamas' Clash with Israel
(Wall Street Journal) Saul Singer - Ostensibly, the latest fighting with Hamas began with Israel's targeted killing of Ahmed Jabari, the commander of Hamas' military wing. Normal militaries don't target civilians or hide behind their own people. And Jabari didn't command a "wing" of Hamas, as if there was any daylight between him and the rest of the terror group's leadership. Hamas had been firing round after round of rockets on Israeli towns around Gaza for the better part of a decade. Israeli children have grown up with the sounds of sirens telling them they have 15 seconds to take cover until a missile hits. When the pace of the shelling increased in recent weeks, the Israelis finally stuck back. The international community should stop supporting the Hamas government in Gaza. Hamas' macabre game is to mix its terrorists and rockets in with Palestinian civilians, wait for an Israeli missile aimed at a rocket launcher to kill some of those civilians, and then bask in global condemnation of Israel. But if most governments and the UN squarely tagged Hamas as the aggressor responsible for the civilian casualties on both sides and cut off financial support and other aid, Hamas would be deterred as successfully as any Israeli military action could manage. When sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in recent days, it was because Hamas was launching Fajr-5 missiles with a range of some 50 miles. The Fajr-5 is made in Iran. Tehran is the main source of Hamas' training and of the 200 missiles a day that Hamas has been firing into Israel in recent days. If Jabari was the hand on the trigger, the arm and the head are in Tehran.