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Hamas Is Acting as an Arm of Iranian Power

(Telegraph-UK) Dore Gold - The Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 was supposed to produce a more stable outcome and not four Israeli-Palestinian wars. The Israel Defense Forces pulled out of Gaza, together with the 9,000 Israeli civilians who lived there. It is hard to find the basis of outstanding grievances that could justify Hamas launching salvo after salvo of rockets at Israeli population centers and devoting scarce resources to an endless war with the Jewish state. It makes sense then to look elsewhere for Hamas' motivation. It was reported last week that Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas political bureau, spoke by phone with Esmail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the man who replaced the notorious Gen. Qassem Suleimani. A senior Hamas official described a visit by a Hamas delegation to Tehran in 2006 with $22 million stuffed into suitcases, and claimed that Suleimani had agreed to transfer an even larger sum. In 2017, Ali Baraka, Hamas' representative in Lebanon, said, "Iran is the only country that supports the resistance with money and weapons." The current Hamas offensive against Israel should be placed in a broader context of Iranian ambitions. An illuminating study published by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change this February asserted that "the premise that Iran would moderate its commitment to creating and sponsoring militias due to the thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations after the 2015 nuclear deal and sanctions relief for Tehran was false....The number of militias created by the IRGC surged after this period." It is imperative that Israel defeat Hamas in this round of conflict. It is important that Iranian expansionism through Middle Eastern militias is halted. Moreover, the mistake of the 2015 nuclear deal must not be repeated, with billions of dollars going to Iran, fueling the next wave of terrorism - including the terror of Hamas. Not only is the security of Israel at stake but the security of the wider Western alliance. The writer, former director-general of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
2021-05-19 00:00:00
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