Gaza: Israel’s Ever-Present Front

By Melissa

Operation: Pillar of Defense is officially over; Israel and Hamas have agreed to a cease-fire. What the exact terms are, and whether they will be adhered to, are yet to be determined. While many in Israel are sighing a sigh of relief in light of this recent development, there are those of us who are cautiously waiting to see what will happen…and with good reason, too. If history has taught us anything, it is that the next confrontation with Hamas is just around the corner.

This is not just skeptical pessimism. The fact is that Hamas is a terrorist organization that is loud and proud about its desire to eliminate Israel – i.e., the “Zionist Regime”. Hamas is essentially a lawless, vigilante, and violent group of thugs who is interested in one thing: “…raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors [Israel] in order to extricate the country and the people from the [oppressors’] desecration, filth, and evil.” (Hamas Charter, Part I, Article 3) It becomes shockingly clear from reading this document that negotiating with Israel is nowhere in the fabric of Hamas’ makeup; they exist to “cleanse” Palestine from the “filth” of the Jewish people, and violent Jihad is the only way to do this completely: “There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad.” (ibid, Part III, Article 13)

This explains the cycle of rocket and missile attacks from Hamas on Israel. While there is at least one attack per month, there are times when it escalates to a point that Israel has no choice but to enter a full-blown military operation against Hamas. While Israel responds to every single rocket attack – usually through the Israeli Air Force (IAF) – the problem is that it becomes this supposed “cycle of violence”, or a game of Cat & Mouse, in which Hamas purposefully engages Israel in order to get the world to equate Hamas with Israel. Essentially, Hamas wants the world to see itself and Israel as equal opponents in the fight over “Palestine”.

This is problematic for many reasons, the most obvious being that Hamas (a criminal, terrorist entity) and Israel (a legal, internationally recognized country) are not remotely similar by any stretch of the imagination. As Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “There is no moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas.” It would be like equating the United States of America and Al Qaeda; there is absolutely no comparison between the two! Yet, most of the world’s leading nations, and more importantly, the UN, take the bait. What happens is that Israel is then condemned for taking strong, decisive action against Hamas using “disproportionate force”, because civilians get hurt, and bombing a terrorist stronghold is not “proportionate” to firing a barrage of missiles into a sovereign nation (all the while, Hamas purposely aims at murdering Israeli civilians, but that gets lost in the debate, somehow).

This myth of “proportional force” tugs at our heartstrings, because it only seems fair that we take “an eye for an eye”, right? It would follow, then, that Israel should start firing barrages of rockets and missiles back at Gaza. Then we’ll have a true “cycle of violence”, where Israel now engages Hamas the way Hamas hopes it will. However, as Judge Schwebel, the former President of the International Court of Justice wrote: “In the case of action taken for the specific purpose of halting and repelling an armed attack, this does not mean that the action should be more or less commensurate with the attack.” Is it not Israel’s intent to “halt and repel” an armed attack? I would say that it is, indeed, Israel’s goal to do so. So why, then, is Israel held to this absurd standard of using “proportionate force” in order to stop Hamas from terrorizing and murdering its citizens?

I propose that there is something deeper at work here – something that goes far beyond what the human mind can comprehend. It is not only the intoxicating desire that Israel’s enemies have for her total destruction, but also the success that Hamas has in turning the tables to make Israel the “bad guy” for protecting its citizens from harm. It defies all logic! The truth is, Hamas will only rest when Israel no longer exists (which will never happen, as foretold in Scripture), which is why Hamas will always be a problem for Israel. Jihad will not cease until the world is subdued in Islam’s tightly clenched fist; Israel is but one of Islam’s desired conquests.

In the end, our only conclusion is that this is a spiritual matter. The ancient prophets foretold of a time when the nations would be drunk with the mere thought of annihilating Israel, God’s inheritance. I think it’s safe to say that we are already seeing signs of this from key nations in the Middle East; it will only grow worse and will spread to other nations throughout the world. Hamas, Hizbullah, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, and Iran, amongst others, are working overtime to realize Israel’s destruction and ruin. Even Israel’s closest allies are beginning to tighten the noose by making their support of Israel conditional upon Palestinian interests, which would ultimately jeopardize Israel’s very existence.

Israel’s existence today is proof of God’s fulfillment of His promises, and His faithfulness to the very end. The enemy of God, Satan, is doing whatever he can to deceive as many people as possible, and to make them believe the lie that Israel is illegitimate, that it has usurped land from a people who, until the early 1900s, did not have a cohesive national or ethnic identity, and that it is a violent, cold-blooded, murderous nation. God’s plan of salvationfor the world, through His Son, Yeshua, comes through the Jewish people, and His return is predicated upon the nation of Israel collectively recognizing Him as their Messiah! No wonder the enemy does not want Israel to exist!

The bad news is that things will get much worse in the near future. The good news is that, regardless of how bad the situation becomes, He is coming and our redemption is near. Baruch haba, b’shem Adonai! Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord! Hallelujah!

References:

Israel’s 2005 Disengagement from Gaza: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081000713.html

“Cycle of Violence” between Israel-Hamas: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12447#.UKWwDb9J96M

Short History on Gaza: https://hope4israel.org/resource/articles/gaza.html

The Legality of Israel’s Operation in Gaza: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12445#.UKW-XL9J96M

Hamas Charter (English): http://www.acpr.org.il/resources/hamascharter.html

Who Are the Palestinian People?: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/747#.UK6Czr9J96M