Hamas Leaders to NY Times: No Interest in Helping Palestinians in Gaza, Want ‘Permanent’ War Against Israel
Hamas leaders told the New York Times on Wednesday that they had no interest in governing Gaza and instead wanted to create a “permanent” state of war against Israel that, in their minds, would mobilize Arab support and keep the Palestinian cause alive.
The idea of governing Gaza well, or building institutions toward creating a Palestinian state, seems not to have occurred to them — nor did the Times‘ Ben Hubbard and Maria Abi-Habib, who had access to Hamas leaders, suggest that more constructive idea.
It was necessary to “change the entire equation and not just have a clash,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s top leadership body, told The New York Times in Doha, Qatar. “We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.”
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“I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us,” Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told The Times.
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“This battle was not because we wanted fuel or laborers,” he added. “It did not seek to improve the situation in Gaza. This battle is to completely overthrow the situation.”
The Times presented several Hamas complaints about Israel in euphemistic terms, as if they were accurate or legitimate. For example, it describes Jews trying to pray on the Temple Mount as “Jews openly praying at a contested site customarily reserved for Muslims,” without mentioning that it is also the holiest site in Judaism. The Times also cites “the Israeli police storming the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem,” without noting that they only did so because Hamas and other groups stockpiled weapons there.
Prior to the war, Saudi Arabia and Israel had been moving toward a deal on peace and normalization that would have been conditioned on an improvement of conditions for Palestinians, though not necessarily on the creation of a Palestinian state.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Can someone explain to the rest of us why the leaders of Hamas, the world's evilest terrorist organization which has just murdered 1,400 innocent people, are actual billionaires living their best lives in Qatar?
Hamas leaders are billionaires, rolling in the dough
Can someone explain to the rest of us why the leaders of Hamas, the world's evilest terrorist organization which has just murdered 1,400 innocent people, are actual billionaires living their best lives in Qatar?
According to the New York Post:
While their people languish in poverty and are treated as human shields, the leaders of Hamas live billionaire lifestyles.
The terror group’s three top leaders alone are worth a staggering $11 billion between them and enjoy a life of luxury in the sanctuary of the emirate of Qatar.
The emirate has long welcomed the leaders of the terror group and installed them in its luxury hotels and villas at the same time as hosting a vast American military presence.
They need to be like Osama bin Laden in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, wearing rags and hiding in some stinking cave, staring at their stashes of child porn, not living large in Vegas-like Qatar.
Hamas runs an office in Qatar’s capital, Doha, and leaders Ismail Haniyeh, Moussa Abu Marzuk and Khaled Mashal live a luxurious lifestyle.
They have been seen at its diplomatic club, photographed on private jets and traveled widely. The leadership would have been there for the 2022 soccer World Cup.
Instead, Hamas is loaded with characters like this guy, Hamas leader Khalid Mishal, who's worth more than $2 billion, living in the lap of luxury, and getting glamour shots in Vanity Fair and this magazine cover satire.
Why the heck is that going on? The 1,400 torture-murders they planned and executed in Israel, and the 200 hostages they are holding now in their filthy tunnels under Gaza City pretty well puts them in the same category as Mexico's evil cartels. Burning babies and beheading 10-year-olds is what they do, not what normal people do. They are the vilest of criminals and need to be completely rubbed out.
Yet nobody in Qatar seems to be upset by this evil ensconced at the heart of their regime, nobody wants them out, they and their billions seem to be as protected as ever.
It's the kind of thing that makes Qatar a state sponsor of terror, but we don't see any action from the Biden administration to make that declaration. The U.S. and all civilized nations need to come down hard on these maggots, lay down the law for Qatar, pull U.S. troops from that state, and above all, get hold of Hamas's ill-gotten gains to pay for reparations to Israel. They aren't entitled to that money now no matter how they got hold of it.
How'd Hamas get that money, anyway? We know they don't produce anything. We know that people in Gaza, which they rule over the way Mexico's cartels rule over some parts of Mexico, are dirt poor. The only possibilities seem to be foreign aid, whether from the U.S., Iran, hostile states such as China, or various Arab princelings, or perhaps drug dealing and human smuggling, the way Mexico's cartels do it. The U.S. needs to start defunding these thugs now.
Fortunately, one baby step has been taken by a GOP representative in Congress, according to the Post:
Now Republican Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles is co-sponsoring a bill that would strip Qatar of its status as a key US ally, The Post has learned, unless it kicks out the Hamas leadership.
A lot more needs to be done to put these animals down. They are obviously in some kind of gang or cartel dynamic as a quasi state actor, same as the cartels, and fueled by their ill-gotten gains. The U.S. knows how to issue sanctions and seize assets of bad state actors and make them scream. We don't see too much of that going on as Joe Biden calls for a ceasefire or pause in order to allow Hamas to regroup.
It's an outrageously weak response, given the resources of the U.S. government. There shouldn't be any billionaires right now among the Hamas elite. They need to be running and hiding. Instead, they are rolling in the dough as their minions conduct anti-Semitic attacks and organize demonstrations.
These people are bin Laden, ISIS, and the cartels rolled into one. It's time to take out the trash.
Image: Trango, own work // CC BY-SA 3.0
Biden: Pro-Israel by Day, Pro-Hamas by Night
To the knowledge of principled, modestly engaged, CNN-watching citizens, President Joe Biden stands strongly with Israel as it faces unprecedented threats to its existence. So, it appears, cheers are in order for Joe, our strong President.
But not so fast. Perhaps more than any leader on the planet except Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Biden’s actions were a causative factor in bringing on the recent devastating invasion of American ally Israel. And more than anyone else, Biden presently is both weakening Israel strategically, and strengthening Hamas militarily, as Israel desperately seeks to assure its safety.
This criticism of Biden, at first blush, may seem overstated. But sustained attention reveals its modesty. In fact, the history of Biden’s actions show that they are strongly pro-Iran, and therefore pro-Hamas, terrorists sponsored and directed by Iran.
Israel is being bedeviled not only by Hamas in Gaza but also by Hezb’allah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, bombarded daily by each. It is not controversial that each is financed and directed by Iran. But these bombardments do not comprise all of Iran’s handiwork. It also involves sophisticated, effective drones sent to Russia to stymie Ukraine, which certainly ties down America financially and Ukraine militarily. Iran is as well a military presence in Syria, along with Russia, which itself is a looming threat to Israel, albeit peripheral to the present conflict.
How can this unprepossessing, commercially backward terrorist regime afford five current military operations, the most prominent three ostentatiously directed at destroying Israel? Joe Biden has been courting Iran since his accession to office, originally to restart the counterintuitive Iran nuclear deal, which would allow the mullahs a nuclear weapon in just a few years, along with relief from various arms embargos and access to $6 billion in frozen assets. Did this initiative of the Biden Administration have the ultimate effect of releasing Iran from debtor’s prison, while making it wealthy enough to lavishly fund multiple terrorist armies?
Even though the nuclear deal under discussion would be a fool’s errand which only would embolden Iran, Biden’s slavish desire for such a deal says enough about his professed resolve to avoid allowing a malign actor nuclear weapons. With Biden’s restriction of American fuel production causing dramatic price increases, an oil-rich Iran now does not need the modest billions that Biden’s weak team is likely offering to seal any nuclear deal. To be sure, such an agreement may be effectively anodyne, given Biden’s implicit present permission for ongoing Iranian nuclear development.
Ironically, it is Biden’s absurd climate change policies which have given Iran the financial strength to eschew a deal. By voluntary handicapping American oil and gas drilling, Biden essentially has doubled the price of oil from $45 to near $90, making Iran wealthy to the tune of about $120 billion extra income annually.
Moreover, just as Iran’s military advisors were reportedly meeting with Hamas and Hezb’allah in August 2023, to plan the attack of Israel, Biden was quietly lifting oil sanctions on Iran, allowing it to ramp up production from 2.4 million barrels per day to 3.5 million per day, as we speak, a $30 billion windfall just for this portion of the Biden giveaway.
This was at the same time that Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was assuring the world that (because of Biden’s policies) the Middle East region was “quieter than it has been in two decades” a claim he repeated as late as September 29, 2023, a week before the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre. This is the same Jake Sullivan who, after months of Putin’s massing on the Ukraine border, expressed surprise that Russia would actually invade. Who knew?
Now that our naivete and Iran’s perfidy have been exposed, one would reasonably think that the U.S. will “snap back” sanctions on Iran, as both Obama and Biden have so sternly threatened in the past. But one would likely be wrong.
The true test of whether America stands with Israel is whether it reinstitutes effective sanctions, stronger and more debilitating than previously, not only on Iranian oil and gas, but on all commercial trade, while engaging our allies to join the effort.
Because doing so might otherwise increase pump prices within the near future, the sanctions should be coupled with generous U.S. sales of oil leases, including the grant of offshore drilling permits, which would counteract the loss of Iranian supply, and then some.
But that won’t happen, since that would upset both Biden’s climate cronies on K Street and his progressive political supporters.
By allowing Iran to increase its production, now widely marketable without sanctions, thereby increasing Iranian wealth, the President of the United States is encouraging the present world of terror.
But at least Biden stands behind Israel in the conflict, correct? Well, not exactly, because a solid bloc of Biden’s support comes from the progressive, pro-Palestinian Left.
Accordingly, as we speak, Biden is urging Israel to pause its retaliation, perhaps a cease fire, and otherwise to go easy on the Palestinians. And the smart money says that by granting the “humanitarian aid” Biden has pledged to suffering Palestinians, most will go straight to Hamas, allowing it to continue its terror against Israel. If the aid were restricted to only those Palestinians flooding into Egypt from Gaza, such policy would nicely afford humanitarian relief, while incentivizing Palestinians to flee the ugly conflict of Gaza. But don’t bet on that happening. Instead, by aiding Palestinians staying in Gaza City, Biden is making the war difficult for Israel, not only because Hamas will get most of the aid, but also because human shields will be encouraged to remain.
To summarize, Biden made Iran wealthier with his climate policies, in turn enabling horrifying terrorism. This history implies that he will not risk upsetting this malign actor, even though it is now imperative that he take action. We know that will not happen, given Biden’s pro-Palestinian supporters, and his administration’s foolish initiatives to strike a nuclear deal with Hamas patron Iran.
Accordingly, it is clear that Biden will mouth support for Israel while providing aid to the country as well. But it is just as clear that Biden will not really stand with Israel when push comes to shove.
This is Joe Biden’s policy toward what he claims to be our strong ally, Israel. Not only does this policy threaten Israel’s existence, but it also risks entangling America in a larger Middle East war.
When Joe Biden ran against Donald Trump in 2020, he promised the country a steady hand on the tiller of our ship of state. While he boasts by day of his firm guidance, by night he is intentionally driving the ship onto rocky shoals, from which our citizens and those of our ally Israel may never escape.
John D. O’Connor is a former federal prosecutor and the San Francisco attorney who represented W. Mark Felt during his revelation as Deep Throat in 2005. O’Connor is the author of the books, Postgate: How the Washington Post Betrayed Deep Throat, Covered Up Watergate and Began Today’s Partisan Advocacy Journalism and The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened.
Image: White House
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