Hamas embarrassed by Arab countries’ refusal to support

Arab countries cannot find justification for supporting heinous terrorist groups… The overwhelming Western military power concentrated in the Eastern Mediterranean also had an impact.

There is a word that frequently appears in messages sent by the Palestinian armed faction Hamas to countries around the world after Israel began pulling the reins of its offensive in the Gaza Strip. It is the Arabic word ‘Ummah’, which refers to the ‘Islamic community’ in the Islamic scripture, the Quran. Hamas’s cry for the Ummah is a cry for them to be saved from the so-called ‘Zionist’ and infidel forces with overwhelming military power. In fact, defending the Islamic world against infidels is a Muslim duty that is emphasized several times in the Quran. “Those who fight a holy war with their property and lives for the cause of God are believers.” “Those who were martyred on my path, those who performed the holy war or were killed in the process, I will atone for them and allow them to enter heaven where rivers flow.” The same verse is the basis. This struggle is ‘Jihad’, and Muslims who carry out Jihad are given the title ‘Mujahid’.

The Israeli army is firing self-propelled artillery towards the Gaza Strip. [뉴시스]

Immediately after its emergence, Islam waged active wars of conquest under the name of jihad, expanding beyond the Saudi Arabian peninsula into Western Asia and Europe. The Islamic legal system, known as Sharia, is extremely strict and even cruel by today’s standards, but was accepted as a very lenient law at a time when the common people were suffering from murderous exploitation by kings and nobles. Islamic forces did not take away the lands of the conquered people, and they also recognized freedom of religion as long as they paid only 2.5% of their income in taxes. For this reason, today’s academic circles believe that the driving force behind Islam’s creation of a great empire was lenient rule. However, stagnant water tends to rot. The Islamic state, which started from a small Ummah, expanded into a great empire and acquired enormous power and wealth. Amidst division and conflict, those in power appeared to satisfy their own self-interest by interpreting the Quran in their own way. As the number of people, like pseudo-religious leaders, practicing tyranny in the name of God increased, Islamic society became increasingly corrupt. The Afghan Taliban and the so-called ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ are representative examples. Even now, there are many armed groups in the Middle East and Africa who claim Islamic fundamentalism and distort the Quran and use it as a tool of tyranny.

Palestinian armed group members. [뉴시스]

Hamas is a vicious organization among extremist Islamic militants. Hamas, which promotes Islamic fundamentalism and Palestinian independence as its ultimate goal, virtually rules the Gaza Strip. There is no industry of any kind in the Gaza Strip, which is surrounded by a huge wall due to Hamas’ continuous terrorism. They depend on Israel for water and electricity, and on humanitarian aid from the outside world for most of their daily necessities. Although the ‘Palestinian Autonomous Government’ exists in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, a armed warlord and political party, exercises actual ruling power. Hamas monopolizes almost all supplies and support funds brought into the Gaza Strip. To them, jihad is nothing more than a business model that attracts external support and justifies extortion against the population.

On October 7, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel under the name ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’, the Hamas leadership was not in the Gaza Strip. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh watched their ‘operation’ on TV with his leadership at a five-star hotel in Qatar. They cheered as they watched Hamas members commit terrible war crimes, such as attacking a music festival and killing civilians, breaking into a private home and beheading an infant. They even took a video of themselves celebrating and uploaded it to social networking services (SNS). Hamas has the Political Bureau, the highest decision-making body that actually runs the organization, and has the ‘Al-Qassam Brigade’ as its military organization. The ‘Hamas executives’ currently dying in the Gaza Strip are not executives of the political group Hamas, but executives of the al-Qassam Brigades, a lower-level military organization. Most of the Politburo executives, including Haniyeh, have not been to the Gaza Strip for over 10 years under the pretext of being banned from entering the country by Israel. They live in luxury hotels, ultra-luxurious resorts, and villas in places such as Qatar and Turkye, and even operate luxury sedans and private jets.

UN refugee camp set up in southern Gaza Strip. [뉴시스]

What on earth does the Hamas leadership think of the residents of the Gaza Strip? This can be seen in the recent outrageous remarks made by Musa Abu Marzouk, Vice Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, in an interview with Russian media. When the interviewer asked, “Hamas built a 500km tunnel in the Gaza Strip, why didn’t they build a bomb shelter to evacuate civilians being bombed?” he gave a shocking answer. “The tunnels are to protect us (Hamas) from the enemy, and we fight inside the tunnels,” said Marzouk, adding, “75% of the people in the Gaza Strip are refugees, and it is the responsibility of the United Nations and the occupying forces to protect those people.” did. This revealed the perception that Palestinian residents are merely a means of begging and targets of extortion by Hamas, and that they are ‘human shields’ that prevent enemy attacks.

On the surface, Muslim communities around the world are strongly criticizing Israel, which fiercely attacks Palestine, and the United States, which supports it. Iran, which is suspected of being behind this incident, had its supreme leader, president, and Revolutionary Guard commanders threaten, saying, “If Israel sends ground troops to the Gaza Strip, we will fire ballistic missiles at the Israeli city of Haifa.” Hezbollah, a Shia armed political faction based in Lebanon, is making loud noises as if it will open a new front in northern Israel at any moment. Syrian and Iraqi warlords supported by Iran also criticize Israel and the United States every day and say they will raise troops. The leader of the Houthi rebels in control of Yemen declared war on Israel, saying, “Yemen has the right to take action to protect the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip,” but other than firing a few missiles, they have not shown any significant action. Drone attacks targeting U.S. military bases occurred in Iraq and Syria, but the Ummah’s response to the situation in Palestine stopped there.

There are two main reasons why Iran and Islamic militant groups throughout the Middle East only criticize Israel and the United States, but do not take actual military action. The first is because of ‘justice’ and the second is because of ‘fear.’ First of all, Islamic countries cannot find a reason to support Hamas, which has become a vicious terrorist organization. In the past, various types of support were provided to Palestine from fellow Shiite as well as Sunni countries and organizations. However, with this war, it was revealed that most of the support was going into the hands of Hamas. In addition, as foreign media reports and drone videos revealed that Hamas was using human shields and hostage-taking rather than protecting residents, governments in Arab countries began to recognize Hamas as a nuisance rather than an object of support.

Looking at the statement issued by Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, a Hamas military organization, on October 28 and the interview that Deputy Chairman Marzouk gave to Al Jazeera on October 31, we can understand what situation Hamas is currently in. “I speak to the Arab world and Muslim countries,” Ubaydah said. We know that we will not mobilize the military to save your Muslim children. “I was deeply shocked by the fact that you were so weak that you couldn’t even send a single truck loaded with humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip,” he said, expressing his anger. Deputy Speaker Marzouk made an even more shocking statement. He said, “Arab countries are secretly asking Western countries to eliminate Hamas. The Palestinian government is likewise asking the occupation force to eliminate Hamas. “Contrary to their surface position, they are behind the scenes trying to kill Hamas,” he complained. Hamas believed that the Arab world would help it once it took action against its powerful enemy, Israel, but it was held back by its own evil deeds.

Another reason why Hezbollah or extremist armed groups in Syria and Iraq cannot help Hamas is fear. If they begin to actively help Hamas now, they will face persistent retaliation from Israel. In addition, they must endure attacks from the U.S. and Western coalition fleets currently gathering in the waters off Israel. Currently, the largest fleet of all time is gathered in the Mediterranean Sea, centered around the US Navy’s Gerald Ford and Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike groups. Starting with two very large aircraft carriers fully loaded with fighter aircraft and two amphibious assault ships of similar size, 17 Aegis-class air defense combat ships, six multi-purpose frigates, 10 large logistics support ships and landing ships, and one nuclear submarine carrying 154 Tomahawk missiles. , and a large war command ship to command them is floating in the Eastern Mediterranean. Separately, the United States and the United Kingdom have forward-deployed about 80 fighter jets in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, and Cyprus, and four B-1B bombers capable of launching carpet bombing at any time have been dispatched to the United Kingdom. there is. If local militias, which are at the level of lightly armed warlords, arbitrarily intervene, formidable military power that can devastate not only the command staff but even the lowest level members is standing in the waters off the coast of Israel.

The situation in Gaza may end sooner than expected due to the overwhelming force of the Western world, which responded stronger than initially expected, and the lack of justification brought about by Hamas’ corruption. However, if a fundamental solution to the problem of the Palestinian diaspora is not found after the Israeli military operation ends, forces attempting ‘jihad business’ will appear again. Will Israel and the Western world be able to come up with a wise solution after this war?

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Shin In-gyun, CEO of Independent Defense Network

Source: Donga

Mark

Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.