Is the Gaza war over or not? There will be another war as long as the one who controls the Strip has only one concern, which is to serve the Iranian expansionist project in the region. This happens in light of the Israeli desire to exploit this reality and make it at the service of the continued occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
There is one loser who emerged from the last war that ended without ending. On the other hand, there are many winners from the war. The only losers are the Gazans whom Hamas has made to live in an open-air prison. Two million Palestinians live on a small piece of land of about 400 square kilometres. They have been under continuous siege since mid-2007, after Hamas seized the Strip and changed the nature of life in it and the nature of society.
At the forefront of the winners is Benjamin Netanyahu, who was able to float his government, which was facing widespread public pressure because of its insistence on changing the judicial system in Israel. The other winner is the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has assured Israel that it can respond to its challenges. Iran transferred the confrontation to the Israeli interior. Israel was preoccupied with responding to the “Islamic Jihad” rockets launched from Gaza, which disrupted navigation at Ben Gurion Airport in Lod and ignored the Iranian nuclear threat. Israel also ignored the efforts of the “Revolutionary Guard” to turn southern Syria into an Iranian missile base.
As for the last winner, it was the “Islamic Jihad” movement itself, which showed that it is ready at all times to play the role of an Iranian instrument, nothing more. It plays this role regardless of the killing of a good number of its leaders by the precision missiles that Israel possesses and that it launches from its air force planes.
Why are the biggest losers the people of Gaza? This is due to a clear reason: Hamas, which embraced Islamic Jihad, was able to change the nature of life in the Strip for the worse and towards further backwardness. It did so as soon as it expelled the “Fatah” movement from the Strip in mid-2007. What “Hamas” did is to make Gaza in the service of the Israeli aggressive project. It started with finding a Palestinian rift. There is no longer any relationship between the West Bank and Gaza. The bank is in one world and the strip is in another world. More than that, “Hamas” made the Palestinian people appear in the guise of a savage people thirsting for blood and rejecting peace. It carried out, through the missiles it was firing from Gaza, everything that was required in Israel so that any Israeli government could tell the world that “there is no Palestinian partner to negotiate with” in order to reach a reasonable settlement.
While awaiting the next war, Hamas will only confirm that the Gaza Strip is just an “Islamic emirate” in the Taliban way, in relation to the “Taliban” in Afghanistan. The important thing is that there is no escape for the people of Gaza from the Iranian pincers, which are in fact the pincers of the Muslim Brotherhood. After all, “Hamas” is only an integral part of the Brotherhood organization that is spread throughout the region and the world.
The people of Gaza fell victim to the Palestinian inability to establish a model for a Palestinian state in the Strip as soon as Israel withdrew from it in August 2005. Instead of establishing a peaceful and viable Palestinian entity, Gaza fell into the trap of “Hamas”, which turned the Strip into a hotbed of arms chaos in preparation for its control. and extract “Fatah” from it. Hamas has benefited to the greatest extent from an impotent Palestinian national authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).
Abu Mazen did not have the courage to go himself to Gaza and stand up to the Hamas project, which is a Brotherhood project before anything else. He should have done this immediately after the Israeli withdrawal from the Strip or in 2007, before Fatah was expelled from the Strip. He had to go to Gaza personally even if it cost him his life!
Gaza will move from one war to another under Hamas’ control of the Strip. The “Islamic Jihad” movement is nothing but an extension of “Hamas” control over Gaza, a control that allowed the movement to have thousands of missiles… which are Iranian missiles first and foremost.
It is noteworthy that Hamas pretends to be neutral in the last two wars between Israel and Islamic Jihad. It is practically trying to present its credentials to Israel as an acceptable heir to the Palestinian National Authority. How long will the Palestinians pay the price for the opportunism of the Muslim Brotherhood?
Yasser Arafat, the historical leader of the Palestinian people, kept in the small pocket of his jacket a piece of paper with figures on the number of young Palestinian graduates from universities around the world. That is, for the number of Palestinian doctors, scientists, engineers, and lawyers. There is no doubt that “Abu Ammar” made many mistakes, but in the days of “Abu Ammar” there was an international airport in Gaza that he opened with President Bill Clinton in 1998, and there was a crossing to Egypt, via Rafah, supervised by international observers. All that is currently an Israeli blockade and lists of Palestinian suicide bombers that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are proud of. There is also a people who have to live under the unjust Israeli blockade and the constant wars.
* Quoted from “An-Nahar”
