Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general of the UN, addressed the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East and stated: “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation…”
The Secretary-general has displayed a complete misunderstanding of the causes of the October 7 tragedy, and the threats facing Israel and the whole world. He has also demonstrated a lack of understanding of the sources and ideologies of modern terrorism.
Islamic terrorism has plagued Europe for many years, killing hundreds of people and causing havoc to numerous communities.
Recent events include the terrorist murder of two Swedish football fans in Belgium, approximately a week ago.
A few days earlier a teacher, Dominique Bernard, was stabbed to death by a terrorist in Arras, France, with two others injured in the incident. The school had to be evacuated due to a bomb threat. The French media recalls that around three years ago another teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded in a Paris suburb.
According to Antonio Guterres’s reasoning, one might absurdly argue that these horrific terrorist acts “did not happen in a vacuum.” After all France and Belgium were once colonial powers. A ridiculous excuse can be found for any atrocity.
Is there context for Hamas terrorism?
YET, IN a sense, the UN secretary-general is right.
Islamic terror needs to be understood in context, though a completely different context from the one that he suggests. The context involves the war of Jihad war against Western liberal democracies and possibly also against anybody who does not share the jihadist creed. This is the ideology of ISIS and Hamas.
Guterres also demonstrated a complete lack of awareness of the history and background of the Gaza conflict.A few basic facts need to be emphasized.
At the end of the Israeli War of Independence in 1949, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, which it captured in that war, while Jordan held the West Bank and had actually annexed it.
None of these areas were thus under Israeli military occupation. This situation persisted until the Six-Day War in 1967. During this period (1949-1967) Israel faced constant terror attacks from Arab territories including the West Bank and Gaza, some reaching into the very heart of Israeli territory.
To cite just two examples: On March 1954, terrorists from Jordan attacked a bus traveling from Eilat to Tel-Aviv, murdered 12 passengers, and desecrated their bodies. In April 1956 terrorists coming from the West Bank attacked a synagogue in a village close to Ben-Gurion airport (Tel Aviv) killing three boys and their teacher. Arab terrorism against Israel has therefore no connection to military occupation.
MOREOVER, IN 2005, Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip, leaving it under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Two years later Hamas seized power, brutally murdering members of its PA rival organization.
After this, Hamas intensified its rocket campaign against the Israeli civilian population while cynically using its own people as human shields.
Hence, since 2005, the Gaza Strip has not been under Israeli occupation.
Yet we continue to hear explanations based on a “progressive” and distorted interpretation of international law, which somehow insists that the Gaza Strip, under the complete control of Hamas terrorists for over 15 years, remains inexplicably occupied by Israel.
It is true that the Gaza population lives under dire conditions but so does the North Korean population. In both cases, the regime has different interests and priorities. For Hamas, it is the destruction of Israel following its murderous jihadist ideology. Over the years, substantial amounts of money have been sent to Gaza, but much of it has been invested in the Hamas terror apparatus.
Moreover, in a well-intentioned move, Israel naively allowed thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to work within its borders, hoping to improve their lives and stabilize the situation.
Hamas cynically abused this by using these workers to gather information that would facilitate the Nazi-style attack on October 7. Needless to say, the attack has put an end to the employment of Gaza workers in Israel. But Hamas has no concern for their own people and will continue to exploit them as human shields.
REVERTING TO the UN Secretary General’s address, which is also remarkable for his attempt to place equal responsibility on the Hamas terrorists and on Israel, which is attempting to defend itself from the worst horrors committed since World War II.
On October 7 the Hamas terrorists murdered civilians in their homes. They tortured their victims, killed children in front of their parents, filmed it, and boasted about it.
Guterres equated these atrocities with Israel’s attempts to separate the civilian population from the Hamas terrorists, a separation that Hamas is doing its best to frustrate, in order to maintain their human shields. In fact, the Secretary General’s condemnation of the use of human shields was almost lost among the flood of condemnations that he indiscriminately handed out.
Apparently, he fails to understand that the use of civilians as human shields is the crux of the matter.It became the trump card of terrorists in their battle against civilization, and it is the primary cause of the Palestinian’s plight in Gaza.
Indeed, it is perhaps the most important task of international law to adapt to the challenge of war against terrorists who hide among civilians and turn them into human shields.
The battle against terrorism is paramount for the survival of humanity and the Western world as we know it.
It is obvious that this battle must be subject to rules. However, it is crucial that these rules should not be worded or applied in a way that frustrates the eradication of terrorism and inadvertently supports the terrorists’ agenda. It is also of the utmost importance that the UN and other international organizations devote more energy and resources to the war against terrorism than against those who are trying to defend themselves.