In the Arab World, Many Want Israel To Finish Off Hamas

Hamas’s green banners are prominent on America’s city streets and Europeans are pushing Israel to pause, or even halt, its Gaza operation. In contrast, many in the Arab world are quietly urging the Jewish state to finish off Hamas, as they consider the Gaza war a region-wide fight against extremism. Hamas was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement that also spawned Islamist-based terrorists like Al Qaeda and ISIS. The Brotherhood is feared and loathed in capitals from Cairo to Riyadh. Hamas is also increasingly dependent for its finances, arms, and training on the Islamic Republic of Iran, which Arab governments consider a competitor and an enemy. One reason Hamas launched its October 7 war is that talks over an American-sponsored Saudi-Israeli peace treaty were reportedly progressing. Already disenchanted with the Palestinian Authority — and downright hostile to Hamas — Riyadh reportedly remains undeterred by the war and is adamant on pushing the deal. As a former head of the Israel Defense Forces research unit, Yossi Kuperwasser, tells the Sun, many Arabs consider the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthis, Iraqi militias, and their benefactors at Tehran to be their enemies. “The Islamist extremists are seen as damaging to Arab interests. If we defeat Hamas, we’ll do them a great service,” Mr. Kuperwasser, now with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, says. Even old-guard West Bank Palestinians are horrified by Hamas’s October 7 atrocities. “Only you, stupid Israelis, didn’t see it coming,” a veteran Israeli peace activist, Shlomi Eldar, quoted a member of the Palestinian Authority as saying. In an interview on Israel’s Channel 11 TV, Mr. Eldar said his West Bank friend added, “When Hamas terrorists entered your communities, they didn’t see your kids as human, they considered them animals.” The terrorist group is disappointed by what it considers insufficient Arab support. “We were expecting much more from Hezbollah and our brethren in the West Bank,” a top Hamas official, Moussa Abu Marzuk, told Al Jazeera TV. “Members of the PA and some in the Arab countries are quietly urging the West to obliterate us.” Officially, the Palestinian Authority and most Arab states are expressing revulsion over the IDF’s actions in Gaza, and are calling for an immediate ceasefire. So are many European countries, the United Nations, and Hamas’s allies at Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing.Even as America vetoes UN resolutions demanding a ceasefire, it is pressuring Israel to curb some of its military activities and provide more humanitarian aid to Gaza. Administration officials are warning of a widened war and appear to fear a growing negative Arab reaction. President Biden is said to be making frantic calls to Prime Minister Netanyahu almost daily to urge a moderation of Israel’s war goals. Even a temporary ceasefire, though, would slow the IDF’s drive to end Hamas’s military capabilities and its hold on power. Israel has vowed to prevent the terrorists from ever repeating its horrific October 7 massacres. “The Bible says there is time for peace and time for war,” Mr. Netanyahu told reporters Monday. “This is a time for war, a war for a common future.” More specifically, the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, added, Hamas terrorists “have only two options, die in battle, or surrender unconditionally.”Arab countries “want a decisive victory over Hamas,” a top adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, Ron Dermer, told Fox News. There are ample reasons for that.For more than a decade, Saudi Arabia and its ally, the United Arab Emirates, have furiously fought against the Islamic Republic’s Yemeni proxy, the Houthis. Although that war has eased, Saudi air defenses reportedly intercepted Houthi missiles aimed at Israel over the weekend. “When Hamas’s false claim that Israel bombed a Gaza hospital led to massive street demonstrations across the Mideast, Europe, and U.S. college campuses, Saudi Arabia remained quiet,” a frequent visitor to Riyadh, Karen Elliott House, a former Wall Street Journal publisher, writes.“As an American Jew you’re safer in Saudi Arabia than in American colleges,” an architect of the Abraham Accords that led to peace between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, Jared Kushner, who is President Trump’s son-in-law, says. Meanwhile, as the Arab representative at the UN Security Council, the UAE dutifully promotes a Gaza ceasefire. Yet, it also publicly denounces Hamas’s attacks, with the Emirati minister of state for international cooperation, Reem Ibrahim Al Hashemi, telling the council last week that they were “barbaric and heinous.” While street protesters across the Arab world express solidarity with Gaza, leaders fear that unless Israel beats Hamas, the Iran-backed “resistance” and other terrorist groups would threaten stability, challenge their regimes, and end all hope for peace and prosperity. Arab leaders say that “Hamas must be destroyed in Gaza,” a long-time Washington diplomat, Dennis Ross, writes. “They made clear that if Hamas is perceived as winning, it will validate the group’s ideology of rejection, give leverage and momentum to Iran and its collaborators and put their own governments on the defensive.”

In the Arab World, Many Want Israel To Finish Off Hamas

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