by Bruce Thornton<\/p>\n
Frontpage Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n The currently suspended missile duel between Israel and Hamas exposes yet again the surreal absurdity of the way the international community handles this conflict between a democratic state and a terrorist gang. Yesterday\u2019s cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas is another example of the folly of treating a bunch of murderers like a legitimate government.<\/p>\n Consider, for example, the way a terrorist outfit like Hamas, self-defined in its charter by its genocidal goals, is treated as if it were a legitimate state. But Hamas is not a government that rules over a sovereign territory defined by international borders. If you want a recent graphic illustration of Hamas\u2019 true nature, peruse this\u00a0video<\/a>\u00a0of the aftermath of the summary execution of 6 accused \u201ccollaborators.\u201d Or consider Hamas\u2019 official television\u00a0coverage<\/a>\u00a0of this week\u2019s terrorist bombing of a bus in Israel. Or contemplate the barbarity of using its own \u201ccitizens\u201d as human shields for its munitions dumps and rocket launchers. Calling Hamas honcho Ismail Haniyeh a \u201cPrime Minister,\u201d as virtually every world government and news organization does, doesn\u2019t mean he is actually a prime minister, no matter how many elections are held. These titles and voting procedures do not constitute a legitimate government that should be recognized as such by the world community as though it respects international laws and treaties like the Geneva Conventions. Let alone should this fa\u00e7ade of political legitimacy rationalize the millions of dollars Western governments give to Hamas under the guise of UN aid for social services, freeing up funds for purchasing weapons and munitions.<\/p>\n The same pretense of state legitimacy is equally absurd in the case of Palestinian \u201cPresident\u201d Mahmoud Abbas, the Holocaust-denying head of the Palestinian Authority, which is recognized as the sole representative of the Palestinians instead of the terrorist Palestinian Liberation Organization ever since the cosmetic makeover brought about by the 1993 Oslo Accords. The PA is still just another terrorist gang, as demonstrated by its frequent honoring of terrorist murderers by naming streets and parks after them, and its clinging to the goal of destroying Israel through demands for territorial concessions and the \u201cright of return\u201d for an endlessly growing number of \u201crefugees.\u201d As such, the PA\u2019s main functions include peddling to the international community the \u201ctwo-state\u201d and \u201cnationalist aspirations\u201d canard in order to delegitimize Israel and obtain money, and to distribute to its people whatever international financial aid is left over after PA fatcats have skimmed their take. Yet today as in the past, the US is intervening in the current conflict to ensure that Abbas rather than Hamas is the \u201cprimary interlocutor with the international community,\u201d as theWall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0reported, because it allegedly is more \u201clegitimate\u201d and \u201cmoderate\u201d \u2014 the only sign of its moderation being that it believes Israel should be destroyed later rather than sooner.<\/p>\n Of course, totalitarian regimes for decades have appropriated the government titles and offices of legitimate governments, but at least a state like the laughably named Democratic People\u2019s Republic of North Korea actually controls a recognized territory defined by international borders (except for the armistice line in the south). That hypocrisy is bad enough, but extending it to terrorists whose sole foundation for existence is the destruction of a neighboring legitimate nation compounds hypocrisy with delusion. It demands that superficial nomenclature substitute for reality. After all, as Plato pointed out, a gang of thieves behaves \u201cdemocratically\u201d when it divvies up the loot. But that machinery does not signify the presence of the principles and beliefs that constitute legitimate government.<\/p>\n That absurdity leads to another \u2014 the \u201cnegotiations\u201d and \u201cdiplomacy\u201d in which legitimate and technically legitimate states participate when dealing with this terrorist gang. This absurdity is compounded when one of those states is Egypt and its rulers the Muslim Brotherhood. Asking Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi to intercede with its offspring Hamas is akin to asking Hitler in early1938 to intercede with its stooge Sudeten Nazi Party to stop its violence against the government of Czechoslovakia. Morsi does not object to Hamas\u2019 rain of missiles on principle. Indeed, the Iranian Fajr-5 missiles able to hit Tel Aviv reached Gaza by transiting Egyptian territory on their way from Sudan. No, the Egyptians are trying to restrain Hamas on tactical grounds. Given that the Muslim Brothers have not yet consolidated its power or control over the army, and that Egypt is near bankruptcy and dependent on a promised $9 billion in aid from the EU, the IMF, and the US, Morsi doesn\u2019t need Hamas and Islamic Jihad causing problems right now. And his role in mediating the cease-fire has endowed this soldier in the \u201cgrand jihad\u201d against the West immense international praise and prestige.<\/p>\n And how despicable is it to watch a state like Turkey, a member of NATO and thus an ally of the US, send its foreign minister to Gaza to show \u201csolidarity with the Palestinian nation\u2019s [sic] suffering\u201d? Or to hear its Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan \u2014 Obama\u2019s international BFF he\u2019s scheduled to visit soon \u2014 say, \u201cIsrael is a terror state and its acts are terrorist acts\u201d? Isn\u2019t anyone else disgusted by this spectacle of \u201csolidarity\u201d with an actual terrorist outfit whose foundational charter calls for genocide, and that indiscriminately rains missiles down on its neighbor? There is no doubt that Hamas is emboldened in its intransigence by this diplomatic support from legitimate states, or visits by UN chief Ban Ki-Moon, or news agencies like CNN interviewing Hamas foreign policy spokesman Osama Hamdan, all of which are as important as the rockets and other weapons provided by Iran.<\/p>\n