OPINION:
More than 1,500 Islamic militants flooded over the Israeli border Saturday morning, bringing suffering and death to unsuspecting music festival revelers and residents of sleepy small towns. The brutality of the sneak attack shocked the world.
In a video that aired in Yemen in December, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, one of the founders of Hamas, explained his organization’s goals extend well beyond extracting a price for Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
“We are not talking about liberating our lands alone,” he said, as translated by the Middle East Research Institute. His words describe a world in which “no Zionism, no treacherous Christianity” would be allowed to exist.
The conflict has already taken the lives of at least 25 U.S. citizens, with several more likely held captive in Gaza. Administration officials have asked the government of Qatar to serve as an intermediary with Hamas to negotiate their release, which it can do because several Hamas leaders live in Doha, Qatar’s capital.
That’s one reason to think the significant funding needed to pull off an operation of this scale was at least in part secured in Qatar and sourced from Iran. The Islamic Republic, of course, is flush with payoffs from Democratic administrations.
In 2016, then-President Barack Obama traded $1.7 billion in cash for the return of U.S. hostages, followed by President Biden, who recently unfroze $6 billion in Iranian assets.
The latter amount will give Iran the fiscal freedom it needs to indulge in the promotion of terrorism for decades to come.
Hamas fighters have even upgraded to American equipment. Marauders were photographed holding U.S.-made M4 carbines and M16 rifles — true assault weapons not available to civilians — that either came from the trove of rifles and ammunition that the Biden administration inexplicably left to the Taliban in Afghanistan or were sourced from Ukraine.
Critics of the Democratic administrations’ appeasement have consistently warned that the enemies of Western society would be emboldened, and so they have. Over 150 Israelis are paying the price, kidnapped to serve as human shields to blunt Israeli retaliation.
While events are unfolding rapidly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should continue to curb the instinct to respond in kind, with ferocity that could expand the conflict beyond Israeli’s borders. The strategic dismantling of Hamas and individuals outside its borders directly responsible for the plot should be the objective.
That’s a tall order for Israeli intelligence services that were caught off guard by the assault, which is troubling, considering Israel actively defends its borders. U.S. spies were also oblivious to the plot, which means they have no idea how many terrorist cells have already infiltrated U.S. borders kept wide open in the craven hope of expanding the Democratic voter base.
Instead of guarding against potential copycat attacks here at home, the FBI remains fixated on rounding up Trump supporters who protested at the U.S. Capitol nearly three years ago. That has to stop.
Our prayers are with the innocent lives lost in this assault. In the face of this global threat, U.S. officials must recognize the mistakes they’ve made and take action to ensure nothing like this ever takes place on our shores.
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