Journal of Political Sciences & Public Affairs
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A Substitute Battle Between Hamas and Israelis

Albrecht Classen^{* *}Correspondence: Albrecht Classen, Department of German Studies, University of Arizona, Arizona, United States, Email:

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About the Study

For many decades, Israel has been identified by many radicals on the left as a brutal occupier of Palestinian land, and it is now also branded as an Apartheid state like South Africa used to be. In many cities worldwide, people have hence staged major protests against the ‘aggressor’ Israel when Hamas in Gaza actually initiated its massive rocket attacks against Tel Aviv and many other cities and villages on the Israeli side. This is nothing new, alas, and both sides continue to provoke each other to the point that war breaks out continuously which neither side ever being able to win with military might. Let’s face it, there are too many zealots on both sides, with the Orthodox Jews and other radical-conservative groups in Israel bent on constant land grabs occupying Palestinians property, and with Hamas operating openly as a terrorist organization hiding behind the civil population in Gaza, launching their thousands of missiles from schools, hospitals, mosques, and other non-military entities against Israeli cities.

They know that they will not achieve their goal of defeating Israel, but they try to win a propaganda war in the media, evoking an extremely ugly and hypocritical form of anti-Semitism in the western world once again. Their call until today is to eliminate the entire Jewish state, which would imply the killing of millions of Jews. Iran is their strongest supporter, whereas hardly any other Arab country is on their side. Egypt, for instance, in close cooperation with Israel, has hermetically shut off the border to Gaza, which the media hardly ever reports about. Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is nervously trying to stay out of the conflict because they have their own problems with the economic crisis there. Syria continues to be embroiled in its own civil war, with Assad being responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead among their civil population. In short, it is an extremely ugly picture.

There are numerous calls to the US government under Biden to get involved and to force both sides to stop fighting. That is easier said than done and ignores the highly selfish background motives in Gaza and in Jerusalem. The Palestinian government under Abbas is basically sidelined by Hamas, which wants to take over control by force, destroying all democratic structures. On the other side, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has served since 2009, currently faces serious criminal charges and had failed recently to form a new government. This new military conflict is a gift from heaven for him to hold on to power and to stand in as the ‘admired’ protector of his people, whereas he only wants to protect himself from the prosecutors. Of course, the religious right in Israel bears considerable guilt as well; with their illegal settlement policy they regularly drive a thorn into the sides of all Palestinians, and to hide their criminal occupations, they secretly welcome the rocket attacks.

Ironically, the new close economic cooperation between Israel and the Gulf states is moving forward, with oil pipelines and train tracks planned which would create a larger economic region sidestepping the Suez Canal and hence Egypt. Hamas realizes that their days are counted since they have nothing to offer to any of the Arab states and to their own people. Only Iran truly supports them, so the entire conflict is, once again, a substitute war between Iran and the West. Hence, provoking Israeli counterattacks which unfortunately also kill civilians despite early phone call warnings by the Israeli military to all inhabitants of critical buildings where the Hamas is hiding is certainly a smart terrorist tactic, and western protestors simply fall for that ideological trap. The situation, in short, is highly complicated, and those who march in the streets in protest against Israel would be well advised to read up a little more on this difficult and complex situation. The real power players operate in the background, and no one has the lives of the civilians really in mind.