Cherishing Hatred

In 2005 Israel unilaterally removed 21 settlements and nine thousand settlers from Gaza. The settlers were not easily persuaded that they had no option but to vacate the premises. Force was used by the IDF to complete the process removing all settlers. All the related buildings, synagogues and installations were destroyed, leaving nothing of value behind.

Other than an extensive greenhouse complex which wealthy international Jews paid millions to leave behind intact, with the view that this would advantage Gazans and give them a leg up on beginning a robust agricultural venture of their own. It took no time at all after withdrawal of Israel completely from Gaza for the greenhouse complex to be destroyed.

Palestinian gangs preyed on the Palestinian population, and chaos ruled. When Fatah stepped in to assume its authority some semblance of civility returned, though the armed gangs continued their rule of Gaza. Their rule included sending over home-made rockets which fell close inside the Israeli border. The 1.6-million Gazan Palestinians did nothing whatever with the opportunity to commit to a nascent state of their own; turmoil ensued instead.

And then Hamas, duly elected to sit in the Palestinian Authority Parliament alongside Fatah decided after all that Fatah was administering Gaza inadequately and they could do better with an enclave of their very own. A violent confrontation with Fatah loyalists ensued until they were subdued, chased back into the West Bank or murdered, and then Hamas had control of Gaza and flaunted its mandate to destroy Israel.

The response was the infamous blockade to stop Hamas from acquiring more weapons.

The guiding principle of both Fatah and Hamas of "resistance" to the "occupation" was strengthened though each saw the other as a competitor for control, and violent hatred marked their relationship, the sole unifying object being the destruction of Israel and retrieval of the ground upon which it sat returned to Palestinian rule, although it had never at any time been under Palestinian rule.

Egypt controlled Gaza and Jordan the West Bank before the 1967 war that placed Israel in possession of both. And for the first time enabled Jews to approach the Temple Mount and pray at the Western Wall.

After the Second World War the United Nations validated a resolution that recommended partition of Palestine into independent "Arab and Jewish states". The Arab Middle East deposed it, deployed their armies collectively to initiate "a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades", in the words of Azzam Pasha, then-secretary of the Arab League.

Hazy Gaza City is seen early Saturday, July 19, 2014. Israeli troops pushed deeper into Gaza on Friday in a ground offensive that officials said could last up to two weeks. (photo credit: AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Jews defended themselves and to the astonishment of all quarters including the international community, put the combined Arab armies to rout, and set about establishing their state more fully than ever, presenting as a model in democracy, absorbing over a million Palestinians and giving them full citizenship rights in the process.

Hamas remains mired in its raging hatred for Israel and its plans for destroying the state and reclaiming the land. Recognized for its terrorist credentials, it is viewed as a terrorist group in most of the international community, and now increasingly within the Middle East, other Arab states consider it little more than a terrorist militia.

When a Palestinian spokeswoman, Diana Butto was asked on CNN about the tactics employed by Hamas of using women and children as human shields to enable them to portray Israel as a genocidal oppressor, she responded that by mounting such a question one identifies oneself as "racist and reprehensible".

This photo provided by an anti-government activist group shows Syrians inspecting the rubble of destroyed houses following a Syrian government airstrike in Aleppo, Syria, on Wednesday. Syrian government warplanes on Wednesday struck a series of targets in a northern city that is a stronghold of an al-Qaida splinter group. The Associated Press/Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

Is it racist and reprehensible to recognize that across the Middle East and North Africa, and tentacles stretching into Asia, fanatical Islamists dedicated to the noble cause of jihad are spreading anarchic chaos, committing mass atrocities, spilling blood between the two main sects of Islam, promising when they're through to mount similar atrocities elsewhere in the world?

Will there ever come a time when the Islamists who control Hamas surrender hate to compassion for their own people whom they consign to a life of misery and death as they defy the right of Israel to exist as a home and haven for the world's Jews?