Palestinian Normalization – With Hamas, Not Israel

The Fellowship  |  October 12, 2017

PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-GAZA-CONFLICT-HAMAS
Masked youth cadets from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, march in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis on September 15, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / SAID KHATIB (Photo credit should read SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images)

As Stand for Israel reports in today’s Daily Dispatch, the rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have reached a unity deal. Why would Palestinians want to unite with a terrorist organization like Hamas, and not with the region’s only democracy? Gatestone Institute’s Bassam Tawil writes that many Palestinians prefer peace with Hamas because of the terror group’s dream of destroying the Jewish state:

Palestinian and Arab leaders have long advanced anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and anti-Western conspiracy theories. Why do these leaders do so? For one purpose: distraction.

The corrupt Arab and Palestinian leaders spread such rumors to divert attention from problems at home, such as corruption and dictatorship. These leaders want their people too busy hating Jews and Westerners to demand reform, democracy and transparency from their leaders. Those valuables, of course, are what Arab and Palestinian leaders still refuse to offer their people…

…many Palestinians continue to consider any form of contact with Jews and “normalization” with the “Zionist entity” an act of treason.

Second, that Palestinians do not hesitate to designate their own women as prostitutes and traitors for engaging in the most basic activities with Jews. Such disrespect for women is not, by the way, something that should surprise us about conservative Arab and Islamic societies.

Third, that for many Palestinians, the priority remains making peace with Hamas and not Israel. Why do they prefer peace with Hamas? Because they identify with Hamas’s dream of destroying Israel and killing Jews. It may be an unpleasant a truth, but that is the bottom line.

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