Useful idiot apologists in the West naively underestimate Hamas’s violent hatred of Jews

Tim Marshall writes a weekly column on geopolitics for Reaction subscribers. Become a subscriber here.

One of many questions being asked is ‘How?’ How did Hamas pull off such an attack?’ I have another question which is not being asked. How is it possible they acted in such a depraved, savage, barbaric manner? I have an answer.

Antisemitism doesn’t cover it. It’s ‘Jew hate’.

Last Saturday, young Palestinian men raped Jewish women, slit the throats of Jewish babies, shot elderly Jewish people, beheaded Jewish men, and kidnapped Jewish men, women, and children because they were Jewish. 

How could they? Because since they were children, these young Palestinian men had been spoon-fed poison.

They had been told that Jews are subhuman. That Jews are ‘filthy’, that Jews are ‘pigs and apes’.  That if a Jew hides behind a tree or a rock the “the rocks and the tree will call”; “oh Muslim, oh servant of God! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him” which is one of the hadiths of the Prophet Mohammed. They would never be told of any context in which such a thing might have been said. Only that Jews do not deserve to live and that God hates them.

Some people don’t believe that this is everyday discourse among Hamas and other radical groups. They don’t believe it even though Hamas does not hide these views. The naive regard statements by Hamas as rhetoric. Perhaps no longer. But the apologists for murder will still argue it is rhetoric. They will say that when, in 2018, the senior Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, stood on the border with Israel and vowed that Hamas would “tear the hearts of the Jews from their bodies” it was rhetoric.

In the face of last Saturday’s evidence to the contrary they will still argue that when Hussein Qasem of the Palestine Islamic Scholars Association said on Hamas TV this June that Jews are the enemies of “humanity as a whole”, and that “Our young men in Palestine and abroad crave to drink your blood”, it was rhetoric. The same applies to the remarks of senior Hamas member Fathi Hammad and his exhortation to “cut the heads of the Jews”, and to the sermon this April in Gaza given by Sheikh Dr. Hamad Al-Regeb in which he longed for the day when the faithful could “get to the Jews”.

On and on its goes. There are hundreds of examples. At least they do not hide behind ‘anti-Zionism’ as their useful idiots in the West do. Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah spelt it out in a speech in 2002 arguing that prophecy showed that Israel had been created “not in order to bring about the anti-Christ and the end of the world, but rather that Allah the Glorified and Most High wants to save you from having to go to the ends of the world, for they have gathered in one place – they have gathered in one place – and there the final and decisive battle will take place.” Or to put it in another way –  “we can kill them all in one place”.

It starts when they are young. The Hamas gunmen of today grew up on ‘Assud the Bunny’ a TV puppet much beloved by children in Gaza. In 2009, Hamas had him killed off – it’s worth a watch. If you made it through to the end of that you will have noticed that the soon-to-be martyr Assud insists the mujahedeen must fight to ensure the ‘return’ to, among other places, Tel Aviv. The girl then turns to the camera and insists that “Victory is near” against the “filth” of the Zionists.

Watching that I was reminded of a conversation I had with a senior Hamas official in Gaza. We were driving though the upmarket area of Gaza in his limousine, passing the car showrooms, boutiques, luxury hotels, beauty parlours, and fancy beach restaurants enjoyed by the Hamas elite. I asked him, given that Palestinians always lose when they take on Israel, how many generations of Palestinians was he prepared to sacrifice. He answered: “You Westerners don’t understand. If it takes a hundred years of sacrifice, we will make that sacrifice”.

This is the rationale that means that Hamas will do everything they can to kill Jews despite knowing that many, many more Palestinians will be killed in revenge. This is the background to them sending brainwashed, hate filled, and sexually frustrated young men to die, but not before they have slaughtered as many Jews as they can find.

This is what their useful idiots in the West do not know is meant by the chant ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’. Hamas will not be satisfied until from the river to the sea (the Jordan River and the Mediterranean)  is ‘Judenrein’ – free of Jews. I use the Nazi phrase because that is the closest thing we understand to what they are.  

Some of the useful idiots in the UK and other Western countries parrot phrases such as ‘by any means possible’ because it sounds radically edgy from the safety of their armchairs and ‘Free Palestine’ rallies. They are unaware of the reality of what it means. Others know only too well and laugh at their fellow travellers’ (usually youthful) naivety. The former are akin to the left wing idealists in the 1979 Iranian revolution, the latter are those who murdered them once the revolutionaries came to power.

By contrast, although there are many in the Middle East rejoicing in this week’s killing of Jews, there are also numerous voices there calling it out what it was: unjustified mass murder, and un-Islamic.

From Saudi Arabia, Abdel Al-Karim writes on social media: “When the predictable Israeli response begins, these rats will hide in their holes, and we will see only innocent women and children dealing with the death and destruction”. Mansour Al-Malik writes on social media: “This is the greatest gift we could give to the enemies of Islam and Muslims.”

In Kuwait, journalist Jasem Al-Juraid says: “They murdered an Israeli woman, stripped her, crushed her corpse, and drove her around as a show of victory… But a victory of what?! Are these the principles of Islam?! Is this what the call ‘Allah Akbar’ is for?!

In Morocco, Abd Al-Hak Al-Snaibi, a researcher and security expert, writes: “I don’t understand what message Hamas is trying to convey by arresting an elderly woman, holding her captive and harassing her?? I also do not understand how they deface the body of a dead soldier. Is this part of Islam?”

In Egypt, writer Dalia Ziada says: “What kind of heroism is it to attack infants and elderly people and to kill them on a holiday?! Not to mention stripping and raping women….Hamas Operatives – Savages And Criminal Thugs.”

Also in Egypt, Sherif Gaber, an artist and filmmaker, says: “If this is not terrorism, what is?! When you continue to view this as ‘resistance,’ what are you, if not a supporter of terrorism?! Not only do you support terrorism but you are also vile!”

And yet here in the West we have apologists aplenty living out their revolutionary fantasies with little idea of what they are supporting. The useful idiots are often well-meaning people who believe they are on the side of justice. Alongside them are those who know that, if there was nothing to prevent them, Saturday’s murderers would not have stopped killing until there were no more Jews to kill but pretend otherwise. Do we need more evidence?

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