In the past year alone, about a dozen senior Hamas operatives have relocated to Turkey, a country they and their colleagues use as a base of operations for conducting terrorist attacks against the Jewish state. And just this past weekend, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan officially welcomed Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas chairman, to his country. Richard Kemp writes:

Erdogan’s support for Hamas reduces the prospects for peace in the region and makes more likely a full-scale war involving Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Gaza, embroiling Russian forces in Syria—with inevitable spill-over into Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Yemen. Given the vast array of Iranian-supplied rockets facing Israel, it is the population of southern Lebanon that will suffer most as the Israel Defense Forces are compelled to launch both heavy air strikes and large-scale ground incursions.

Erdogan will not trigger this conflict, but his support for Hamas is a major aggravating factor. Jerusalem knows this and, despite immense restraint so far, might at some point have no choice but to take action against Hamas in Turkey. Israeli operations on the territory of a NATO member would have dire consequences.

NATO, the UN, the EU, and the U.S. therefore have an obligation to pressure Erdogan to kick Hamas out and cease all backing for it. The UK should be part of this effort. Its message of condemnation should include proscribing Hamas in its entirety. Currently only the so-called “military wing” is designated as a terrorist organization. This is a false dichotomy, fabricated to allow continued dialogue with Hamas’s political leadership. But all elements of the group are interlinked and overlapping, and all contribute to terrorist violence. Proscribing it in its entirety would greatly damage Hamas and send a clear signal to Erdogan.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.