Hamas’s Tactics of Attrition and Extortion Are Paying Off

In January, the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh visited Iran after promising the Egyptian government that he would not. Cairo responded by cutting exports of cooking gas and tires to the Gaza Strip. Facing a possible domestic crisis, the terrorist group recently resumed sending balloon-borne explosives into Israel, and allowed other jihadists to fire rockets. The move succeeded, despite retaliatory strikes by the IDF, writes Elior Levy:

[Hamas] sought to create an atmosphere of confrontation with Israel, until both Cairo and Jerusalem understood that the situation was not sustainable. It is also safe to assume that Hamas knew that since Israel isn’t looking for a full-scale military conflict so close to elections, the country’s response would be moderate.

A few days have passed, and Egypt has resumed imports of gas into the Strip, while Israel also offered to supply Gaza with huge amounts of gas . . . to appease Hamas and prevent any further escalation. . . . The attempts to appease Hamas didn’t end [there], as just after the escalation on the Strip started, Israel had approved a few precautionary measures for Gaza after years of refusal. For example, Israel has decided to allow the import of tires into the Strip, which it had banned since they are frequently set alight during riots. Israel has even allowed 6,000 tires into Gaza in January, despite unceasing incendiary-balloon attacks.

This is how, in the span of a mere five weeks of attrition, with a few well-placed rocket launches, hundreds of balloon clusters, and tensions with Cairo, Hamas managed to blackmail Israel into giving it a string of unprecedented measures of relief not seen in years.

Read more at Ynet

More about: Egypt, Gaza Strip, Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, Israeli Security

 

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa