By nature, I am a peacemaker. However, I am also a believer in the simple truth that you can make peace with someone who has not lost sight of humanity and not someone who has descended into an abysmal pit of inhumanity.
On the strained relationship between Israel and Palestine, I believe it is important for both countries to dialogue on peace measures to resolve their ongoing conflict. In the end, the people of Israel and the people of Palestine have their roots in the land of the Arab world, no matter their conflict and years of violence their roots do not change.
Hamas on the other hand is a face of terrorism. There is no negotiation with terrorism and there can be no peace talks with terrorists. Our culture of tolerance should not diminish our capacity to express indignation and condemnation, when one is dealing with violence against innocent people and to do what is necessary concretely to stop that violence. The hand of the aggressor must be blocked.
The only good terrorist is a dead terrorist. It might be a crude and heartless statement but we need to be heartless because terrorism does not have a heart, it is merciless. The terror unleashed by Hamas on October 7th, 2023 was horrific, brutal, and disturbing. Not only Israelis but sane people around the world will never forget the images and videos of the inhumanity of the Hamas terrorists.
Israel is not at war with Palestine. Israel has started a war against terrorism. Israel is determined that Hamas will pay the price because Hamas attacked innocent Israeli civilians. In my personal opinion, most terrorists are cowards driven by a fanatic ideology, Hamas is no different. Terrorists always target innocent people who do not have anything to do with their fight. Studies of most terrorist attacks will reveal that the innocent killed were targeted because the message of fear was the motive of the terror attack.
I remember the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai. I remember it well because I was at the Taj two hours before the horrific act of terrorism was unleashed by a group of Islamic radicalized young men. It was providence that my daughter was unwell and I had to leave the conference I was attending at that time to head back home to Borivali. Little did I know the terror that would unfold in that hotel in a few hours. A friend of mine was trapped in the hotel. We entered the hotel together that evening but I left, and he stayed back to report on the conference. When you think about the attack, you try to rationalize the fault of the people in the Taj Hotel, at Leopold Cafe, or at the Chabad House. They had not caused any harm to the terrorists or their families. What were the reasons behind the deaths of several innocent people?
In Israel too, there was no reason for Hamas to target innocent Israeli civilians, its fight is with the Israeli government, Israeli Armed Forces, and Israeli Intelligence. If Hamas was indeed brave and courageous, it would go to war with Israel in the manner a war ought to be fought. But, Hamas is a cowardly terrorist organization and that’s why its impotent terrorists had to prove their manhood by raping some Israeli women and killing innocent babies and elderly people. Hamas claimed to fighting for the cause of the people of Palestine. With this terror attack on Israeli civilians the cause, if there was ever any, is lost. The innocent Israeli civilians were not at war with Hamas or Palestine; neither are the innocent civilians of Palestine at war with Israel but they will be collateral damage because Hamas is using them as human shields.
It pains my heart to relive the horror of October 7, 2023, I have so many friends in Israel and now I am sad that we have to see Palestinians face the brunt because of Hamas’s terror attack, I have friends in Palestine too. The faces of the people shot dead, faces of the women and children, faces of the innocent lives sucked out. For what? So that a terror organisation Hamas can thump its chest in its circle of Islamic terrorists. You cannot show humanity to terrorists who do not understand the tenets of human behaviours, even brutish and wild animals do not behave in such a manner. Hamas terrorists behaved as possessed men filled with hatred and their Islamic radicalism.
Hamas does not care about the Palestinian cause and neither does it care about the people of Israel and neither does it care about peace in the Arab region. It is a terrorist organization and its core purpose of existence is to spread terror. Hamas is a hired gun with the core objective of creating a stumbling block to the peace talks in the Arab region after the Abraham Accords. Israel and other Arab nations were forging strong bilateral ties to ensure peace in the Arab world. Hamas was hired to derail the peace processes and take the region back to war and strife.
The real question that global leaders and investigative agencies must decipher is who or which people gave Hamas the confidence to undertake such a dastardly act against innocent Israeli civilians. It is beyond my mental comprehension to reason out the middle and end game of Hamas after it unleashed its terror attack on Israel. Did Hamas assume or think that Israel would be too shocked to react to the terror attack? Did Hamas assume or think that other Arab nations and other global nations would pressure Israel to not retaliate in order to avoid a full-fledged war in the Middle East? Or did Hamas anticipate a full-frontal attack and retaliation from Israel in which Palestinians too would become victims thereby triggering a war in the Middle-East region with Islamic nations coming together to fight Israel who would get support from the US and the UK?
Hamas, in my personal opinion, does not have the brains to pull such a viciously planned and synchronized terrorist attack on Israel but it did. Hamas had to have been directed and trained to beat the Israeli intelligence systems and forces. It had to have gotten help from Iran. Iran is the only nation in the Arab world that wants to plunge to rest of the world into a state of war. Of course, there is Qatar too, but Qatar is not looking at a world war, it is clearly trying to break the hegemony of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East. Qatar would have provided the funding, and even Turkey could have contributed but the planning, and training would have to have been Iran.
After the slow death of ISIS and Al Qaeda, Hamas would have been led to believe that they have the opportunity to occupy the mind space of the Islamic radicals around the world with their barbaric attack on the victims whom they believe to be ‘Kafirs’ or ‘Infidels’. Hamas wanted to go down in history as a terror organization that exposed the chinks in the famed Israel intelligence and IDF. Hamas wanted to send a message out to the world especially the Islamic radicals that Israel is penetrable and we can bring the Jewish state shame by killing their vulnerable citizens – babies, elderly, and women – brazenly in broad daylight and put it out the gruesome videos and pictures for the world to see. Hamas then did what it does best hide behind the human shields of the Palestinians knowing that there are enough peacemakers and human rights activists in the world who would sing a sad song of the plight of the Palestinians caused by Israel’s retalitation.
Hamas is a terror organization and it is not fighting for the rights of the people of Palestine. Its leaders are not in Gaza, they are sitting in plush hotels in Qatar reeling in the money over their terror attack while watching the plight of the Palestinian people and the people of Israel gleefully. Hamas was contracted to trigger a war in the Middle East region and that is the sole reason that global leaders and leaders of Arab nations must not fall prey to these designs, instead work to put an end to Hamas and put an end to terrorism. A only good terrorist, I repeat, is a dead terrorist.
