E-Paper
Barbaric Hamas terrorism strengthens Israeli right to defend itself
The answer lies in not only neutering Hamas terrorists but also making their handlers and funders pay for the October 7 massacre.
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The utterly horrible images of Hamas Islamic jihadists flaunting Israeli infants and toddlers as war booty or hostages on social media has strengthened the right of the Jewish nation to defend itself against a hostile neighborhood and exterminate the threat posed to its existence.
However, the scale of massacre of innocents, women, teenagers, children, toddlers and infants by Iran and Qatar backed Sunni Jihadists on October 7, using medieval subjugation tactics such as rape, torture and utter humiliation, has led to many a questions on how does a rule based democratic society deal with asymmetric religiously brain washed barbaric force. How does a rule based society deal with those who follow no rules ? Is the answer to October 7, 2023 is that the state should also use asymmetric force to take on the non-state actor with the same rules of war engagement ? Or use the nation state right to defend itself by all means.
Just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered the 2016 surgical strikes and 2019 Balakot strike in Pakistan and Occupied Kashmir as part of India’s right to defend itself against Rawalpindi sponsored jihadists, Israeli forces cannot behave like Hamas animals and match them in savagery. But they are well within their rights to take steps to eradicate the threat permanently from its doorsteps and neutralize their funders and handlers.
Just as it is important for Israel to take on Hamas in Gaza and Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon, it is time that nation states like Iran, Qatar and Turkey are put in the docks for supporting these jihadist groups by imposing financial sanctions on them and also by isolating them. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) should take action against these countries, who are playing geopolitics in the Middle-East to become leaders using political Islam. For example, Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are funded by LNG rich Qatar and the Sunni Taliban had its political office in Doha before it captured Kabul on August 15, 2021. Iran has been using terror proxies to expand its Shia influence through violence and extremism throughout the Middle-East in a bid to counter the economic might of Saudi Arabia and UAE. Turkey, living in its Ottoman Empire past, still dreams to be a Middle-East superpower and uses political Islam to play games on both sides of the Asia-Europe divide. It is time that countries like Qatar, Iran and Turkey were shown the mirror by the international community to force them not to use terror proxies to settle their scores in the Middle-East.
While Israeli land offensive against Hamas terrorists in Gaza is only a matter of time, the democratic world led by countries like US, India, France , Italy, UK and Germany must get together to form a comprehensive plan against terrorism which involves human and technical information sharing to override the radio silence of the enemy as well as early warning signs. Hamas has started a new cycle of violence and terror and the democratic world must be nimble enough to take the war to the enemy. Dark days are up ahead.
