Hamas is the obstacle to Middle East peace

Israel's critics have got it wrong - extremists in Gaza must be defeated before a better future can be built, writes Ron Prosor, Israel's Ambassador to the UK.

By Ron Prosor 


Hamas has betrayed the Palestinian cause Photo: Reuters
In August 2005, Israel left Gaza. Every soldier was withdrawn. Every Jewish settlement was evacuated, in a process requiring 45,000 police and costing $2.5 billion. Politicians staked their reputations on a courageous step towards peace. They hoped Gaza could provide a blueprint of Palestinian autonomy, a precursor to a Palestinian state.
Tragically, Hamas chose violence, rejecting the chance to develop Gazan society and opting instead to attack ours. Missiles from Gaza have blighted the lives of Israeli civilians since 2001. The withdrawal should have brought calm, but 5,000 missiles and mortars have since rained down on Israel.
As I write, Hizbollah flags flutter in the Kensington streets outside my Embassy. Agitators hail the Hamas leadership that created the crisis. In Gaza, protestors dissenting against Hamas face the death sentence. With the blessing of Iran and Hizbollah, Hamas has turned Gaza into a theocratic nightmare.
Al-Hayat last Wednesday reported Hamas's new laws enforcing punishments of whipping for drinking, dismembering for theft, and executions for a host of ambiguous crimes. "Games of chance" are also to be punished with the whip. Ironically, Hamas continues to gamble with Palestinian lives.
Hamas is committed to Islamism at its bloodiest, and Israel is not its only target. In June 2007 Hamas turned its weapons on its brethren, chasing the Palestinian Authority from Gaza. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 161 people died during the bloody coup, including 41 civilians. Brutality has characterised Hamas's rule. In November 2007, seven demonstrators were killed, as Hamas police fired into an unarmed Fatah rally commemorating the death of Yasser Arafat. Last summer, Hamas killed 11 Fatah members as 200 more fled to Israel for safety. Yet while Hamas kills Palestinians, the megaphones remain mute.
Hamas has betrayed the Palestinian cause. The Palestinian national movement, previously based on secular, nationalist aspirations has been hijacked by religiously inspired lunacy. Every missile fired at Israel, every Fatah rival shot dead, has steered the Palestinians further from statehood, and closer to brutal theocracy and interminable conflict.
The megaphones crow selective demands to end the violence but Israel has been demanding calm for years. Our concerns have been treated with complacency. The realities faced by Israel's southern citizens have been downplayed. Their life under missile fire relegated to small-print, a footnote in the reams of condemnation of Israel's search for solutions to the Hamas menace.
500,000 Israelis live within range of Hamas's missiles. The piercing warning siren dominates the daily routine in towns like Sderot, Ashkelon and Ashdod. Anywhere within 40km of Gaza, communities raise their children in bomb shelters. Israel cannot sit back while Hamas improves the size and range of its arsenal.
No democratic government in the world would tolerate this. No population would permit it. No army would allow an implacable foe to launch missiles at its citizens and improve its capabilities.
As the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has pointed out, the loss of life in Gaza was "avoidable". Without the destructive actions of Hamas there would have been no reaction from Israel.
As Israel targets Hamas's terrorist infrastructure, we continue to supply Gaza with electricity and aid. Thousands of tonnes of food and medical supplies have passed through the border in recent days. The provision of electricity, aid and support to the civilians of an enemy territory, during a time of war, is a unique phenomenon. Our fight is not with the people of Gaza, but with the terrorist body holding them hostage.
Cries of "disproportionate" fill the airwaves, based largely on the difference in death tolls. Yet Hamas's disregard for the lives of civilians is the key to the difference. Israel provides shelters underneath its communities to protect its citizens. Hamas places missiles in shelters underneath civilians.
Hamas fires missiles with the express intent of murdering civilians. Israeli intent is directed solely at Hamas combatants.
The challenge of Hamas reflects the wider struggle between moderates and extremists that defines the dynamics of our region. Extremist cheerleaders parrot their usual rhetoric. Hamas's political leader Khaled Meshal preaches martyrdom from his throne in Damascus. Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah bellows "resistance", while imposing ideological tyranny on Lebanon.
Meanwhile, in Tehran, the operational head-quarters of Middle Eastern terror, President Ahmadinejad writes new verses of pseudo-religious justification for the murder of Jews. Shamefully, Channel 4 executives made him their Christmas guest of honour, insulting the intelligence and integrity of the British viewer. Their alternative Christmas message will go down in history as a disgrace to British broadcasting.
It is time to recognise that the tactics and ideology of Hamas and its backers are the foremost obstacle to Middle East peace. The moderates in the Arab world understand this better than some European observers.
For too long, Hamas has held progress to ransom, choosing war over peace, destruction over development. Israel's objective is to take the initiative away from Hamas. The pragmatic moderates of all sides need a new reality from which to find a diplomatic solution. Unless we weaken Hamas, the moderates cannot succeed. The international community, Israel and the pragmatic leadership of the Arab world must stand up to the extremism that threatens us all. We must start the New Year in the spirit of Churchill. If we are divided, we all stand to lose; "If we are together nothing is impossible."