RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19997/hamas-sending-palestinians-to-die

During the past few days, the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas has again been encouraging Palestinians living under its rule in the Gaza Strip to march toward the border with Israel and attack Israelis.

The latest attacks on Israelis by Hamas, however, appear to be less linked to Israel….

Hamas, instead of directing its grievances toward Qatar [for cutting grants to Hamas], responds by sending young Palestinian men to throw explosive devices, Molotov cocktails, and stones at Israeli troops near the border with the Gaza Strip.

Apparently, Hamas is hoping that the “Zionist enemy” (Israel) will come to its rescue by putting pressure on Qatar not to cut its financial grant. With many of its leaders sitting in Doha, Hamas must be rather fearful about coming out in public against Qatar.

The official said that civil servants, including senior Hamas officials, have not received full salaries because of the reduction in the financial grant. Hamas, in other words, is admitting that the renewed violence is not linked to Jerusalem or the Temple Mount, but to its leaders’ desire to obtain more funds from Qatar.

The real blackmail, however, is coming from Hamas. First, Hamas is implying that if it doesn’t get the funds, it will accuse the Qataris of collaboration with Israel, harming the Gulf state’s image in the Arab and Islamic countries. Second, Hamas is openly stating that it will continue to send Palestinians to attack Israeli soldiers near the border if the Qataris do not resume the financial aid.

Will the international community call out the Hamas leaders for sending young men to their deaths for the sake of the money being witheld? Based on experience: not likely. Far more likely is that we will hear loud and bitter condemnations of Israel for “opening fire” at Palestinian protesters along the border with the Gaza Strip.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19987/china-russia-axis-of-evil

Xi has been eyeing the South and East China Seas, coopting the Solomon Islands, building and militarizing his own artificial islands, and threatening not only Taiwan, but neighbours such as Australia, India and Japan.

It is more than twenty years since then US President George W. Bush first identified an “axis of evil” of rogue states that threatened global security, and now a new alliance of malign states is taking shape with Russia and China acting as its new lynchpins.

Back in 2002, when Bush first articulated his notion of rogue nations in his State of the Union address made in the wake of the September 11 attacks, he identified Iraq, Iran and North Korea as states that, together with their terrorist allies, “constitute an axis of evil…by seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.”

Putin seized and occupied territory in Georgia in 2008, and Ukraine in 2014 (Crimea) and 2023, not to mention his relentless bellicosity towards the Baltic states and eastern Europe.

There are mounting concerns… in Western security circles that in return for providing any uplift in military support for Russia, Kim wants Moscow to provide technical assistance for his missile and satellite programmes, which would seriously enhance North Korea’s ability to threaten the West with its nuclear arsenal.

Any attempt by Russia to help improve North Korea’s military strength will also benefit China’s Communist rulers: it will provide North Korea with the ability to intensify the threat that all three countries pose to the US and its allies — and to global security.