RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17402/biden-palestinian-mission

The big problem, though, with Mr Biden’s commitment for the US to work with the Palestinian Authority in Gaza is that the ability of Mr Abbas’s organisation to exercise any influence over Gaza is virtually negligible.

While Mr Abbas continues to indulge in the fiction that he is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, the reality so far as Gaza is concerned is that it is the Islamist leaders of Hamas who exercise total control over Gaza.

The jubilant celebrations that took place among Palestinians when the ceasefire finally took hold were not held to express their relief that the fighting was over. The celebrations took place as a demonstration of support for Hamas’s role in launching a massive attack on Israel.

The bad news for Mr Biden is that Hamas not only has zero interest in working with the US and other aid agencies on reconstruction projects in Gaza and other Palestinian territories. It has no interest in resolving tensions with Israel.

[T]he main objective of the Hamas movement, which has been designated a terrorist organisation by the US and a host of other Western governments, is the complete destruction of the state of Israel, an ambition it shares with Iran, Hamas’s close ally and benefactor.

Indeed, Israeli intelligence officials believe Iran deliberately used the recent bout of fighting to test Israel’s air defence systems with a view to improving Hamas’s capability to inflict maximum damage on the Israeli people in any future conflict.

To judge by the jubilant Palestinian celebrations that greeted the ceasefire that ended 11 days of fighting in the Gaza Strip, US President Joe Biden’s belief that the agreement presents a “genuine opportunity to make progress” on resolving tensions between Israel and the Palestinians seems naively optimistic.

Moreover, the same can be said of the president’s pledge to provide Gaza with humanitarian and reconstruction aid to help the Palestinian residents in the wake of the latest outbreak of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians.

https://www.newsweek.com/rebuild-what-whom-opinion-1594375?utm_term=Autofe

Video has emerged of Palestinians fighting on the grounds of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, also known as the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. The AP reported that only hours after the ceasefire with Israel took effect, thousands of Hamas supporters demonstrated against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the rule of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, chanting, “Dogs of the Palestinian Authority, out, out. The people want the president to leave.” Violence quickly ensued.

This is a glimpse of Palestinian politics that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken should take seriously as they discuss reconstruction in Gaza. The Hamas rocket war on Israel owed much to the Hamas-Fatah civil war that began in 2007 and has simmered since then, with Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah in control of the West Bank. Each is a dictatorship. In the run-up to a planned 2021 Palestinian election, Abbas stoked violence against Israel, claiming that Al-Aqsa was under siege and Israel was committing “ethnic cleaning.” Abbas, apparently, feared he might lose the election to Hamas—so he canceled it and blamed Israel.

PA television was full of speeches and music videos promising glory for those who killed Jews. A music video was repeatedly broadcast in which Palestinians declared, “I fired my shots, I threw my bomb, I detonated, detonated, detonated my [explosive] belts. …My brother, throw my blood on the enemy like bullets.” Abbas’ religious affairs advisor told viewers, “Islam does not want you to be submissive to others,” and “if you die fighting, you go to paradise; if you kill the enemies, they go to hell.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/05/biden-rebuilds-gaza-infrastructure-hamas-brags-it-daniel-greenfield/

After the war comes the reconstruction.

That means pouring money into Gaza while insisting that none of the money will go to Hamas and that none of the humanitarian aid will be used for terrorist purposes. It’s just rebuilding infrastructure. Meanwhile, Hamas keeps boasting about how it turns infrastructure into terrorism.

Terrorists’ ability to turn seemingly innocent household commodities into the tools of terror has always created a challenge for peaceful states fighting terror. Fertilizer has been used to build lethal bombs and instead of using tons of cement that Israel permitted into the Gaza Strip for the building of homes, schools and factories, Hamas built 100 kilometers of terror tunnels that Israel destroyed in the recent war.

Now there is another seemingly innocuous construction material that has joined the arsenal of terror: water pipes. There were some reports that Israel was surprised by the high number of rockets – 4,300 – that Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists had in their arsenals to launch against civilians in Israeli cities in the recent 11-day Gaza war. Now the Secretary-General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad has explained this: He bragged that the “resistance engineers” have turned “water pipes… into the rockets that you see.”

Time to rebuild that “infrastructure”.

The United Nations said it had released $22.5 million, which would go towards rebuilding damaged water and electricity infrastructure and disposing of explosive ordnance.

The ordnance can go into the infrastructure. That’s how it works.

President Joe Biden told a White House briefing on Friday that a two-state solution was the only answer to resolving the deep-rooted conflict.

“I’m praying this cease-fire will hold,” he said, before pledging U.S. support to help rebuild Gaza, which is governed by the terrorist group Hamas 

It’ll hold until enough of Gaza is “rebuilt” for Hamas to rebuild more rockets. 

https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-two-state-solution-the-only-answer-to-israel-palestine-conflict_3826072.html

President Joe Biden said on Friday there has been no shift in his commitment to the security of Israel, insisting “the only answer” was a two-state solution with Palestine.

“There is no shift in my commitment … to the security of Israel. Period. No shift—not at all,” Biden told reporters at a White House press conference with South Korea’s president. “But I’ll tell you what there is a shift in. The shift is … we still need a two-state solution. It is the only answer. The only answer.”

Biden also addressed the idea of a rift among Democrats who want his administration to rebuke Israel and end a planned arms deal between the United States and Israel, saying, “I think that my party still supports Israel.”

“Let’s get something straight here,” he added, “Until the region says unequivocally they acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as an independent Jewish state, there will be no peace.”

On Friday, about 140 progressive groups called on the Biden administration to condemn Israel.

“We are horrified by Israel’s use of disproportionate and deadly force against Palestinians in Gaza which have already resulted in the killings of dozens of Palestinians, including children,” the statement reads (pdf).

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) also moved to block a planned weapons sale to Israel.

A ceasefire began early on Friday, ending 11 days of conflict that broke out this month after Hamas launched rockets at Israel over a court case to evict several Palestinian families in East Jerusalem. Nearly 250 people have been killed, mostly Palestinians, according to Israeli and Gaza authorities.

Biden said he spoke to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and renewed the United States’ commitment to security and economic support for the West Bank.