Gaza is a knife aimed at Israel. Just look at the map. It’s not an accident.
The Gaza Strip was created by Arab states who attacked and lost to Israel in the first Arab-Israeli war of 1947-48. It became a narrow festering laboratory where humans were turned into monsters, encouraged and trained to commit atrocities.
Gaza became the anti-Israel terror base, 20 minutes from Tel Aviv. Gaza’s people have got no flag, no citizenship. Their symbol became the UN refugee card known in Arabic as al-Hawiyya.
Egypt kept the refugees penned up in Gaza in poverty and 70% unemployment, refusing them citizenship, denying them statehood and independence.
Lebanon and Syria also kept their Palestinians in camps. They saw the political potential of the refugees, exploited their suffering to harden them as a knife aimed at Israel. Enmity to Israel was the heart of Qawmiyya — Pan-Arab nationalism. Gamal Abdul-Nasser and Hafez Assad built their careers around it.
Whenever Arab leaders failed their people — low literacy, poor health care, general poverty — they distracted attention, wrapping themselves in the flag of Palestinian resistance and pan-Arab nationalism.
Fighting terror from Gaza consumed Israel in its first 20 years. After winning wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza and Sinai as part of diplomatic settlements, hoping terror would end. Under the 1993 Israel-PLO accords, Israel handed military control in Gaza to Arafat’s PLO. Terror increased. Under Ariel Sharon, Israel, also evicted its civilians from Gaza in 2005. Arab terror rose even more.
Hamas beat the PLO in the 2006 elections after its participation was encouraged by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Yes, it was a bad idea. Hamas then violently evicted the PLO. Gaza again became the main terror base against Israel. Its main domestic product was not locally grown flowers and citrus fruit pioneered by Israeli farmers, but rocket-based terror. Hamas called it muqawwama sarwakhiyya — “rocket-propelled resistance.”
Hamas used its state educational and social networks to mold thousands of hate-filled killers. From first grade to summer camps, Hamas gave children rifles and taught them to hate Jews, as detailed in the 36-paragraph Hamas Covenant.