Hamas is not Palestine

Hamas is not Palestine, Hamas terrorists are not the Palestinians. They are a group of Islamist radicals managed and financed by Iran, who seized power in Gaza in 2007 thanks to good regional results in the second elections in January 2006, and to the general achievement of the post of Prime Minister in the government of Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian National Authority. The first elections were held in 1996.  

This is a very relevant reference to how the Palestinians are managed and the serious internal difficulties they have had, especially since the death of historic leader Yasser Arafat in 2004, when the dominance of the Al-Fatah group of the historic PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) faded due to inefficiency, corruption, poor public services and the weak management of the successor, Mahmoud Abbas, who is still president of the Palestinian National Authority with power and command only in the West Bank. 

You have to know history to understand what is happening today. Ever since Hamas won electoral support through what was called Iranian-funded social action to support the most vulnerable with money, education, health care, in exchange for their votes, repression and terror have dominated the lives of Palestinians in Gaza.  

The seizure of power in the Strip saw a violent gun battle for several days between Palestinians won by Hamas forces over al-Fatah forces. Hamas leader Ismael Haniya had served as Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority with Mahmoud Abbas as President for a year. Since then the division between Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza has prevented any attempt to negotiate with Israel, where positions have also been radicalised by rocket attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, terrorist groups that have always needed violence and confrontation with Israel to maintain power. Of course, no elections have been held in Gaza since 2006, nor in the West Bank. The question since then has always been, who is the Palestinians' valid negotiating partner? 

In the last two years, political changes in the region were increasingly isolating Hamas. Above all, the restoration of relations between Iran, the regime of the ayatollahs that has financed, armed and supported Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, and Saudi Arabia marked a new situation, especially when the Abraham Accords, the understanding between Arabs led by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco and Israelis was being consolidated in all social and economic sectors in these countries and was to culminate in the understanding between Saudi Arabia and Israel.  

Some of the consequences of this political situation were the withdrawal of Iranian support for the Houthis in Yemen, and negotiations between regional actors in Qatar increasingly called for Palestinian elections to clarify and legitimise each other's representativeness.

The odds were that Hamas would not win the elections in Gaza where the majority of the population is fed up with the hardship and misery of life under the Hamas dictatorship, with its continuous confrontation with Israel whose responses are very forceful, and who suffers is the civilian population.  

On 30 July, a demonstration against Hamas took place in the streets of Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip. Organised through the internet by a group called Alvirus Alsakher, the mocking virus, several hundred Palestinians expressed their discomfort and complaints about the regular power cuts and the precarious living conditions with the reduction of the monthly allowance for the poorest families from 100 to 15 dollars. Money from Qatar.  The phenomenon of independent militias unaffiliated with classic groups such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad proliferated in the Strip and gained popularity. The repression of the protests was harsh and forceful, with the police destroying demonstrators' mobile phones, numerous arrests resulting in beatings, threats and some torture, as the protagonists themselves later denounced. 

Hamas's brutal and indiscriminate terrorist action, imitating the abominable modus operandi of Daesh terrorists and an execrable exhibitionism to spread terror, supported and trained by outside professionals, according to international expert analysis, is a flight forward by Hamas's leaders. Causing absolute chaos, brutally murdering and displaying it, civilians, unarmed families, to provoke a more than forceful response from Israel to re-use, manipulate, blackmail the Palestinians of Gaza themselves with their death and destruction and try to break the Abraham Accords, the Arab-Israeli understanding, and prevent Saudi Arabia from establishing relations with Israel.  

Hamas is also responsible for the death and destruction in Gaza because its terrorist action was intended to provoke an immediate forceful response from Israel, with immediate constant bombardment to neutralise Hamas leaders and infrastructure, its arsenals and rocket launchers located in the most populated urban area to use Palestinian civilians as human shields. 

It is all very complicated, many interests are at stake, but, from Iran, from Russia, the interest in destabilising, in setting fire to the Middle East is evident. Hamas has studied and prepared a major strike against Israel, which is pure despicable and repugnant terrorism. It is difficult for Israel to respond with a restrained strategy, because of the enormous damage, pain and fury caused by the murders committed by the terrorists, but Western leaders, including the King of Spain who spoke with the President of Israel, are asking them to do so: Total condemnation, repulsion, and support for Israel, but a request for restraint in self-defence, in response, so as not to play into the hands of those who devised and executed the terrorist attack with the indiscriminate murder of young people, women, the elderly, policemen and soldiers, the rape and kidnapping of teenagers and babies among the more than 125 hostages taken hostage. Nor does it give satisfaction to those who supported them from abroad and who are now mobilising protests in numerous capitals around the world and using social networks to portray Israelis as aggressors. 

The loss of political weight of Spain, which is not, nor was it invited to be, among the Western countries - Italy, the UK, the US, France and Germany - that jointly expressed in a communiqué their condemnation of Hamas's terrorist action and their support for Israel, is causing some concern. That is another story to keep you awake at night because the foreign policy of Spain's progressive government is constantly and publicly questioned by several of its members. The day after the photo with Bildu, Pedro Sánchez broke his silence and condemned the Hamas terrorist attack, acknowledged Israel's right to defend itself, but called for a restrained response in accordance with international law.  

At the same time, one of his acting ministers, Ione Belarra, accused the Prime Minister of a friendly country like Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, of perpetrating genocide in Gaza and of war crimes. And nothing happened. Nor did it happen when the vice-president Yolanda Díaz met in Brussels with a fugitive from justice like Puigdemont, in an atmosphere of stomach-churning collegiality, or when during the election campaign she claimed that Morocco is a dictatorship and, together with Podemos, supports the enemies of neighbours whose relationship is strategic and advocates self-determination. Moreover, these members of the Sánchez government have not stopped speaking out against NATO and suggesting their support for Putin's invasion of Ukraine. 

A Frankenstein foreign policy that seriously damages Spain's prestige, credibility, investments and image in many parts of the world, from political and decision-making power to economic, financial and commercial power. And this is not solved by being progressive.