Date: 24/11/2023 Time: 10:02
By Pinhas Inbari
The rationale behind the massacre near in the Gaza Envelppe was revealed by Hamas in an English interview with The New York Times. Khalil Haya, Yahya Sinwar’s deputy, who is not currently in Gaza, apparently in Beirut, said last week that Hamas was aware of the heavy price Gaza would pay, “but the price was worthwhile” because Hamas had sent a message that it was a resistance movement (not a civilian government) and had succeeded in returning the Palestinian problem to the top of the international agenda.
Within Political Islam, a rife aroused that entailed with bloody battles – whether an Islamic movement could assume state responsibility for the Arab states in the spirit of Sharia law, or whether they were obligated to exploit a territory they took control over in order to establish bases for the continuation of the war on the West, without regard for the inhabitants and without taking care of their needs. This was precisely the question at the heart of the dispute between al-Qaeda and its successor, the Islamic State, and the Muslim Brotherhood and the Hamas movement that belonged to them. While al-Qaeda and ISIS advocated jihad to take over the world without taking responsibility for running a state, Hamas, like the Muslim Brotherhood, believed in stages, first establishing itself as a state on territory, and only then devoting itself to jihad. Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State ruled this out, showing no interest in caring for the inhabitants and all of them were mobilized for jihad.
Khalil Haya’s statement in an interview with The New York Times means that Hamas has in fact accepted ISIS’s position: prioritizing jihad over running a state and caring for civilians living in Gaza. In return for accepting ISIS’s basic positions, does Hamas expect ISIS to accept the war against Israel and open a front against it? So far, there is no sign that ISIS is impressed, and I have not seen any reference by ISIS to Hamas’ war against Israel.
During the war in Syria, ISIS rejected the division of the Arab world into existing countries, because it was a division made by Western imperialism, and ISIS was established to abolish this division, including “Palestine,” a term that ISIS did not recognize, and its Palestinian operatives were identified as “Maqdis,” meaning Jerusalemites. In order to make it clear to the Palestinians that ISIS will not embrace the Palestinian problem, they burned the Palestinian flag in the Yarmouk camp, They desecrated the graves of PLO leaders, who were symbols of their struggle, like Abu Jihad, and were buried in the Yarmouk cemetery, and stepped on Palestinian flags elsewhere.
After ISIS carried out a series of attacks in European capitals, I met in Jerusalem, a former European defense minister who was a member of the European Security Council, and he wondered why ISIS was active in Europe and not in Israel. What was hidden in his words was how Europe managed to shake off Palestinian terror so that it would be directed at Israel, and it is unable to do so vis-à-vis ISIS. I replied that ISIS sees itself as a world power, and it chooses its enemies according to its dimensions. It fights the superpowers, such as the United States, Russia and Europe, and leaves the “sideways” Palestinian arena to the “inferior” movements of the PLO and Hamas. Fighting the Jews is also inconsistent with the image of the “dhimmi Jew”, that is, under the protection of Islam, who should not be given the honor of fighting against him.
In this regard, it should be noted that ISIS published an official English-language organ, Dabiq, and during the war in Syria managed to publish 13 issues, none of which addressed the problem of Palestine, or even Jerusalem.
Why in English? Because ISIS saw it as important to convey its messages to the West, as a “world” power. Is that why Khalil Haya also conveyed his messages in English to the Americans? Is Gaza too small for Hamas aspirations, and does it also want to be a “superpower”?
The name “Al-Aqsa Flood” is also taken from ISIS’s ideology. The second issue of Dabiq was devoted to the flood mentioned in the Qur’an as Allah’s punishment for mankind for rejecting Noah’s mission.
The West has been watching with concern whether ISIS will really now connect to the Palestinian problem, but so far that is not happening. ISIS is busy over its head with renewing the war in Syria, and has not given its mind to the war in Gaza, and so far not only Iran and Hezbollah have abandoned Hamas, ISIS also does not see enough importance to consider it.
But for us, the moment Hamas winks at ISIS, it is ISIS, and the war against it must be waged just as the West waged the war against al-Qaeda and then ISIS.
Pinhas Inbari is a veteran Arab affairs correspondent who formerly reported for Israel Radio and Al Hamishmar newspaper, and currently serves as an analyst for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
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