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Life in Qatar is serene and continuously lavish, and it’s straightforward to regulate to the Persian Gulf life-style of Doha’s magnificent glass and metal skyscrapers, wonderful eating places and posh comforts.
And on Friday it was additionally a logo of simply how mondo-bizarro the world of the Center East has turn into. Two males of state, sporting the fashions of their respective trades — one in a darkish blue enterprise go well with, the opposite within the white flowing gown and headdress — stood facet by facet at lecterns within the posh, trendy consolation of a grand room of Qatar’s capital. They talked to reporters in subdued tones in regards to the horrific hell and inhumane human conduct that was being allowed to occur a thousand miles away, in a people-packed soda straw of a spot known as Gaza and its bigger neighbor, Israel.
America’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani had been speaking privately of their a number of efforts to finish the Israeli-Palestinian disaster in Gaza earlier than it explodes right into a calumny of historic proportions.
However left unstated, a minimum of on the microphones, was the mind-boggling connection that hyperlinks Qatar, the place they had been so comfortably talking, and the inhumane hell that had occurred in Israel final Saturday morning and was occurring now in Gaza. We’ll get to that. However first that you must hear what Blinken needed to say to the world as Qatar’s prime minister stood at his facet. It was one of the compelling — forceful even because it was quietly voiced — diplomatic scenes I’ve witnessed (through massive display screen) in many years of protecting this stuff in individual.
The linchpin is essentially the most unprincipled terrorist group known as Hamas. It was elected virtually 20 years in the past to run Gaza. On Oct. 7, Hamas invaded Israel, slaughtered 1,300, beheading, raping and committing the vilest atrocities. They took greater than 100 to Gaza to be their human shields. Why? They schemed to con Israel into army retaliation that will kill lots of civilians — sure, particularly hundreds of their very own Palestinian civilians. They thought-about not solely Jews however even their very own folks expendable — if it served their bigger trigger: They need to make the world hate Israelis.
And when Israel dropped leaflets and issued cellphone and different warnings pleading with Gaza’s lots to flee northern Gaza and head south to keep away from the invasion and bombs that had been coming — the folks working Hamas instructed their very own folks to disregard the warnings and keep in place.
On Friday, with Qatar’s prime minister at his facet, America’s secretary of state made certain the world understood the core human values that Republican and Democratic presidencies have sought to champion:
“Let’s not lose sight of why that is occurring. Israelis are conducting operations in Gaza as a result of Hamas carried out assaults that killed — in essentially the most horrific means — 1,300 of (their) folks. Hamas terrorists slaughtered, raped, mutilated, tortured, burned harmless civilians. The infants and the aged. Males. Ladies. Girls and boys. … Hamas continues to make use of harmless civilians as human shields. And (Hamas) is reportedly blocking roads stopping Palestinians from shifting to southern Gaza out of hurt’s means.”
So how does all this truth-telling in regards to the evils of Hamas leaders hyperlink again to Qatar?
As a result of Hamas’ prime political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, doesn’t reside in Gaza in any respect. He lives not removed from the place Blinken and Qatar’s prime minister had been talking, within the quiet, posh and most undoubtedly secure comforts of Doha, Qatar. His super-safe house is simply over 1,000 miles away from the place Hamas was encouraging Palestinians to remain put, at house, whilst they had been doing all they might to inflame Israelis into angrily bombing and invading Gaza — understanding hundreds of their very own folks would die.
Hamas’ leaders — and primarily their chief funders and string-pullers in Iran — had turn into surprised and determined when current occasions took the not-at-all unlikely flip. Saudi Arabia (which had a protracted however by no means said relationship with Israeli’s governments) determined that now was the time to make their diplo-secret official. The Oct. 7 Hamas invasion was supposed to goad Israel into killing sufficient Arab civilians to make it not possible for the Saudis and allies to be working with Israel.
Hamas’ leaders and their benefactors in Iran had nice however unwitting assist from Israel’s most clueless prime minister. Benjamin Netanyahu, nervous about dealing with corruption fees, labored this yr to emasculate Israel’s Supreme Court docket. He willfully tore aside his nation within the course of. Tons of of hundreds brazenly protested — together with an enormous portion of his army. He made his nation look weak for all of the world to see. And Hamas’ leaders noticed this as their now-or-never second.
So Hamas created the disaster that has sickened us all. Cynical and shameful.
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