Skeet Shooting, Israeli Style

Israel’s Iron Dome Missile Defense System is remarkable – and has a lot of work ahead. My latest in FrontPage:

The devastation in Israel from Hamas rockets would have been much greater were it not for the Iron Dome, Israel’s remarkable missile defense system. You can see that system in action in this video, which shows the Israeli Phalanx Close-in air defense system, a key element of the Iron Dome, successfully engaging incoming missiles.

According to the video description, “there appear to be at least two high-speed guns out of view of the camera, maybe more. Those guns are st least 50 cal., or perhaps 20 mm, given the range they are achieving. The white can in the foreground appears to be for close-in fire, in situations where the longer-range guns do not do the job.  All the fire power is radar/computer controlled; i.e., there’s no human intervention, except to turn the defense system on. These are actual shoot-downs, rockets probably aimed at Tel Aviv or other populated targets.”

Israel is immensely fortunate to have this, as it is clear that the Israelis are going to have to put it to quite a lot of use in the near future. According to Iran’s state-controlled, Fars News Agency, Hamas top dog Fathi Hamad said Sunday: “With the end of the Israeli regime’s latest aggression, the Palestinian resistance has resumed the process of rocket production. Our factories and workshops have restarted producing thousands of rockets to stop Netanyahu’s intransigence in Al-Quds [Jerusalem] and Tel Aviv.” Who is paying for the thousands of new rockets? The same Islamic Republic of Iran that Old Joe Biden’s handlers are so anxious to appease.

Iran is a chief financier of Hamas’ jihad. As the ceasefire began, another Iranian government organ, Press TV, noted that another Hamas top dog, Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, “thanked Iran for its financial and military support for the Palestinian resistance forces in Gaza.” And Abu Hamza, a spokesman for Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades, “lauded Iran and the resistance front for enhancing the financial and technical capabilities of the Palestinian resistance factions, saying, ‘You are partners in our victory.’”

According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “On May 26, 2021, the website of the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television channel posted an article about the military assistance that Iran grants to Hamas, which includes help in the development of missiles and booby-trapped drones. The article also maintains that Iran transferred funds to Hamas and trained its military commanders in Iran.

That same day, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, delivered a victory speech, in which he said: “Our complete gratitude is extended to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has spared us and the other Palestinian resistance factions nothing in recent years. They have provided us with money, weapons, and expertise. They have supported us in everything, with the grace of Allah. They deserve huge credit. They weren’t with us on the ground, but they were with us through those capabilities, with which we crushed and rocked the enemy.”

They still are. The Islamic Republic’s Defense Minister, Brigadier General Amir Hatami, said Sunday: “As the wise Leader of the Revolution (Ayatollah Khamenei) has said, the Zionist regime will not see the next 25 years, and from now on, missiles, drones and the defense capabilities of the (real) owners of Palestine will be the nightmare of the usurper settlers.”

Sinwar also declared: “Palestinians are not after war, because it carries heavy costs. However, this war will last forever because Israel has occupied our lands, displaced our people, and continues to engage in carnage.”

There is another reason also why “this war will last forever.” Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Zahar said this in an interview last week about whether Israel had any right to exist at all: “No. Why? You are coming from America and you take my house, you came from Britain and you took my brother’s house, you took this. This is a settlement.” He added: “You are not a citizen. We are the owner of this area – Arabic area. This is well known as an Islamic area.”

This was in line with a recent statement by General Mohammad-Hossein Sepehr of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps: “We have a religious duty to defend the world of Islam. We have a religious duty to act against Israel and annihilate it. This is the command and strategy of both imams of the Revolution. This is the command and strategy of the Prophet Muhammad and of God Himself.”

And Miami imam Dr. Fadi Yousef Kablawi declared: “By Allah, we will take it back. Palestine is the land of Islam….The land of Islam – and we will take it back.”

The Islamic aspect of the conflict is universally ignored in the West, but as in The Palestinian Delusion shows, it is key to understanding the whole thing. The principal stumbling block on the path to peace is the Qur’anic phrase “drive them out from where they drove you out” (2:191). This is because Palestinians routinely claim (falsely) that they were driven from their land by the Jews when Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, and the Arab League—primarily Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia—declared war on the nascent Jewish state, determined to destroy it in its cradle. Accordingly, a Palestinian Muslim is likely to believe that driving out the Israelis from where the Muslims themselves were driven out is a divine command that must be obeyed without question.

Destroying Israel is, in light of this, a religious imperative, even an act of worship. In 2012, Hamas published a music video that included a lyric apparently inspired by the “drive them out from where they drove you out” command and the Hadith calling on Muslims to kill Jews in order to hasten the Last Day: “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah.”

A Muslim who believes that Allah has commanded him to drive out the Jews from where he was driven out, and that this command is no more negotiable or susceptible to being questioned than the Ten Commandments is by a Jew or Christian, is not likely to believe that negotiations will bring about a lasting agreement allowing Israelis and Palestinians live side by side in peace. And so the conflict will indeed go on, funded by Iran, and – if Old Joe’s handlers are able to implement their full agenda — by you and me.