Why London and Sderot Alike Are Not Safe from Jihadist Terror
Sunday, May 27, was a red letter day for Hamas. One of the hundreds of Qassam missiles fired from Gaza in the last 12 days hit a car in Sderot’s center driven by 35-year old Oshri Oz from Hod Hasharon, whose company provides computer services in the battered town. He died on the way to hospital. He is survived by a two-year old daughter and a pregnant wife, who was hospitalized after she received the news of his death.
That day, too, Ghazi Hamad, spokesman of the Palestinian government headed by Ismail Haniya of Hamas, was the honored guest at a prestigious English literary festival at Hay-on-Wye in Wales. Invited to the event by the British Guardian newspaper, the Palestinian terrorist shared a platform with future and past British premiers, Chancellor Gordon Brown, who enters 10 Downing on June 27, John Major, the designer Vivienne Westwood and other glitterati. The Palestinian jihadi starred in Sky television’s Adam Bolton’s Sunday interview program.
Hamad rewarded his British hosts with a pack of lies and omissions, telling them what they wanted to hear about the fate of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped on March 12 in Gaza City and never heard of since.
“I know that he is well and healthy. No-one has tried to harm him or hurt him,” said
Hamad. “I think there are continuous efforts to release him. We hope we can do it very, very soon.” He said he had received news about Johnston two days earlier through his own channels.
“According to my analysis, I think it’s possible to release him. I hope to make it very, very fast.”
The facts are quite different.
Johnston was snatched by gunmen of the local Gazan Durmush clan, which controls the “Army of Islam” or “Al Qaeda-Palestine,” a group which is structured on the same lines as its fraternal Fatah al-Islami, which has commandeered the Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
Hamad knows exactly who is holding the BBC reporter, but nothing at all about his condition or state of health. He and his boss, prime minister Haniyeh, are not involved in any way in the halfhearted British effort to free him, simply because the Durmushes and Hamas leaders, including Haniyeh, are locked in a blood feud.
At the same time, Hamad is important in the Hamas Islamist terror machine in his capacity as director of the smuggling routes of funds and weapons from Damascus and Tehran through Egyptian Sinai. The money is spent on the manufacture of the Qassam missiles which day by day terrorize the Israeli civilian population abutting on Gaza. Some of the cash arrives in the infamous suitcases whose passage is allowed by the international observers posted at the Rafah crossing from Sinai.
Israel’s government heads know all this. Yet foreign minister Tzipi Livni has refrained summoning the British ambassador to protest the Hamas smuggling expert’s admission to Britain as star of an august literary event; nor has the Israeli ambassador to the Court of St. James asked the Foreign Office for clarifications.
On the day of the Hamas terrorist’s star performance in Hay, Tony Blair initiated new anti-terror legislation. In Jerusalem, Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, declared solemnly at the weekly cabinet session: “No one involved in the Qassam offensive will escape; no one is immune.”
While Britain grants admission to the spokesman of one of the most brutal and destructive terrorist groups in the world and honors him alongside noted British writers, scholars, political leaders and self-styled peace campaigners, the Israeli prime minister tosses out empty words and conducts a misdirected air campaign, which failed in Lebanon to stop Hizballah rockets, in a vain effort to halt Hamas’ vicious missile campaign against Israeli civilians.
As long as people like Ghazi Hamad are made welcome at British literary festivals, there is little hope for Alan Johnston or the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit, both kidnapped by the same nihilist al Qaeda-Hamas gangs. Neither will the UK be safe from jihadist terrorists, or Sderot live like a normal town.
Interestingly, leading UK organizations dish out the reverse treatment to the very people Hamas has singled out for destruction. British academic, medical and architectural groups have eagerly embraced a boycott of their Israeli colleagues – not to mention the Church of England’s divestment campaign. These arbiters of political morality generously offer Israeli academics and professionals a chance to avoid being blacklisted by disowning their government’s policies.