Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP
A new report is shedding light on how Hamas managed to pull off its violent invasion of Israel on Saturday. Possibly thousands are dead in the wake of the Palestinian terror spree, in which women and children were indiscriminately murdered in the streets.
Before the dust settled -- and it's about to get kicked up again in the Gaza Strip as Israel plans a retaliatory strike to behead Hamas -- many were wondering just how such an attack could have been pulled off. Clearly, intelligence resources were involved, and the multitude of weaponry, including thousands of rockets, was not produced by the Palestinians.
Now, we have an answer. Despite denials from the Biden administration, Iran was behind the attack, to the point of helping plan it and giving the green light for it to proceed.
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Josh Kraushaar @JoshKraushaar
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At this point, anyone denying Iran's involvement might as well proclaim that the sky is not blue. Iran's own Supreme Leader came out and praised Hamas' attack as it was occurring. Now, we have further confirmation, including from Hezbollah, Iran's chief anti-Israel terror militia, that Iran was directly behind planning and pulling the trigger on the invasion.
Naturally, that is a fact that Joe Biden doesn't want to deal with given he has spent the entirety of his term lifting sanctions on and giving money to Iran. It is beyond obvious that without the White House's support, Iran would have been severely restricted in what material support it could provide to Hamas. Unfortunately, as Iran's economy was on the verge of collapse (and possibly its Islamist regime), the Biden administration saved them. Tens of billions of dollars have flowed into the Ayatollah's coffers as a result of renewed oil sales and the unfreezing of assets.
The left-wing obsession with helping Iran goes back to the Obama administration, and many of the same players are now serving under Biden. That includes current National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, one of the chief architects of the disastrous Iran deal. The pursuit to revive that deal has led to many concessions being made to the Iranians, and the results are what we see on the ground in Israel.
This can't continue as the status quo. Israel is going to have to strike a blow in due time, and the United States will likely have no say in the matter. The Biden administration's actions are shameful, and they have helped perpetuate the massacre of women and children. That blood is partially on their hands. There is already an attempt underway to obfuscate that, but the truth is out of the bottle, and it's not going back in.
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RELATED ARTICLE
War Returns to the Middle East
By the Editorial Board | The Wall Street Journal
A celebration at a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut Saturday. PHOTO: BILAL HUSSEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hamas’s surprise attack, aided by Iran, is a reminder of Israel’s existential peril—and the growing risk to U.S. allies.
The scenes of Israeli civilians gunned down in the streets, children and grandmothers taken hostage, and Palestinians cheering it all are awful to behold. But behold the world must because Saturday’s assault from Gaza shows the reality of the global disorder that is expanding by the month. Israel is on the front lines, but all of the democratic world is a target.
The scale and initial success of the attack puncture many illusions. One is that Israel is secure in its rough neighborhood. The Jewish state may have technological superiority, but it is still threatened by implacable enemies north, south and east.
As the weekend evolved, it became clear this is no simple “terrorist” attack. It is part of a what Hamas and its allies hope is an extended war against Israel on Israeli soil. It is supported by Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon that could unleash a second front in Israel’s north.
The surprise assault was clearly in the planning for months and was timed for the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. That it took Israeli troops hours to reach some of the towns overrun by armed Palestinian militants suggests that even Israelis underestimated the threat. There will be a reckoning about the intelligence failure once the crisis is past.
Another myth busted is that Palestinians will live in peace with Israel if they get a state of their own. Not as long as Hamas and Islamic Jihad can terrorize and dominate Palestinians. Israel ceded Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005, but Hamas took over in 2007 and assassinates anyone in the territory who challenges its goal of expelling the Jews from all of Israel.
And please no more condemnation of Israel’s “blockade” or “occupation.” Israel has been allowing 17,000 Gazans to work in Israel each day and would like to allow more. Western critics of Israel don’t live in range of Hamas or Hezbollah rockets supplied by Iran. They don’t have to fear that their grandparents may be dragged from their homes and imprisoned in a Hamas basement to be traded if they aren’t murdered. No Israeli government can afford to cede control of more territory that could become a launching point for Hamas attacks.
Israel faces some difficult choices in the days ahead. A return to the status quo before Saturday’s assault would seem to be intolerable. Hamas would be able to rearm, rebuild its tunnels, and wait to attack again.
But an Israeli invasion of Gaza and reinstatement of Israeli control would be costly in lives and risk that Hezbollah would open a second front in Lebanon. Iran-backed Hezbollah has stockpiled tens of thousands of missiles. A new buffer zone of several miles between Gaza and Israel is another mooted option.
The response is Israel’s to make, and it deserves the West’s support. “My administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering,” President Biden said on Saturday, and we’re glad to hear it.
But the temptation at the White House will be to give Israel a week or so to respond with a free hand, and then lean on the Netanyahu government to stand down. That is always the U.S. pattern, but it shouldn’t be this time. If a wider war breaks out, the U.S. will have to provide Israel with the arms and diplomatic support necessary to destroy Hamas and the military capacity of Hezbollah.
The assault also underscores the continuing malevolence of Iran. The government in Tehran cheered on the attacks, and it has provided the rockets and weapons for Hamas. It may have encouraged the timing as well, hoping the war will block any near-term chance of a rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Biden Administration’s failure to enforce oil sanctions against Iran, as well as its payment of $6 billion for U.S. hostages, looks even more misguided after this bloody weekend.
The attacks on Israel, horrible as they are, at least provide some moral clarity about the stakes in the Middle East. One side seeks the destruction of Israel and the Jews. The other arms itself to protect its citizens and state from that destruction. The internal Israeli debates over its Supreme Court look trivial next to the threat to Israel’s existence.
The assault on America’s closest Middle East ally is also a warning about how dangerous the world is becoming. As U.S. power and will recede, bad actors feel empowered to fill the vacuum. American isolationists on the right and left may wish to look away, but the U.S. can’t dodge the consequences.
Refugees from socialist failure in the Americas are flooding over the U.S. border, and sooner or later the U.S. will become a military target. The consequences of post-Cold War complacency are coming fast and furious.
