Conservative Thoughts on the Hamas Terrorist Attacks on Israel

Hamas, the Iranian-backed Muslim Arab terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip, last week launched the deadliest terrorist attacks ever on Israel with rockets targeting civilian residences, killing well over a thousand people, injuring thousands of others and taking scores of hostages. Hamas was joined by the Islamic Jihad, which is also sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, and the Al-Aqsa Brigades. Among the casualties and hostages are people from around the world, including many Americans. In the meantime, there have been some incursions and attacks against Israel from Lebanon by the Shi’ite terrorist organization Hezbollah, which is also backed by Iran. Sometimes liberals and far-right isolationists minimize the threat of terrorism when it is not targeted directly at Americans as “not a threat to us,” such as when Saddam Hussein financially sponsored suicide bombers in Israel, who sometimes targeted and killed Americans. The current terrorist attacks in Israel are reminders, however, that the threat from terrorism against anyone in the world is a threat to everyone, as terrorists target innocent civilians randomly, which often includes visiting foreigners. Americans, like everyone else, have the freedom to travel abroad to make pilgrimages, visit family, receive formal education or healthcare, engage in commerce, and to be tourists. Terrorism inhibits that freedom. Therefore, it is in the interests of the United States and the international community to defeat terrorism everywhere. It is necessary not only to remove Hamas from power in the autonomous Gaza Strip and to destroy it and its allies, but to deter state sponsors of terrorism, like Iran. Terrorist organizations must be opposed globally and defeated through denial of safe havens from which terrorists train and of funding, and through police or military action, as well as through persuasion that terrorism is an illegitimate form of warfare, regardless of their cause. State sponsors of terrorism must be deterred in various ways. Moreover, it is essential to end terrorism by never rewarding it by being intimidated to give into the demands of the terrorists.