Philip C. Johnson, Ph.D.
October 12, 2023
The American Military News reported that a Hamas leader, a spokesman for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Military Wing, is calling for global Jihad, the invasion of Israel and an attack on Jews worldwide on Friday, October 13th.
According to the report, the spokesman warned that there will be more attacks in Israel and abroad, stating that what has happened so far is “only a tiny example of the horrors that await you.”
According to the translation of the message (by the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute), the spokesman warned the “impending nightmare will destroy your dreams. We, at the Al-Quds Brigades and the Palestinian resistance announce on the fifth day of the heroic “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” that the war is no longer limited to Gaza alone.”
As an American, living in America, that kind of threat is alarming when you consider how porous our southern border has been over the last few years. According to Reuters, officials have tallied at least 65 nationalities of people attempting to cross the U.S. border in the last couple of years. Fox News reported that thousands of ‘special interest aliens’ from Middle East countries have been stopped at the border since 2021. If there were thousands that were stopped, there are thousands more that have already entered the U.S. illegally.
Meanwhile, as Israel prepares ground forces to possibly enter Gaza, she has called up 360,000 reservists, the largest Israeli military mobilization in 50 years. Over the last few days, Israel has caused immense damage with their bombing campaign in Gaza, taking out rockets and weapons positions, killing combatants as well as civilians. They have also cut off supplies of electricity and water to the Palestinians in Gaza.
The media, both mainstream and social, is filled with criticism against how Israel is responding to Hamas’s horrific, barbaric attacks on innocent civilians on October 7th. To be sure, civilians in Gaza are being killed by Israel’s retaliation. But it is important to differentiate between the purposeful, evil attacks against Israeli civilians that Hamas perpetrated and the collateral damage of Israel’s military response to protect its citizens. Yes, Israel needs to go to extreme levels to minimize the loss of innocent lives. But innocent lives will be lost, nonetheless. And Hamas has to bear the brunt of the responsibility for all of this.
Israel is not targeting Palestinian civilians. She is in fact, warning civilians before attacks are carried out. Hamas targets even the most defenseless children and babies. War is bad. The loss of life is hard to stomach, but this conflict has no moral equivalency. Israel’s right to exist and to exist in peace cannot be compared to Hamas whose fundamental purpose is to destroy Israel.
And just as a reminder, Israel has sought a two-state solution from the very beginning of her modern existence. The Arabs have rejected any two-state solution FIVE times, even when the deal included the majority of the land and East Jerusalem as her capital. And when Israel unilaterally left the Gaza Strip in 2005 so that the Palestinians could rule themselves, they instead set up a terrorist base to continually attack Israel.
Let us continue to pray that lives will be spared and that tomorrow, October 13th, will not turn into another day of death, carnage and brokenness.
The Global Nexter 