Israel expelled Hamas. The world forced Israel to take it back.
The year was 1992. The Clinton administration was trying to get Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and the PLO’s Yasser Arafat to sign on the dotted line of the Oslo Accords to create a terror state inside Israel. In the name of peace. Unfortunately Hamas kept killing Israelis.
15-year-old Helena Rapp had been stabbed to death at a bus stop on the way to school. A few days later, Rabbi Shimon Biran, a father of four, was similarly murdered by an Islamic terrorist.
Fed up with the latest killings, Prime Minister Rabin put 417 Islamists terrorists on buses and dumped them in Lebanon. The monsters he deported included top Hamas terror leaders.
On the six buses were current Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh, Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, who would vow, “by Allah, we will not leave one Jew in Palestine”, Abu Osama, who helped draft the Hamas charter calling for the extermination of the Jews, Hamas co-founders Mohammed Taha, Hammad Al-Hasanat, and Mahmoud Zahar, who threatened “They have legitimized the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people”, Hamad Al-Bitawi, who proclaimed that “Jihad is a collective duty” along with Abdullah al-Shami, the head of Islamic Jihad, and many other present and future Islamic terror leaders deported to Lebanon.
The New York Times headlined its coverage, “Ousted Arabs Shiver and Wait in Lebanese Limbo”. Newsweek also sympathetically described how the Hamas terrorists were “shivering in the cold.” The Washington Post lingered on their handcuff “welts”. The AP warned that seven of the terrorists were “said to be suffering from heart problems, high blood pressure or diabetes.”
In reality the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists had been equipped by Israel with raincoats, blankets, food and $50 each: more than enough to buy whatever they needed in Lebanon.
“We are thirsty, cold and hungry,” said Dr. Abdul-Aziz Rantisi,” is how the Times began its story. It mentioned that Rantisi was planning a hunger strike, not that he was a terrorist leader.
The Los Angeles Times suggested that the “free speech” of the terrorists had been violated. It asked them to “define Hamas’ membership conditions” and ”many answered, ‘To pray and be good Muslims.’” That is how the media explained the Islamic terror group to Americans.
The Red Cross, which after over a month has still failed to pay a visit to the Israeli hostages, including children and old women being held by Hamas, was quickly on the scene with “three truckloads of tents, food, blankets and bedding”. The aid organization set up tents for the Hamas terrorists who were apparently too lazy or incompetent to set up their own tents.
The head of UNRWA trekked out from Vienna to visit the expelled Hamas terrorists.
Bernard Pfefferle, the local chief delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, wept, “They won’t survive the winter out there like this.” In fact, they survived just fine.
UN Under Secretary General James O. C. Jonah, Bernard Kouchner, France’s Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, and many other foreign dignitaries tried to visit the Hamas terrorists.
French Ambassador Daniel Husson asked to meet with the Hamas terrorists to “express France’s sympathy with their cause.”
Amnesty International organized a letter writing campaign whining that the Hamas deportees were “living in tents in freezing conditions” and demanding the “safe return of the deportees to Israel.” B’Tselem, a pro-terror ‘human rights’ group operating inside Israel, denounced the deportations as a “a flagrant violation of human rights”. During the Oct 7 attacks, Vivian Silver, a B’Tselem board member, was killed by the terrorists she had spent her life advocating for.
B’Tselem had been one of the pro-terrorist groups that had originally challenged the deportations in Israel’s leftist Supreme Court in a bid to keep Hamas inside Israel.
The media relentlessly covered the Hamas deportees the way it had failed to cover their victims. By the end, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi had held a record of 1,500 press conferences. Every time the Islamic terrorists sneezed there was a correspondent there to write about it, a photographer there to take a picture of it and a human rights activist there to condemn Israel for it.
Even if it was all a lie.
“EXPELLED PALESTINIANS RUN OUT OF WATER,” a Washington Post headline blared. In that same story the paper mentioned that they were getting their water from a stream. Other stories complained that they were running out of water while surrounded by snow.
In reality the Hamas and Islamic terrorists had plenty of food and water. At one point even a New York Times article admitted that “on Thursday, the Palestinians said that they had fasted during the day to preserve food stocks that had dwindled to some vermicelli and potatoes, with drinking water completely gone. Yet today, an Associated Press reporter said that the deported men were cooking rice, chickpeas and canned meat, and that some had eggs.”
A week after they were deported the New York Times claimed that the Hamas terrorists would start “dying from pneumonia” in a few days. None of them died even after seven months.
In reality, they were holding lavish religious feasts with Hezbollah and Iran’s IRGC terrorists.
Israel had dumped the Hamas terrorists in Lebanon, but the Hezbollah allied government refused to take them and blocked the road with tanks to keep them from leaving. The Lebanese government wouldn’t allow aid to pass through to the Hamas terrorists, but did allow reporters and camera crews through to document the “shivering” of the Hamas leaders.
In a foreshadowing of Egypt’s policy of blockading Gaza, Lebanon kept the Hamas terrorists from entering Lebanon. And the international community and the media placed the blame on Israel, rather than Lebanon, which was preventing them from entering its territory.
Now it is time to do it right. After this past experience, and after 10/7, the time has come for ending the lives of terrorists who have blood on their hands in Gaza. There is a good reason to deport the 75-80% of Palestinians who want to “free Palestine from the river to the sea.” The reason is, they are genocidal.
No country in the world should be expected to keep genocidal people within or on their borders. It doesn’t matter how many governments protest and how the UN howls. Let them howl.
Israel cannot survive genocide. Period.
Up until now Israel has succumbed to international pressure. Why?
Is this really the policy Israel wants for herself, to keep people with genocidal intentions in Gaza and the West Bank no matter how many people they murder and rape on a given day?
To Adam, Bush Senior was presdient but had already lost november 1992 elections to Clinton.Anyway it was a Israeli blunder as usual, Rabin was not to expel these thugs straight into Syria , and Shimon Pérès , supreme idiot played a humanitarian posture just to earn credit with Bill Clinton ; Oslo was already under preparation so Pérès wanted to show the PLO he was a true peacenik .
I wonder what would happen in India if Pakistan attacked India perhaps with nukes. I wonder if the people of India would be concerned about not harming Pakistani civilians…
“The world forced Israel to take it back.”
What would the penalty have been if Israel had not taken it back?
What would the penalty be if they do nothing to help the “palestinians” now, with their problems, real or imaginary?
The truth appears to be that nothing much would change in the world as long as Israel has enough ammunition and fuel to keep on going. Being nice to our enemies whether fighting us or marching against us, has never worked. Perhaps it’s time to make them fear us, and that includes the New York Times…
The problem is that most of our enemies are far too comfortable (as the Irish just found out), and this must change.
Another brilliant historical “reminder” of the past history of American and European collaboration with Israel’s enemies by Daniel Greenfield. I doubt if the American media would have been so sympathetic to the Hamas expellees unless they had been directed to do so by the U.S. government of the day. I think the president was was Bush I., although Clinton came “on line: in 11993. Please someone correct me if I have got this wrong.