The Present Tense

Israel has agreed to yet another ceasefire brokered and in reality, demanded by John Kerry. Hamas has mostly complied with this recent break in the action, not because they actually want peace, but because they needed a strategic pause after being dealt so much of a setback by the IDF. The terrorist group is using this tense truce to rearm and retrench, making Israel's job that much harder when the fighting resumes, which Hamas will assure, on their terms. There is no way for Hamas on their own to defeat Israel militarily, but Hamas is delighted with an increasing body count among civilians, with dead babies in Gaza being used as macabre props to claim a public relations victory over the Jews, who much of the world automatically blame for carnage that is actually solely the fault of Hamas. Those dedicated jihadists are content to see Gaza reduced in service of their ultimate aim, which is to eliminate the Jewish State. Kerry's effort to advance the cause of peace by pulling Israel up well short of victory saves Hamas to fight another day. Hamas will never be adherents of peace because jihad is more sacred to them than their own lives and those of their wives and children. Kerry and Obama could end the fighting if they openly declare that the US will back Netanyahu completely in every action until the terror tunnels are captured and destroyed and the rocket fire from Gaza ceases, which they will never do, because Obama believes Israel to be an illegitimate colonial enterprise that needs to be confined within the 1967 suicide borders with Jerusalem internationalized and East Jerusalem given over to the Palestinians, who would still not be satisfied with all of those Israeli concessions and who would still make war on the Jewish remnant.