The world is rejoicing. Israel stopped a flotilla bringing supplies to Gaza and killed nine people in the process. Most of Europe and all of the Islamic world is utterly delighted every time Israel’s attempts to defend itself result in the deaths of its opponents or of innocent bystanders. Everybody is happy to see that Israel is uniquely guilty of using force to fight a war.

Israel’s defeat is Palestine’s defeat. Hamas has always opposed an independent Palestine. Independence would legitimize Israel’s existence. The Hamas Charter rejects the possibility of peace. It rejects Israel’s existence, and presumably, the existence of its citizens. Among the crazy things in the Hamas Charter, we read in Article 22 that the enemy [Jews] engineered World War I. They did so to defeat the Ottoman Empire and thus allow Britain to issue the Balfour Declaration. The enemy also created that Masons and the Rotarians (the Rotarians?) as their secret organizations.

The volunteers on the flotilla, like Rachel Corrie, were soldiers in a war to destroy Israel. They volunteered knowing they were putting themselves in danger. It is always dangerous to volunteer in an army. Furthermore, they knew that if they were killed, their deaths would be a major defeat for Israel. They never stopped to think that a defeat for Israel is necessarily a defeat for the idea of an independent Palestine.

The Arab world has always persecuted the Palestinians, who have lived in refugee camps for an unprecedent 60-odd years.

In 2005 Israel gave Gaza its independence with no strings attached. Israel forcibly made its settlers leave their homes. The Gazans rejected independence. They voted for Hamas. They began launching rockets against Israel. The rockets were not especially effective, but they did kill a few people. Effectiveness, however, was not the issue. Killing Jews is what matters. The rockets served no military purpose whatsoever. They served no political purpose whatsoever. Like the 9/11 attacks, the Madrid railroad attacks, the London subway attacks – they took place for no reason.

Israel is the most hated country on earth. Nobody knows that only Israel has offered the Palestinians a state. Only Israel can give the Palestinians a state. The Arab world rejected a Palestinian state when it rejected the UN decision of 1947. It rejected it with the Three No’s of Khartoum in 1967. It rejected it at Taba in 2001. It rejected it when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Hamas has won a great victory against Israel. It is the Palestinians who will suffer.