Hamas has taken responsibility for the fatal shooting and stabbing attack in Tel Aviv that unfolded on Tuesday just as Iran was launching a ballistic missile barrage on Israel.
Seven people were killed in the attack, and 16 people were injured, the Israel Police Spokesperson’s Unit and Shin Bet said in a joint statement Wednesday. The two alleged attackers were also killed, police said.
In a statement Wednesday, Hamas’ military wing claimed responsibility for the attack.
How so? Hamas has been the leader of both armed resistance and peace talks with Israel for 20 years, and if you look at the change in public opinion in the West over the time period you’ll see the result. You said they set the Palestinian cause back by decades, but then I would like to ask: In what way did they set it back and who else was even advancing it?
Hamas did not lead any peace talks worth a damn and their “armed resistance” has only ever consisted of attacks on civilians, usually by firing missiles at settlements in unambiguously Israeli territory (attacking military installations or even settlements in the West Bank would’ve been at least somewhat defensible, but that’s not what they’ve been doing) and then hiding behind their own civilian population to hinder Israeli retaliation, getting them killed in the process. They also did all that from Gaza, an area that Israel de-occupied after the Second Intifada, and which could have served as a positive example of peaceful Palestinian self-government and eventually independence instead of the opposite.