Atty. Maurice Hirsch: We have humanitarian demands too. The world does not respond to Hamas’ exploitation of the citizens of Gaza. After the war, only the IDF can control Gaza.
Former senior officer of the Military Prosecutor’s Office in Judea and Samaria, Atty. Maurice Hirsch, Lt. Col. (res.), was interviewed by thd Sovereignty Movement.
In the beginning of his remarks, Hirsch was asked to relate to international pressures, especially from the U.S., to provide humanitarian aid to the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Hirsch states that it is indeed a complex matter, touching on international law, although “the humanitarian aid that we must supply or allow others to supply to the civilian population in Gaza, is very limited and cannot obligate the inclusion of things that could serve the enemy in his war effort”.
In his opinion, the very focus on this matter is not ethical. “There are about a hundred and twenty thousand refugees right now in Israel”, Hirsch says, noting that there have not been Jewish refugees since the holocaust, but now, in the most violent way, Jewish families have been uprooted from their homes, which were burned and destroyed after brutal acts of murder, and now, they are scattered throughout the Land.
“When the Biden administration demands that we supply the humanitarian needs only of Palestinians, he is distorting reality, as if one side is strong and the other side is weak and needs to be cared for, but this is not at all the situation. Both sides have humanitarian needs”, he states.
In his opinion, the main difference is that with their support of Hamas and terror, the residents of Gaza brought this situation upon themselves, while the Israelis living in the communities of the Gaza Envelope are the ones who tried with all their power to promote peace, “they employed the wild predators who came to slaughter them. We saw evidence that some of the terrorists came with clothes given to them by the people of the kibbutz…unimaginable things”.
Besides this level, Hirsch goes on to note that he accepts the principle claim that there are, among the population of Gaza, those who do not support terror and Hamas, even if this is a small group, but it is in distress. However, the “humanitarian matter must be mutual. This means that the Red Cross should not visit only the terrorists who are jailed in Israel, they should also visit the Israeli hostages in Gaza.
If there is not reciprocity, neither side should have it.
As long as Hamas holds the hostages and does not allow the Red Cross to come to them, and the Red Cross does not demand it, the humanitarian matter is simply a sword wielded by the international community to attack Israel and allow the terrorists to do as they like.”
Atty. Hirsch also notes the flow of people with foreign citizenship southward toward Egypt and that Hamas demands fuel in exchange for allowing them to pass. “Again, we see that the murderous terror organization makes use of hostages in order to achieve its goals, and the world allows this.”
In this situation, Hirsch believes that Israel must tell the American President that Israel is the peace-seeker, that cares about the fate of the enemy’s civilian population, but it demands to be at least on the same level as the foreign citizens, therefore, Israel demands that Egypt and Qatar be pressured to bring about the release of the 32 children that are being held by Hamas terrorists as well as the elderly people that they are holding.
“The approach must be a demand for reciprocity in humanitarian matters.” Without this demand the reality is that foreign nationals flee the Strip in exchange for fuel that Hamas gets, which allows it to continue to fight, while we do not get any sign of life from the hostages.
“This shows that we do not show enough backbone in this matter and we do not set unreasonable conditions. These are attainable conditions and we must raise them and state that these are our conditions”, says Hirsch.
On the subject of victory in the war, Hirsch says that the answer is simple and uncomplicated “total cleansing of Gaza of all terrorists and of all who support the terrorists”, and a situation where Israel can live alongside a peace-seeking population that is not imbued with murderous blood-lust and terror, as it has been until now, after years of educating the young generation in the Strip to view Jews as deserving of death, who are not actually human at all.
On the question of who will control the Gaza Strip after the elimination of all the terrorists in Gaza and dismantling the entire terror infrastructure, Hirsch believes that we must act in the Strip as they acted in Nazi Germany after the Second World War. “The countries of the world gathered and established economic programs to control the educational system, media and everything that it could do to brainwash the population and re-educate them. These people must understand that they can no longer be hostile toward Israel, and the only one to control the Strip must be the Israel Defense Force.”
Regarding the idea that after the war, the Strip should be handed over to the PA, a step that the American administration is promoting, along with many in the international community, Hirsch says: “I have news for them. I am not willing to be a hostage of the wrong-headed concept that there is such a thing as the Palestinian Authority. There is no longer such an entity. The Palestinian Authority fell apart long ago. There is the puppet Abu Mazen, who rules even over Ramallah with difficulty. The matter of a centralized Palestinian government died long ago. The Palestinians themselves don’t want Gaza. Abu Mazen’s condition to get the prize of Gaza is to have a Palestinian state. He wants to convince the world that on the blood of 1400 dead who were slaughtered and murdered, he should get a state. It is simply shocking.”
Hirsch believes that “the good news is that sooner or later, Abu Mazen will be removed from the picture. There will not be a government there and there will not be elections and the illusion of the Palestinian Authority will no longer be able to exist. The puppet that Fatah will want to appoint for the job will not last long and that will be the end of the PA. The Palestinians hate Fatah for their corruption and nepotism because Fatah has abused them for decades. This is the situation and therefore, our government must be clear that this body – of the PA – is what brought the disaster of the seventh of October upon us. We will not return to the ghettos and extermination camps of the holocaust and we will not return to a situation where the PA, which incites its people to murder Jews every day and every hour, will return there.
The People will not accept this situation and in my opinion, neither will the majority of the Knesset.”