One of the yet-unliquidated leaders of Hamas has been quoted in the New York Times questioning the wisdom of the terrorist group's massacre of 1,200 people on October 7, 2023. With the evil organization's leadership decimated, much of its rank and file membership dead, and huge swaths of Gaza reduced to rubble by Israel's counteroffensive, Mousa Abu Marzouk is having some second thoughts. He just didn't expect what would occur after his colleagues butchered, raped and kidnapped as many Jews as they could, in a shocking orgy of violence that left more Jewish people dead in any single day since the Holocaust. I'll have a few thoughts on the sentiments he expresses, but here are the quotes themselves:
Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk says he would not have supported the October 7 attacks on Israel had he known of the devastation it would wreak on Gaza. “If it was expected that what happened would happen, there wouldn’t have been Oct. 7,” as far as he was concerned, Abu…
— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) February 24, 2025
Hamas has declared “victory” over Israel, and some of its officials have vowed that their fighters will carry out more Oct. 7-style attacks in the future. But now one of Hamas’s top officials is publicly expressing reservations about the assault, which also touched off a humanitarian crisis that displaced nearly two million and led to critical shortages of food and health care. Mousa Abu Marzouk, the Qatar-based head of Hamas’s foreign relations office, said in an interview with The New York Times that he would not have supported the attack if he had known of the havoc it would wreak on Gaza. Knowing of the consequences, he said, would have made it “impossible” for him to back the assault...“If it was expected that what happened would happen, there wouldn’t have been Oct. 7,” as far as he was concerned, he said.
A fragrant manifestation of the so-called 'FAFO' principle. Hamas 'F***ed around,' and they've been 'finding out' ever since. As several observers have pointed out, notice what this person does not say. He does not evince any regret over the wanton slaughter of children, the mass sexual assault of women, or any of the horrors Hamas inflicted that day. What's giving him second thoughts are the negative consequences for Hamas and Gaza, based on Israel's reprisals. My strong suspicion is that Hamas and their allies calculated that Israel would respond forcefully to the attack, but only relatively briefly, as international pressure mounted on them to relent. That morally-inverted international pressure did arrive rather quickly, of course, as expected. What Hamas may not have bargained for was Israel basically ignoring the bullying, including defying warnings from the Biden administration, and prosecuting an extended and aggressive war as its leadership saw fit. And with a new American administration coming into power during the war, and explicitly taking the leash off of Israel, the plan doesn't seem to have quite panned out as the terrorists anticipated.
The Times refers to a "humanitarian crisis" caused by Israel's defensive, existential war, which was entirely precipitated by the terrorists. While Hamas supporters' grotesque "genocide" smear has been debunked, including their false 'famine' claims, the war has indisputably caused massive disruptions and widespread pain for the people of Gaza, many of whom support Hamas and celebrated the butchery of 10/7. Indeed, it's a bad idea to start wars, especially against determined and powerful enemies. This wailing from a despicable former UN official is meant to be an indictment of Israel. What it actually amounts to, however, is a really good case against Hamas' murder spree:
Israel has caused losses in Gaza equivalent to 15 times its "pre-war" economy. @WorldBank and UN have never estimated losses from shock this huge. Everyone in Gaza is now poor; the economy is gone. The West Bank is on the same path.
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) February 23, 2025
Meanwhile, next door, Israel’s stock exchange… https://t.co/UKdBnt10p3 pic.twitter.com/IIgvxVFonr
Meanwhile, FAFO is being visited upon others, too. For example, Hezbollah (again):
Think of it as a PSA for what happens if you fire thousands of rockets at innocent Israeli civilians for months. pic.twitter.com/6U6edwfM0W
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) February 24, 2025
And the BBC, which has been gripped by scandal after airing a pro-Hamas documentary (which they've since been forced to pull):
Another day, another BBC controversy and another apology.
— Suella Braverman MP (@SuellaBraverman) February 24, 2025
How on earth did we get to a situation where our state broadcaster has failed in its basic checks, breached its duty of impartiality and fronted up a propaganda film for a terrorist organisation that wants to wipe Jewish… https://t.co/AprDkKy0fX
And -- at long last -- more vile, on-campus Hamas supporters are finally entering the 'FO' zone:
BREAKING: Swarthmore College has banned their campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine after they violently stormed and took over the main building on campus.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) February 23, 2025
Every university should follow suit and expel any students involved. pic.twitter.com/myETee5MvC
SCOOP: @BarnardCollege has expelled two seniors who disrupted a History of Modern Israel class, banged on drums, chanted “free Palestine” and distributed posters that read “CRUSH ZIONISM” with a boot over the Star of David, @J_Insider has learned. https://t.co/k0x9RQscgA
— Haley Cohen (@HaleyCohen19) February 23, 2025
Consequences for terrorism must be overwhelming and painful. Consequences for supporting terrorism must be costly, too. For Israel and its supporters, nearly a year-and-a-half after the horrific 'FA' of October 7th, the 'FO' is far from over.
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