A LOVE LETTER FROM HAMAS TO ISIS (WITH 10 TIPS)
by Noah Beck
An ISIS banner on the Temple Mount (Rahel Jaskow)
Also see video here.
Dear Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS),
Our leadership felt bad about all of the tough press you've
been getting lately and given our talent for ruining Gaza while
enjoying endless love from the media we thought we'd share some
pointers with you.
We've been at this Islamist terrorism thing for decades now, so
we can offer some helpful tips for your war to establish a
Caliphate - a goal we LOVE.[1] After all, if you overrun Jordan, we
could even become allied forces in the West Bank, from which we
can jointly conquer Israel.
So, during one of our tunnel-side chats, our most seasoned jihadists compiled this list of best practices, in the hope that these suggestions can improve your performance:
-
If the U.S. ever insists that you participate in
elections when there are no democratic traditions or institutions
in place, say YES (we won more than half of the legislature in
Gaza's 2006 election).
- But if power-sharing arrangements eventually cramp your style, try a violent coup. We did that with our 2007 takeover of Gaza, and were recently planning a second putsch (in the West Bank) and mega-terror attacks until those pesky Israelis foiled our plot.[2] But gaining and keeping power through violence and fear is KEY. In 2007, we even threw our political opponents off rooftops for good measure.[3] When in doubt, use brutality to quell any inconvenient dissent. Actually, you're doing just fine on this point keep it up!
- If you're lucky enough to have peace-loving idealists
hoping for your success and giving you income-generating
resources, destroy their gifts to solidify your poverty
credentials. Looters ruined more than 3,000 greenhouses that
Israel left us in 2005[4] and this strengthened our image as economic
victims that much sooner. And we attacked Israel so many times
(including our tunnel-assisted abduction of Gilad Shalit and
sometimes 30 rocket attacks per day on Sderot[5]) that Israel had to
seal Gaza's borders to limit our weapons imports from Iran.[6] But
Israel's silly desire to limit how we can kill Israelis did
wonders for our victimhood because the media forgot all about the
cause of the blockade and focused only on the hardship it causes
us. It gets better: when Israel opens the blockade to send us
humanitarian aid, we even bomb the crossing[7] and NOBODY cares (or
wonders if maybe we're responsible for the blockade or Gazan
misery generally). Pretty cool, right?
- We use clinics, schools, mosques, and charities to gain
legitimacy[8] among our people and inculcate them with the values of
jihadi terror.[9] Oh wait, you do that too. Good job!
- But you should definitely use more human shields to
protect yourselves from U.S. airstrikes. We LOVE human shields[10]
they're cheap and effective. Just remember to tell mourners how
you fast-tracked the victims to heaven.[11]
- You WANT dead babies. This is HUGE. The ever-shortening attention span fueled by social media is awesome because it relieves everyone of intellectual hassles like historical context, nuanced moral judgment, deeper analysis of cause and effect, etc. Just show that the people you're trying to kill have caused baby deaths while defending themselves, and you win. It's that simple.
- Another technique that we HIGHLY recommend is offending every rule of decency. That means:
- requesting cease-fires and then violating them,[12]
- using hospitals and ambulances for military purposes,[13]
- bombing your own people and then blaming your enemy (we killed nine Gazans and scared the media into faulting Israel; when an Italian journalist revealed the truth after he was safe from our threats,[14] nobody cared),
- using child labor to build your terror tunnels (we killed about 160 in the process and nobody cared),[15]
- teaching children to worship death[16] and using child soldiers[17] (props on your great work with kids, ISIS!),[18]
- diverting humanitarian resources for terrorist use[19] (we
could have built at least seven skyscrapers[20] with the concrete
expropriated for our terror tunnels) while protesting your poverty
even as your leadership lives well,[21]
- intimidating[22] and deceiving the press[23] into promoting your narrative (if they don't do so on their own, like when the BBC disseminated inaccurate photos of Gaza[24]),
- and using cease-fires to rearm[25] (rather than rebuild) while executing your domestic critics[26] and your tunnel-digger,[27]
- We also have some positive feedback for you, ISIS. You
have impressively excelled at championing our core values! We're
all for: hateful incitement against religious minorities,[28] treating
women as second-class citizens,[29] giving homosexuals the death
penalty,[30] letting Islamic morality police govern[31] economic activity,
teaching war[32] rather than human rights, attacking Christians[33] (or
just using their church to launch rockets[34]), and endorsing honor
killings.[35] You're awesome!
- We condemned the assassination of Osama Bin Laden[36] as much
as you aspire to surpass him. But PLEASE stop trying to involve
the West (as you did with your threats against Norway,[37] Spain,[38] and
especially the U.S.[39] - Obama just pressured Israel into letting us
keep our military capabilities,[40] so be nice!). The key here is to
complete your domination of the Middle East by first eradicating
its only democracy (Israel) and its moderate Arab states. You want
to lull Europe and the U.S. into spineless passivity by
reinforcing their naïve assumption that we'll be appeased enough
to stop at the Middle East. We need Western "powers" to cower away
from our region long enough for Iran to get nuclear weapons. Yes,
we know that you, our fellow Sunnis, have a thing against Shiites,
but the Iranian regime hates Western infidels as much as we do, so
we can all work together in the service of Jihad. Indeed, Iran is
our main sponsor (we get our best missiles from them![41]). And once
Iran has nukes, THEN we can go after the EU and U.S. But this game
takes patience, guys not that much because Iran (thanks to
Obama's "strategy")[42] could have nukes in two months.[43] But until that
happens (or you somehow help us to destroy Jordan and Israel
beforehand), you really need to chill out on the rhetoric against
the West.
- If you want to skyrocket your international popularity,
you should attack Israel ASAP. You may hear some perfunctory
condemnations but you'll be secretly admired. Better still: compel
Israel to defend itself militarily that's when you can literally
surf a tidal wave of global support. We can't emphasize enough the
importance of having Israel as your opponent anyone else really
won't do. Why do you think we rarely attack Egypt (which also
blockades Gaza)? Because they'd flatten Gaza and nobody would
care. Remember Ansar Dine? Our fellow Islamists in Mali were
thousands of miles from France, but nobody cared when the French
started bombing them in 2013 without any threat against France's
security. To guarantee world support for your Islamist ways, your
enemy must be Israel. But DON'T use donkeys (as we do[44]) to blow up
Israelis because this will upset the animal-rights group
PETA.[45]
Destroying Western civilization is far easier than building it, but still requires a disciplined strategy, so we hope these pointers come in handy. Feel free to get in touch with any questions.
With love and support,
Hamas
Footnotes
[1] http://www.memri.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4063.htm
[2] http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-says-it-foiled-hamas-plan-for-coup-against-pa-in-west-bank/
[3] palestinian-horror-2-thrown-death-article-1.222464
[4] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9331863/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/looters-strip-gaza-greenhouses/#.U_Lh7_ldXHQ
[5] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19068807/ns/msnbc/t/gaza-summers-lebanon/#.U_Lm6_ldXHQ
[6] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1554916/Israel-orders-blockade-of-Gaza-Strip.html
[7] http://www.timesofisrael.com/terrorist-shell-gaza-crossing-used-to-transfer-supplies/
[8] http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/teaching-terror-how-hamas-radicalizes-palestinian-society
[9] http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=455
[10] http://nypost.com/2014/08/05/hamas-manual-details-civilian-death-plan-israel/
[11] http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=12117
[12] http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Pages/Protective-Edge-Hamas-violations-of-ceasefires-chronology.aspx
[13] http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/07/28/hamas-uses-hospitals-ambulances-military-purposes/
[14] http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/30/italian-journalist-defies-hamas-out-of-gaza-far-from-hamas-retaliation-misfired-rocket-killed-children-in-shati/
[15] http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=846
[16] http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=846
[17] http://www.thetower.org/hamas-training-tens-of-thousands-of-child-soldiers/
[18] http://www.businessinsider.com/vice-isis-video-child-indoctrination-2014-8
[19] http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-hamas-diverted-internationally.html
[20] http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/180007/concrete-facts-about-hamas
[21] http://www.thetower.org/0707-while-gazans-suffer-in-poverty-leaders-of-hamas-live-in-luxury/
[22] http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-admits-intimidating-foreign-press-who-reported-wrong-message/
[23] http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/07/21/hamas-teaches-gazas-facebook-users-secret-spinning-terror/
[24] http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/07/08/WATCH-BBC-Admits-Gaza-Under-Attack-Images-Fabricated
[25] http://www.thetower.org/0897-hamas-exploits-ceasefire-to-make-more-rockets/
[26] http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/27/report-hamas-used-ceasefire-to-execute-25-gazans-accused-of-treachery-blamed-israel-for-deaths/
[27] http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-said-to-have-executed-dozens-of-tunnel-diggers/
[28] http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8091
[29] http://www.timesofisrael.com/un-cancels-gaza-marathon-over-hamas-ban-on-women/
[30] http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5296.htm
[31] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/24/gaza-theme-park-attack-arson
[32] http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/7852.htm
[33] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126388#.U_Gb7vldXHQ
[34] http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideisrael/2014/august/gaza-bishop-hamas-used-church-to-fire-rockets-/
[35] http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideisrael/2014/august/gaza-bishop-hamas-used-church-to-fire-rockets-/
[36] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/middleeast/03gaza.html
[37] http://www.examiner.com/article/muslims-demand-breakaway-islamic-nation-norway-or-another-9-11-threatened
[38] http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4616/islamic-state-spain
[39] http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/18/isis-threatens-america-again-we-will-drown-all-of-you-in-blood/
[40] http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-us-secretly-agreed-on-gradual-easing-of-gaza-blockade/
[41] http://www.businessinsider.com.au/hamas-rocket-arsenal-2014-7
[42] http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-nuclear-negotiations-extended-deadline-obama-boxed-in-2014-7
[43] http://www.iranwatch.org/our-publications/articles-reports/irans-nuclear-timetable
[44] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/21/hamas-sends-bomb-covered-donkey-hit-israeli-troops/
[45] http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000239.html
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel
about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle
East. This essay was published in the Algemeiner August 20, 2014
in and is archived at
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/20/a-love-letter-from-hamas-to-isis-parody/