TALKING POINTS AND OVERVIEW OF THE SITUATION: 21/1/2009

• Now is the time of opportunity for Israel, the Palestinians and the international community – we have changed the equation. Everybody should Rally behind the Palestinian Authority presenting the option of negotiation and development
• Speaking to Hamas now will not empower the Palestinian Authority; it will empower a radical organization set on a fundamental jihadist agenda that influences the entire free world.
• The Sunni World is aware of the threat of the fundamental jihadist agenda and has geared together to back the Palestinian Authority – they need to be strengthened! They know the threats first hand

Let’s remember what Israel and the world were and are still being faced with:

Israel and Hamas

We need to remember and say clearly what Hamas stands for:
• It is sworn to Israel's destruction.
• Its charter is aggressively anti-Semitic;
• It is following a Pan-Jihadist agenda: they are bent to “liberate” all former Muslim lands from Infidels. It is Israel today and Spain and France tomorrow.
• The closest it has ever come to terms with the Jewish state is the offer of a long-term Tahdiya (lull) – in order to allow itself to re-cooperate
• "Anyone who thinks Hamas will change is wrong," said supreme leader Khaled Mashal in 2006. Could he be any clearer?
• Hamas is Toxic. It is toxic for Israel, for the Palestinians, for the entire Middle East and for everybody who seeks a peaceful solution.
• This is the first time in history that a war of this nature has taken place:
o Where a nation under siege is against a group of terrorists that don’t respect any laws or norms
o Where the country fighting it is also supplying its adversaries with food, water, aid and electricity so they can keep on fighting!

Hamas is holding the Palestinians in Gaza hostage
• It uses its inhumane practices on its own people: since Israel launched its offensive, Hamas has continued killing its brethren. 35 Palestinians suspected of “collaboration” have been executed. 75 members of Fatah have been shot in the legs.
• Even now, after a unilateral ceasefire has been declared, Hamas is still shooting Fatah people, kidnapping and imprisoning them in Gaza
In the meantime, Hamas abuses ordinary Palestinians
• What kind of person, we must ask, uses a house of prayer as a weapons depot, uses schools - a place where children gather - as a battlefield, uses hospitals to cower behind injured civilians? The answer is the same: Hamas terrorists.
• Hamas has booby-trapped countless residences and public structures in Gaza – they proclaim it on their web-sites and now we can establish that from our own experience.
• All of Hamas’ military command posts and ammunition dumps are located in residential and public buildings, so the damage caused to the structures in Gaza is the sole responsibility of Hamas
• When civilized people look at children, they see the future. When Hamas terrorists look at children, they see targets and human shields. This must not be allowed to continue.


“Hamas government” is an oxymoron.
• Democracy is not just about a process – it is all about values.
• Hamas is bent on fundamental jihadist agenda that abuses human rights and hi-jacks people’s liberties in order to achieve its aims.
• Hamas is not about self determination, good governance or improving the living conditions for the Palestinian people. The Gazan population was hostage to the juhadist agenda and their rights were abused.
• Hamas has never accepted the Oslo Accords. Thus, it has never accepted the basis for the authority it purports to represent.
• Hamas assumed power within the Gaza Strip through a violent the putsch
• What Hamas stands for brutality and cruelty, this was recently enshrined in its legal system - whipping, dismembering and execution are now its standard punitive actions in Gaza.

Instead, Hamas is governed from Iran, by a regime who is one of the most perverse abusers of human rights in the world.

Iran

• “The Gaza that Israel left in 2005 was bordering Egypt. The Gaza that Israel was forced to enter to defend its citizens from is now bordering Iran,”
• While Hamas is holding Gaza hostage, the conservative clerics in Iran pull the strings of the terror regime
o Iran exports to its cronies the goal of destroying Israel and has provided Hamas with:
o weapons (the advanced Grad rockets now allowing Hamas to target major cities such as Beersheva)
o training (in Lebanon, Syria and Iran)
o and money ($20-$35 million annually).
o just a few days after ceasefire, Iran is once again making plans to try and ship over longer missiles to fire at Israel – this needs to be stopped!
o Iran is paying for more devastation: it has threatened withdraw its funding of Hamas if a ceasefire was agreed.
o In the meantime, IRGC has announced that 70,000 Iranian students are ready and awaiting calls to launch suicide bomb attacks against Israel against Israel
Iran is exploiting the Gaza operation to encourage the spread of a fundamental jihadist agenda
o Iran is also using the opportunity to divert attention away from its illegal nuclear programme – the free world is aware of this
o Iran also wants to prolong the fighting in the hope of mobilizing the Muslim world against Israel.
o The conflict in Gaza marks the first time that the Iranian Shia influence has spread into a Sunni organisation: the Shia crescent of terror is expanding beyonds its own borders
o The Sunni Arab world is up in arms about this – in Doha last week Saudi-Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority representatives all sent that message to the rest of the world.
Drive for Peace
o Israel strives for peace for its people and for all those who wish to live in peaceful and prosperous coexistence alongside it. Israel had to defend its way of life
o The conflict in Gaza is emblematic of the new challenges and opportunities facing the entire world: keeping extremism outside of the social fabric of societies
o We shouldn’t allow our agendas to be dictated by threats of violence; threats to our ways of life; threats to our values
o All democracies face the same challenge today – defending themselves against this high wave of fundamental jihadist agenda
o Such behaviour will not be allowed to become the norm; that our people will not allow terror to fester in our schools, kindergartens and religious establishments.