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(FPM) In yet another tragic indication of Obama administration’s ideological obstinance, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki indicated that Israel and the United States are not on the same page regarding the scope of Islamic terror.
The rift centers around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the U.N. on Monday, during which he insisted that terrorist groups such as ISIS, Hamas, the Iranian regime, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram share the same vision. “Some are radical Sunnis, some are radical Shi’ites,” he explained.
Some want to restore a pre-medieval caliphate from the 7th century. Others want to trigger the apocalyptic return of an imam from the 9th century. They operate in different lands, they target different victims and they even kill each other in their quest for supremacy. But they all share a fanatic ideology. They all seek to create ever expanding enclaves of militant Islam where there is no freedom and no tolerance, where women are treated as chattel, Christians are decimated, and minorities are subjugated, sometimes given the stark choice: convert or die. For them, anyone can be an infidel, including fellow Muslims.
Such a no-holds-barred assessment of the threat was too much for the White House. When Psaki was asked if they agreed with Netanyahu’s argument, her answer was distressingly clear. “We would not agree with that characterization, no,” she replied. Pressed on Netanyahu’s contention that ISIS and Hamas are cut from the same cloth, Psaki once again balked. She conceded that both groups are U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, but insisted that ISIS “poses a different threat to Western interests and to the United States. And that’s just a fact.”
She continued. “We don’t believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu or anyone else from Israel is suggesting that the United States launch a military campaign against Hamas, so we certainly – they are both designated terrorist organizations under the United States designations, but certainly we see differences in terms of the threat and otherwise,” she added.
Little wonder. In a press briefing last June, Psaki was engaged in an Orwellian effort to defend the administration’s support for the newly formed Fatah-Hamas unity government. Psaki admitted that Hamas was responsible for launching attacks against Israel, but insisted the U.S. would continue supporting the new entity because “we made a decision as the United States Government that our assistance to the Palestinian Authority is important to the United States.” Psaki also made it clear that such a schizophrenic stance was possible because PLO President Mahmoud Abbas “demanded that all the Palestinian factions remain committed to the ceasefire agreement that was signed in Cairo in 2012, and we expect the Palestinian Authority will do everything in its power to prevent attacks into Gaza – from Gaza into Israel.” One sentence later a bit of belated reality intruded. “But we acknowledge the reality that Hamas currently controls Gaza,” she said.
Netanyahu emphasized the absurdity of such myopia. “As Hamas’s charter makes clear, Hamas’s immediate goal is to destroy Israel,” he contended.
But Hamas has a broader objective. They also want a caliphate. Hamas shares the global ambitions of its fellow militant Islamists. That’s why its supporters wildly cheered in the streets of Gaza as thousands of Americans were murdered on 9/11. And that’s why its leaders condemned the United States for killing Osama Bin Laden, whom they praised as a holy warrior. So when it comes to their ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas.
No doubt the administration was equally uncomfortable with Netanyahu’s comparison of militant Islam with Nazism because it once again revealed the wider scope of the threat. But his analogy was spot on. “The Nazis believed in a master race,” he said. “The militant Islamists believe in a master faith.”
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