-Editorial-
In January 2023, Kayhan-London, in collaboration with the Center for Peace Communications, a U.S.-based consultancy working with analysts from various countries, published 25 short videos based on conversations held with dozens of people who live in Gaza. Each person voiced a simple desire to live and work in peace, as anyone might, even as we know their destiny is to have become the playthings of terror groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, with their unending agenda of violence, repression and war.
But beyond this local reality, we also know that the strings are being pulled by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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The conversations were moving, but also offered glimmers of hope for an end to this miserable plight. They presented another picture of “the Palestinians” so readily spoken of in the Middle East and beyond, by politicians and on the news.
In the case of Gaza, foreign correspondents may remain and work there as long as they do not question its terrorist rulers. Public awareness of the state of a people that yearns for a quiet life under a government without terrorists will firstly help isolate all those political currents, notably Islamists and leftists, that effectively defend acts of terror against both Palestinians and Israelis, and force sympathetic currents that are unable or unwilling to see the aspirations of ordinary Palestinians.
Once and for all, we must remember to always make a distinction between violent rulers and the people in their grip. It’s true of Gaza as it is of Iran, where there is a gaping difference between everyday people and the clerical regime in power.
Fear to criticize Hamas
A look back at the 1980s, which is when such terrorist groups were formed either by Iran or with its money, shows there can be no peace in Israel, in Iran or the Middle East while a regime like the one in Tehran rules over such a strategic country.
There can be no place for an Iranian regime that weighs over the region.
Rest assured, there is no shortage of Palestinians who do not wish to live in a battlefield or permanent drill camp — and did not want Hamas to attack Israel. A poll from 2022 reported in The New York Times showed that 53% of Gazans believed Hamas should end its standing call to destroy Israel, and accept the two-state solution based on 1967 borders. Another 62% also admitted they were too afraid to criticize Hamas.
More Hamas misery
The website +972 reported in February 2022 that for some Palestinians at least, the wars of the 20th century had brought them no benefits, while working in Israel was the only alternative for making a living.
Hamas has instead brought them more misery, with its biggest ever act of violence.
Perhaps, based on an almost cruel principle that every crisis is an opportunity, this latest war will push the Arabs, Israelis and the world beyond to seek a lasting peace, in which there can be no place for an Iranian regime that weighs over the region with the violence of its thugs and proxy militias.
