Hamas Are the True Oppressors of the Palestinians - Col. (ret.) Richard Kemp (Telegraph-UK)
    Hamas want a one-state solution, an Islamic State encompassing the entirety of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Hence their slogan "from the river to the sea."
    Hamas's founding charter demands the annihilation of Israel and the death of Jews everywhere.
    Hamas is a miniature version of al-Qaeda. They will fight on fanatically for as long as they are physically able to do so.
    Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party have pretty much the same objective as Hamas.
    That's why the U.S. State Department recently sanctioned them for funding and supporting terrorism and inculcating violent jihad into their population.
    In Gaza itself there is no political solution; Hamas can be dealt with only by military destruction. That means continuing the war until they are no longer a threat.
    That might include fostering internal military opposition, which is being tried, and forcing the leadership out of Gaza to a country willing to take them, which is also being planned.
    The writer, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, was chairman of the UK's national crisis management committee, COBRA.

Hamas Wants Gaza to Starve - Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (Atlantic)
    In recent days, I've spoken with dozens of Gazans who are furious about what is unfolding around them.
    They are angry, one told me, at the "hordes of selfish people who are attacking aid convoys to steal and collect aid in a horrific manner."
    But their anger is directed primarily at Hamas, which they hold responsible for putting the people of Gaza in this position, and for its continued refusal to end the war that it started.
    Another person said that Hamas is hunkered down in its tunnels, willing to see Gaza destroyed.
    Hamas actually wants a famine in Gaza. Producing death from hunger is the group's final play, its last hope for ending the war in a way that advances its goals.
    Online supporters of Hamas have consistently attacked any efforts to alleviate the crisis.
    In posts and videos, they have dismissed efforts to send in food by convoys of trucks from Egypt and Jordan, pointing to the chaotic scenes.
    They have also attacked the airdrops and called for them to be stopped immediately.
    The writer, a Gaza native, is a resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council.

Hamas Starves Jews and Palestinians, and Israel Gets Blamed - Gerard Baker (Wall Street Journal)
    As Israel faces a blitzkrieg of international condemnation again, it is important to remember that in the war between the Jewish state and its enemies in Gaza, one side is deliberately starving innocent people to the point of emaciation.
    One side irrevocably denies the right of its adversary to exist.
    One side would, if it could, conduct a genocide against the other, wiping every last remnant off the face of the planet. That side isn't Israel.
    What is so sickening about the deafening chorus of condemnation Israel receives for its war effort is that it is so far from the underlying moral truth of this war.
    Israel is the side that wants lasting peace and security. Its enemies want a state of permanent and existential war and suffering for the innocents.

The War Has Laid Waste to Gaza - David Rosenberg (Ha'aretz)
    Gaza's hunger crisis can be solved relatively quickly. The food and the delivery mechanisms are there and the process is already underway. But then what?
    The great majority have no homes to return to. The economy has ground to a halt because the factories, offices and stores that once employed them are no longer there.
    The same applies to schools. The infrastructure for water, power and communications is either gone or severely damaged.
    The costs of Gaza's recovery and reconstruction will not only be steep but, as the World Bank notes, "Recovery and reconstruction will require a substantial, years-long effort."
    The candidates who could be involved in reconstruction are problematic. The PA and Egypt have deserved reputations for corruption and inefficiency.
    Hamas will no doubt try to skim off some of the reconstruction funds to rebuild itself.
    The idea raised by President Trump to move many or all of the Gazans out of the enclave until enough housing and infrastructure is in place may be politically and morally problematic, but it may be the only option.
    Two million Gazans cannot live for years in tents and caravans, without livelihoods, their children being educated in jury-rigged schools, inside a giant construction site of dust, dirt and noise.

The Irish and Gaza - Benny Morris (Jewish Chronicle-UK)
    Driving around Ireland, I saw Palestinian flags hanging from windows or plastered across hedges in remote farmhouses. In Dublin, "Ceasefire Now" signs were draped across multi-story buildings.
    Support for the Palestinians, today represented by Hamas, is now the flavor of the month, the fashion among Western Europe's mainly ignorant young, who know nothing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict beyond the daily images, many of them fake, of dead and dying children, images efficiently engineered by Hamas's propaganda machine.
    They know nothing of, and care even less about, the consistent Palestinian rejection of all compromise proposals by the international community and, periodically, by the Zionist leaders these past hundred years.
    They know nothing of, or care about, the constant Palestinian resort to terrorism, culminating in the Hamas assault on Israel on 7 Oct. 2023, in which some 1,200 Israelis (a few of them Arab Israelis) were killed and 250 (mostly civilians, aged six months to 89 years old) taken hostage.
    Over the past years, the Irish, including their government, have emerged as Israel's most vociferous beraters in Europe as reflected in the Palestinian flags draping the hedges.
    During my visit, I read the Irish newspapers and I found the space devoted to the Gaza war and the nature of the coverage truly mind-boggling.
    It was as if, perversely, the Gaza war was the only crisis on the planet and central to Ireland's very life and destiny.
    The writer is professor emeritus of Middle Eastern history at Ben-Gurion University.

Israel Has More of a Right to Exist than France - Don Feder (Washington Times)
    Israel has more of a right to exist than France. The Bible wasn't written in Marseille. The patriarchs and prophets did not walk the streets of Lyon.
    The French did not spend 2,000 years praying for a return from exile. God never said he would bless the nation that blesses France and curse the nation that curses it.
    When France was a land of warring barbarian tribes, Israel was a thriving kingdom and the site of Solomon's Temple and its successor.
    Christianity did not develop on the Left Bank of Paris.

Israeli Startups Raised $900 Million in July (Calcalist)
    Israeli startups raised over $900 million across 28 deals in July, a 28% increase compared to last year.