The cold-blooded murder of three youths, one of them an American citizen, is no time to go wishy-washy on terrorism.
Yet that’s what President Obama did Monday when he failed to identify the terror organization Hamas as the perpetrator of what he called a “senseless act of terror.”
Absurdly, he then called on Israel to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority “to find perpetrators of this crime and bring them to justice” — ignoring the fact that Hamas just picked roughly half the ministers in the new PA government.
As a final twist, Obama also advised restraint by “all parties” — again refusing to acknowledge that one party, Hamas, is at fault for the killing of Gilad Shaar, Eyal Yifrah and Naftali Fraenkel.
Naturally, a host of world leaders chimed in on “restraint.” Israel, for now, is alone in insisting that the killers’ sponsor be punished.
“Hamas is responsible — and Hamas will pay,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his security cabinet Monday, as it contemplated Israel’s response.
Is the Obama administration really unsure of Hamas’s culpability in the killings? After all, as an Arab UN diplomat told me this week, “Only Israel says it’s Hamas.”
Of course, much of the Arab world (and many media outlets catering to Arab or anti-Israel opinion) had refused to even admit the three youths had been taken — allowing only that they were “missing.”
That is, until the Israelis on Tuesday released a chilling recording of Gilad Shaar’s phone call to police shortly after he and his two buddies were picked up on the evening of June 12 while hitchhiking home from school.
“I’ve been kidnapped,” the 16-year-old Shaar whispers to his cellphone. Next a voice, apparently that of the kidnapper, says “Heads down.”
Then several shots, and the phone goes dead as the police operator tries hopelessly to glean information of the caller’s whereabouts.
That put to rest the “missing” meme — and the implication Israel might’ve made the whole thing up.
Yes, Jerusalem declined to release the recording earlier. As Israeli Defense Force spokesman Peter Lerner explained to me, the authorities don’t want to alert the kidnappers to what they know about them.
For that reason, Jerusalem has yet to publicly back up its claim that Marwan Kawasama and Amar Abu Issa, both members of the Kassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing, are the top suspects.
(The IDF reportedly blew up the homes of the suspects Monday. The two remain, for now, at large.)
But I’m told that Israel has supplied Washington with the necessary evidence.
So perhaps Obama’s refusal to name Hamas isn’t about evidence, but politics.
The kidnappings, after all, came merely 10 days after the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, presented a new government, made possible when he signed a cooperation agreement with Hamas in late May.
The Obama administration said it would “cooperate” with the new government, giving America’s blessing to the union — with most of the world following suit.
That kind of recognition of the unity government gave terrorism “much tailwind,” said Ophir Akunis, a Netanyahu deputy.
After all, Hamas remains dedicated to Israel’s destruction by any means necessary. And it’s not just Israel that lists it as a terrorist group: So do the United States, the European Union and others.
Just as we wouldn’t recognize an Iraqi or Afghani government in which ISIS or al Qaeda participated, Hamas shouldn’t be part of the Palestinian leadership.
Nor will Hamas be “moderated” by its union with Abbas, as this affair showed. The kidnapping demonstrates that the terrorist organization is ready to back up its old rhetoric, the vow to violently attack every Israeli, with action.
Hamas spokesmen coyly avoided taking responsibility, yet its leader Khaled Mashal said last week that “those who did it must be saluted.”
Perhaps Obama refused to name Hamas in order to dissuade Israel from the kind of retaliation that could drag the whole region into a violent spiral. That’s not an unreasonable concern — but members of the Israeli Cabinet have it very much in mind as they plan their next moves.
Yet Jerusalem decision-makers also fear the inevitable turn, when world sympathy for the boys’ families is forgotten in a chorus of condemnation against IDF “disproportionate” response.
So the last thing Israel’s leaders need now is for America to lead the calls for “restraint” before they even make their move.
Because Jerusalem doesn’t have the kind of luxury that Obama apparently thinks America has: Israel can’t dismiss terrorism as someone else’s problem, say “We have no good options” and return to business as usual.