Pavlich: Throwing good money to Iranian terrorism

In 2014, during Operation Protective Edge, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) officially admitted rockets were found, again, in one of their internationally funded schools in the Gaza Strip. Careful not to offend, the UNRWA didn’t blame any group by name for placing them there, but evidence and clear intelligence shows Hamas terrorists, funded and supplied by Iran, were the culprit.

“UNRWA condemns placement of rockets, for a second time, in one of its schools,” a press release from UNRWA, published July 22, 2014, states. “Today, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip. As soon as the rockets were discovered, UNRWA staff were withdrawn from the premises, and so we are unable to confirm the precise number of rockets. The school is situated between two other UNRWA schools that currently each accommodate 1,500 internally displaced persons. UNRWA strongly and unequivocally condemns the group or groups responsible for this flagrant violation of the inviolability of its premises under international law.”

Fast forward to 12 days ago and Hamas, with other terrorist factions like Islamic Jihad, launched a 4,000-strong rocket war against Israeli civilian targets from Gaza. Those behind the assault are brazen and took to digital media to thank the Iranian regime making their efforts possible.

Hiding nothing, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the fight for Jerusalem will continue and directly thanked Iran who in his words, “did not hold back with money, weapons and technical support.”

During an interview with Sky News, after pressure from correspondent Mark Stone, Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Zahar admitted to firing rockets from civilian areas in Gaza to civilian homes in Israel, justifying it as fighting “the occupation.”

And according to Iran’s military leaders, their weapons support for Hamas will continue.

“As Israel and Hamas were reported on Thursday to be close to reaching a ceasefire agreement, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force Brig.-Gen. Esmail Qaani sent a letter to Mohammed Deif, the supreme commander of Hamas’s military wing, Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, in which he pledged that Tehran would not abandon the Palestinians,” The Jerusalem Post reported. “The latest round of fighting with Israel, Qaani said, ‘has opened a new era in the conflict with the Zionist enemy.’ Qaani praised Hamas and the Gaza-based terrorist groups for engaging in a ‘great battle that once again proved the weakness of the enemy.’ ”

Despite these facts, the Biden administration just requested an additional $75 million to “aid” Palestinians and the White House has ensured the American taxpayer will help “rebuild Gaza,” only for the strip of land to be rightfully bombarded when Hamas rebuilds their arsenal of rockets from Iran and launches yet another war against the Israeli people.

“It’s also important to remember that Hamas is a terrorist organization, that Israel, of course, continues to have the right to defend itself. But what’s most important from now forward, in his view, is to contemplate where we go from here,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki recently said about the Biden administration’s plans. “And, certainly, he talked yesterday about replenishing support for the Iron Dome. And our view is that saved hundreds of lives, maybe more than that, given the effectiveness. Also to support, through the United Nations, continued additional assistance in rebuilding Gaza. We’ve already, of course, restarted our assistance that was ended in 2018 through UNRWA through the United States, but we’ll work through the U.N.”

Gaza is controlled by Hamas and the money infused to the U.N. by the United States will be used to rebuild their arsenal for the future, or to build schools where they can launch rockets and hide behind children.

The Biden team is also moving forward with plans to rejoin the Iranian nuclear agreement, which would require the lifting of sanctions on the faltering regime and give its terror proxies, including Hamas, a fresh influx of cash for weaponry. As Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently touted, it will allow the regime to “purify the Holy Land from the contamination of usurpers, God Willing.”

Further, a number of Democrat members of Congress have taken Hamas’s propaganda and amplified it on the House floor.

“If we are to make good on our promises to support equal human rights for all, it is our duty to end the apartheid system that for decades has subjected Palestinians to inhumane treatment and racism,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) recently said in a speech.

Apartheid system? Hardly.

The United States has a close strategic relationship and alliance with Israel because it is in America’s interest to do so. Each sovereign country shares similar, Western values. In Israel, freedom of religion is practiced by Muslims, Jews and Christians. Arab Israelis are represented by elected officials in the Knesset. Tel Aviv hosts one of the largest gay Pride parades in the world. The country’s technology and entrepreneurial sector boasts 79 companies on the Nasdaq.

In Gaza, which Israel gave to the Palestinians in 2005 in exchange for peace but received kidnappings, terror attacks and rockets instead, is the opposite. There is no religious freedom. No women’s rights. And not only are Jews banned from the territory, if they dared to enter they would be killed. It is run by a terrorist organization backed by the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. The Palestinians have been offered a state half a dozen times. They’re rejected all of the them and continue their belief Israel doesn’t have a right to exist.

When it comes to Gaza, and broader negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, the United States is throwing good money after bad. Through “aid” to rebuild Gaza and rejoining the Iranian nuclear agreement, American tax money will no doubt fund terrorism and fuel Hamas’s war on innocent Jewish, Arab and Christian civilians.

Pavlich is the editor for Townhall.com and a Fox News contributor.