This is how Hamas acquires the sympathy of the world: it permits the slaughter of the Palestinians.

Every day, its militants fire rockets towards Israel, and Israel, fed up with the bullying, bombs Gaza.

Exactly as Hamas wants it to happen.

Now, Hamas has a war zone. Journalists are not allowed inside the zone except in the hospitals to take footage of and write news stories about the wounded and the dying, especially the women and children.

If Hamas loves its people so dearly, as they claim so, why does it not stop sending rockets to Israel especially now that the United Nations issued a resolution ordering immediate and durable ceasefire?

Instead, they continue to send rockets to Israel and ignore the call for ceasefire.

Of course, Israel is not without fault. It so willingly grabbed the bait of the Hamas. But who can blame Israel?

An organization built mostly to wipe out Israel from the face of the earth, Hamas was founded in 1987. While it conducted terrorist attacts on Israel soldiers and civilians, back in Palestine it implemented extensive social services by building hospitals, schools, and libraries. No wonder it won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections.

By virtue of the UN resolution, Palestine was divided into two in the late 1940’s. The UN envisioned a Palestinian Arab State in one half living side by side with Israel in the other half. The Palestinians who were on the wrong side, about 800,000 of them, where displaced from the land we now call Israel.

Hamas claims that as long as those displaced Palestinians are not allowed to go back to Israel and reclaim the land that was deprived them during Israel’s creation, there will be no peace. Israel, on the other hand, wary of the Palestinians who always carry bombs to explode with themselves inside Israel, does not mind. They have survived the Holocaust to get to where they are now, and they are not about to surrender. Bombs and ammunition coming in from the US strengthen their resolve. By bombing Hamas, Israel is not only protecting its interest, it is also helping the US economy in dire need of bail out.

Hamas is aware that it is not alone in its quest to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. The Arab countries surrounding Israel opposed it’s creation. Building a country in a territory of and sacred to the Muslims is not acceptable. But what can they do? The world’s most powerful nations, through the UN, said so. Experts say this is how terrorism against the West and its allies was born.

A year after Israel’s creation, Jordan occupied East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem was captured by Israel in 1967. Not only that, they also captured the Golan Heights controlled by Syria, Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula controlled by Egypt, and West Bank controlled by Jordan. Not a bad loot for a six-day war against three neighboring states.

All those countries do not want an Israel so that in 1946, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria headed the creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, an umbrella militant organization, for the liberation of the Palestinians, which could not happen of course while there is an Israel.

But Hamas knows the language. Instead of demanding that Israel should disappear from the face of the earth, Hamas’ demands were toned down to, among others, that Israel goes back to its border prior to their taking over of Golan Heights,  Gaza Strip, and West Bank in 1967. (The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in 1979 as part of the peace deal).

The war is centered on Gaza where most of the 800,000 displaced Palestinians take their refuge. Thousands of them depend on the United Nations for their food and water, and education and basic health services. Without these, thousands are going to die of hunger, thirsts and disease. But this too is favorable to Hamas. Once the dead and the dying are beamed on TV, the world will loath and hang Israel–just as Hamas would like it to happen.

Human race, as a whole, is losing in this war. Not Israel, not Palestine for neither of them will win. Neither of them will get what they want, except death from both sides. But for their dream, Hamas is willing to pay the price: the blood of the Palestinians; and Israel is more than willing to trade them for bombs.