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Even then, Hamas couldn't share the power of government with their Palestinian brethren, Fatah. In 2007 Hamas staged an armed insurrection in Gaza, expelling Fatah as a political force and dividing the Palestinian people between the West Bank, ruled by Fatah, and Gaza, ruled by Hamas. Israel immediately instituted a blockade of Gaza for several reasons, chief among them the fear that Hamas would resurrect terrorist attacks on Israel; a fear justified by Hamas' own charter.

The Gaza Strip, according to the CIA World Factbook, (web site) is approximately 223 square miles in area, not quite the size of Jacksonville, Florida.

According to James Prince, who in 2005 served as a consultant to the Palestinian Investment Fund, the Palestinians receive "the highest per-capita donor aid in the world." Former head of the International Monetary Fund, George T. Abed, declared that the banking system in the Palestinian territories, circa 2005, was generally sound, "healthier, in fact, than most banks in neighboring Arab countries, such as Egypt, Syria and Jordan." In 2005, the 22 Palestinian banks regulated by Abed's authority had a total of $4.3 billion in deposits. Today, under the tyranny and mismanagement of government executed by the hand of Hamas, the banks in Gaza are on the verge of collapse and the threat of jihadist recruitment among the Palestinian people looms, as the promise of income derived from entities that share Hamas' goal of the end of Israel entices.

While the pro-Palestinian factions and protesters around the world curse Israel for their blockade of Gaza, blaming Israel for the financial and societal hardships being experienced by the people of Gaza, the truth is that the Palestinian people voted this reality into power. This reality is routinely ignored by the one-world media, as is the reality that the cause of Israel's actions is immediately derived from the violent conduct of Hamas and its refusal to exorcise the goal of Israel's destruction from their charter.

In the Face of Evil

The indiscriminate firing of missiles by Hamas into civilian areas of Israel forces Israeli families to stow protective gear close by at all times. Every Israeli must also know where the closed bomb shelter is located and be able to arrive at the location within a prescribed 15 to thirty seconds. Even at the height of the Cold War, in the dire hours of the Cuban Missile Crisis, we in the United States never lived under that prerequisite.

And as the explosions of Hamas' Katyusha rockets serve as a constant reminder of the frailty of life, the Israelis have never wavered from providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people. Even as the current conflict rages the Israeli military has instituted three-hour windows of calm to facilitate the transport of humanitarian aid (web site) into the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government has provided medical care to Palestinians and Hamas operatives alike who have been injured throughout.

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