From AP:A year after a bruising Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, southern Israel has sprung back to life, and the frequent rocket fire that once plagued the region has nearly stopped. But it's Hamas, not the Israelis who are celebrating.Maybe because Israelis don't celebrate wars, including those they won, while the Arab honor/shame mentality forces them to celebrate wars that they lost?
By any objective measure Israel won the mini-war in Gaza last year. The point was to stop rocket fire and, for the most part, that goal was met. Gaza terrorists fired over 150 projectiles towards Israel in the last two weeks of October last year - and about 50 in 2013 altogether.
AP had a golden opportunity to explain Arab culture here, and dropped the ball.
Interior Minister Fathi Hamad, who commands Hamas' security forces in Gaza, called on Arabs in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Israel to unite in a holy war to “uproot the Jews” from Israel.This quote is confirmed by Arab sources.
“A third intifada is approaching,” he said, using the term for past Palestinian uprisings against Israel. “Liberation is coming and victory is coming.”
Apologists for Hamas, from "Students for Justice in Palestine" to Richard Falk to Jimmy Carter, never seem to find a way to condemn its explicit Jew-hatred.