'Israel Should Deal A Mortal Blow to Hamas' - Ex-Clinton Strategist Chastises Obama For 'Fool's Errand' In Middle East

Greg Corombos / WND

A former Clinton administration official believes President Obama is doing a pretty good job responding to the immediate Middle East crisis, but is decidedly unimpressed with the administration’s overall Middle East policy and its attempt to establish a moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians.

Larry Haas was spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Clinton administration. He is now a columnist who writes frequently about the Middle East and is also the author of “Sound the Trumpet: The United States and Human Right Promotion.”

Haas told WND it’s only a matter of time before the Obama administration and other world leaders declare the Israeli military action has gone on long enough and demand a cease-fire. He says Israel should ignore those calls until Hamas is dealt a “mortal blow” and other long-term goals are met.

“It has to send a signal to its own people in southern Israel that it’s going to protect them. That is the fundamental thing a government needs to do for its own people, provide them safety and security. So I hope that Israel does not let up until it really delivers a blow that Hamas either will never recover from or will not recover from for a very long time,” he said.

Haas is also not impressed by an Obama editorial in the the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in which the president asserted that the recent murder of three Israeli teenagers was not cause for retaliation but for a new commitment to a two-state solution in the region.

“There’s a little too much moral equivalency in the writing of that piece,” he said, quickly adding that outside of that article, he believes the administration has been “quite good” in its response to the crisis.

“They have made it abundantly clear that the problem is on the Palestinian side, specifically with Hamas, that Israel is defending itself as any other nation would, that no nation should have to live under a constant barrage of rocket fire,” said Haas, noting that the current military action would be happening even if the teenagers had never been murdered. He says weeks and months of incessant rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel required a response.

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http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/israel-should-deal-a-mortal-blow-to-hamas/