Iran, Hamas and Western hypocrisy

Comment by Prince Michael of Liechtenstein

Reading time: 3 min

The West’s leniency toward Iran and funding of Hamas are partly responsible for the tragedy unfolding in Gaza.

An airstrike targeted an Iranian consulate in Damascus early last week, killing seven military officers, including two generals serving in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Revolutionary Guards, an elite military entity crucial for the Iranian regime’s hold on power, ruthlessly suppress any opposition within the country and support terrorist activities abroad. The airstrike was a necessary anti-terrorist measure likely carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces, yet it faced criticism from several European capitals.

Iran stands as the foremost state sponsor of terrorism, providing billions of dollars in financial, logistical and intelligence support to murderous organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. These groups in turn, perpetrate violence and destabilize the region. Additionally, the Iranian regime openly advocates for the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Jewish population in Israel.

The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020, fostered diplomatic ties between Arab nations and Israel and could have eventually led to peaceful solutions in the Middle East. As such, they were a blow to the Iranian regime, and had the potential to eliminate the raison d’etre for groups like Hamas. The terror group therefore orchestrated the horrific massacre on October 7, killing approximately 1,200 Jewish civilians, including infants, and abducting over 200 hostages.

Hamas’s propaganda win

The objective was to provoke an Israeli retaliation that would maximize Palestinian casualties, thwarting rapprochement efforts and securing Hamas a propaganda victory. Hamas utilized a network of tunnels and civilian infrastructure in Gaza (including schools, hospitals and residences) to launch attacks, exploiting the local population as human shields.

This strategy has tragically succeeded. Israel has been forced to defend itself with a military incursion into Gaza. Despite efforts to target militants selectively, collateral damage continues to occur.

Unfortunately, the resultant tsunami of anti-Israel propaganda has borne fruit. We see the dying Palestinians, destroyed hospitals and hungry children. Casualty figures released by Hamas-controlled Gazan authorities are taken at face value. The effects on Palestinian civilians are terrible, but taken out of context, these messages obscure Hamas’s and Tehran’s responsibility for the conflict.

Bewildering Western policies

The puzzling question is why the media and politicians in Europe and the U.S. have been so lenient toward Iran and its terrorist proxies.

Iran has one of the most oppressive political systems in the world. Its leaders, supported by the Revolutionary Guards, do not tolerate any deviation from their rules. In 2023 alone, more than 800 people were executed in Iran. At least 1,100 political prisoners are currently rotting away in Iranian prisons, where they are likely being tortured.

Despite Iran’s egregious human rights abuses and sponsorship of terrorism, in 2015 the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) as well as Germany, concluded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. The deal put restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities, and in return lifted sanctions on the regime – without any requirement that it stop its terrorist activities.

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For this reason, in 2017 the administration of then U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated sanctions and withdrew from the JCPOA. It immediately faced pushback from the European Union, which incomprehensibly threatened European firms with heavy fines if they followed the U.S. sanctions and discontinued business with Iran. When President Joe Biden took over the White House in 2021, his administration’s initial interest in reviving the JCPOA was similarly perplexing. Furthermore, with their direct payments to the authorities in Gaza, many European countries have been subsidizing Hamas for years.

With their leniency toward Iran and Hamas, the U.S., and even more so European countries, shoulder a large part of the blame for Gazans’ current plight.

Nevertheless, Western powers are pressuring Israel to accept a cease-fire with Hamas. Effective propaganda and media naivety (or perhaps even complicity?) have drummed up enough anti-Israel sentiment in the West that this short-sighted solution has significant support. Populist politicians have pounced and joined the call for a cease-fire.

While on the surface such appeals may seem humanitarian, they are in fact deeply hypocritical. A cease-fire will only allow Hamas to regroup, rearm, continue to oppress Palestinians in Gaza, and organize new terror attacks.

The success of this deadly propaganda means the evil of Hamas will not be eradicated. Western hypocrisy allows the terrorism to continue. The losers are primarily the Palestinians, as well as Israel, but also the free, democratic world.

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