The Copper Scroll	Contributor Joel Rosenberg Joel C. Rosenberg is the New York Times best-selling author of THE LAST JIHAD (2002), THE LAST DAYS (2003), and THE EZEKIEL OPTION (2005), with more than one million copies in print. He previously served as a senior advisor to several U.S. and Israeli leaders, including Steve Forbes, Rush Limbaugh, former Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky, and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has been interviewed on more than 300 radio and TV shows, including ABC's "Nightline," CBN's 700 Club, CNN Headline News, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, the Michael Reagan Show, the Rush Limbaugh Show and the Sean Hannity Show.. Website - [go to Rosenberg Index]
The Ezekiel Option
The Last Days
The Last Jihad
Epicenter

I wish such a drastic move was not necessary. But it is. The rise of Hamas to power following the fall of the Taliban and the end of Saddam Hussein's regime has been a serious setback to the cause of freedom in the region and it has been a curse for the Palestinians. The world has rightly cut off billions in financial aid to the Palestinians, trying to persuade Hamas to recognize Israel and foreswear violence. Unemployment is rising. Poverty is rising. Despair is rising. Women and children are being harmed the most. But Hamas leaders insist there will be no concessions for peace, only more violence -- even against innocent school children.

In his address to a Joint Session of Congress on September 20, 2001, President Bush laid down an important marker in the War on terror: "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." It is time to apply this doctrine to the Hamas-led government in the West Bank and Gaza -- sooner rather than later.

From its inception, Hamas has been a terrorist organization (Vladmir Putin's view notwithstanding). As I reported in a National Review column, "Welcome to Hamastan," earlier this year: "Since 1989, Hamas has carried out more than 100 major terrorist attacks, killing more than 500. Hamas has launched more than 300 Qassam rockets at Israeli towns. 84% of Israelis killed in these attacks have been civilians. 27 Americans have been killed in Hamas attacks since 1993. Hamas has been on the U.S.-terrorist list for the past eight years. The European Union added Hamas to its terrorist list two years ago. Hamas receives $3 million a year from Iran."

Hamas is now creating a new terrorist nation in the Middle East. But contrary to conventional wisdom, the threat Hamas poses is not only to Israel. On February 3rd, Hamas leader Khaled Mash'al delivered a sermon at a mosque in Damascus, directly threatening the national security of the United States and the European Union. "America will be defeated in Iraq," Mash'al declared, in a translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute. "Wherever the [Islamic] nation is targeted, its enemies will be defeated, Allah willing. The nation of Muhammad is gaining victory in Palestine. The nation of Muhammad is gaining victory in Iraq, and it will be victorious in all Arab and Muslim lands. 'Their multitudes will be defeated and turn their backs [and flee].' These fools will be defeated, the wheel of time will turn, and times of victory and glory will be upon our nation, and the West will be full of remorse, when it is too late....We say to this West, which does not act reasonably, and does not learn its lessons: By Allah, you will be defeated. Israel will be defeated, and so will whoever supported or supports it. I say to the [U.S. and European countries]: Hurry up and apologize to our nation, because if you do not, you will regret it." [This is precisely the threat I wrote about in The Last Days -- a Palestinian civil war and the rise of a radical Islamic terror network in the West Bank and Gaza determined to punish Israel and the U.S. But it is no longer fiction. It is becoming all too real.]

What to watch for now:

* The battle for control of Jerusalem could erupt into a wider Middle East war. Hamas will not be content with taking Israeli soldiers hostage and firing rockets into Israeli cities. They want to create a base camp allowing them to launch a jihad that will liberate Jerusalem and send all Jews and Christians fleeing from the region (such is the focus of my new thriller, The Copper Scroll).