Most of the coverage of the Hamas-Israel war omits the reason for Hamas’s attack. Reports that do address the question often cite the official Hamas explanation that Israel is plotting to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Hamas calls this war “Operation al-Aqsa Deluge.” But that justification is a fraud. The mosque is in no danger, and Hamas isn’t defending any Muslim holy site. The attack is offensive. Hamas wants to torture and kill Israelis in hopes of triggering mass uprisings by Muslims and perhaps spurring a larger war that might wound and isolate Israel, with the ultimate aim of destroying the Jewish state.
The accusation that the Jews are plotting against al-Aqsa was concocted a century ago by Haj Amin al-Husseini (1897-1974), the predominant political leader of the Palestinian Arabs from the 1920s through World War II and beyond.