One of the most effective methods of manipulation is the age-old technique known as bait and switch. It’s kind of a setup. You offer something that you think the other party might want and after they accept it you then alter it in such a way as to make it undesirable and bingo you’ve put them in a false position. This is what the Biden administration has recently done in offering to build a temporary pier in Gaza.

In 2005 after Israel had completely evacuated all of its citizens from Gaza it offered to build a small port for the newly born Palestinian statelet. However, the Palestinians rejected the port. But why? For a state that lies on the sea a port would appear to be a rather desirable piece of infrastructure. Sea transportation is cheaper than any other and supplies in cargo ships could be offloaded there easily and cheaply. Passengers could embark and disembark to stay at the seaside resorts that could have been built along the Mediterranean shore. Why reject a port? (READ MORE from Max Dublin: The Blinken Follies)

The answer would appear to be that for a number of reasons a port was not the right kind of infrastructure that terrorists were looking for at that time because ports are in the open and exposed to surveillance and inspection in the way that tunnels are not. It must be remembered that the elaborate tunnel system that Hamas has for decades been using to wage its terror war against Israel was started by terrorist groups in Gaza even before Hamas came to power in the Strip. Of course, after gaining control of Gaza, Hamas, as we have learned during the present War, elaborated the tunnel system well beyond even the best estimates of Israeli Intelligence. And it has served its terrorist purposes very well, not only for launching attacks against Israel but more generally for clandestine movement and control.

Moreover, there was another piece to this set-up which Israel has discovered during the present war and it has to do with Egypt. Although Egypt and Israel have made peace with one another it is what has often been called a “cold peace.” During all these years Egypt has never really deradicalized its population. Perhaps the main reason for this is that Egypt is a failed nation. Vast swathes of the Egyptian population continue to live in extreme poverty and are restive. The popular press in Egypt continues to demonize Israel and for the most part the Egypt street remains hostile to the Jewish state.

The upshot of this is that during this cold peace there has been a huge amount of smuggling of arms and other supplies from Egypt into Gaza but it has not been done through the Rafah Gate. Last month Ron Jager reported in the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom,

Military analysts have estimated that in the Rafah border town alone there are hundreds of tunnels, some wide enough to allow transport vehicles to pass through from Egyptian territory into the Gaza Strip, supposedly clandestinely. Egypt was silently complicit and contributed to Hamas’ military build-up, aiding Hamas in becoming a strategic threat to the State of Israel.

In other words, Egypt, much as other Moslem nations in the region, has been playing both ends against the middle.

This brings us to Biden’s pier idea. Initially the pier was to be built by the U.S. Army and it was supposed to take two months to construct. At first, the Netanyahu government looked favorably upon the idea because it has always been in favor of facilitating humanitarian aid to ordinary Palestinians without interception by Hamas. But then it was announced that Qatar would build and operate the pier, which is an entirely different matter. Qatar has long been one of Hamas’ major paymasters, it hosts Hamas top political leaders and also, through the broadcaster Al Jazeera, is its most important propaganda wing in the Arabic speaking world.

If the Pentagon were building the pier, one might expect that there would be effective cooperation between the U.S. and the IDF. But whatever its stated intentions it is inescapable that Qatar will use the pier, one way or another, to support Hamas. As a matter of fact, as soon as America gave Qatar the job of building and operating the pier it immediately exploited this opportunity to use the pier as a Trojan Horse to support Hamas. According to Baruch Yadid, Israel’s Channel 14 Arab Affairs correspondent,

The Qataris didn’t only say yes, the Qataris came with an additional demand. The Qataris wanted this port to be built by a company named Al-Hissi from Gaza. This company is the primary supplier for engineering, electricity and infrastructure for Hamas … It is controlled by, and is a subsidiary of, Hamas.

As the Biden administration increasingly tries to impose its will on its only democratic ally in the Middle East its favorite game is bait and switch. While Israel is following its wartime objective of destroying Hamas both militarily and politically in Gaza, Biden keeps trying to sneak them back in, first by advocating that the PLO take over control of Gaza at the very moment that they were negotiating unity with Hamas. Now the same with the Gaza pier. It must be remembered that Qatar, like Iran, is a major state sponsor of terrorism not only through its support of Hamas but also Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah and the Al Nusra Front. If it wanted to the United States could put an end to Qatar’s support of Hamas in a heartbeat without firing a shot. All America would have to do would be to threaten to remove its Al-Udeid Air Base, the headquarters of CENTCOM, from Qatar. But the U.S. has recently offered to extend the contract for keeping the base there for ten years while at the same time giving Qatar cover by engaging it as a “mediator” in the Israel-Hamas war.

At this point Israel has no choice about what it must do. Already, to counter this subterfuge Netanyahu has announced that Israel will enforce a “security bubble” around the pier. Next, with or without U.S. support, Israel must execute an operation in Rafah to finish off Hamas and rescue the remaining living hostages. It must then destroy the tunnels running from Egypt to the enclave. At that point it will have security control of the Strip and reconstruction can commence. (READ MORE: In Their Words: The Families of Hamas’ Victims)

If the power brokers of the world really care about innocent Gazan civilians, they will then cooperate with Israel to ensure that neither Hamas nor a PLO-Hamas partnership never again rules the enclave. The pier or mini-port was always a good idea for Gaza if used for peaceful purposes and if built would be very useful for facilitating reconstruction and humanitarian assistance. In the meantime, the Israeli naval blockade is still in force and Israel has been cooperating with its ally Cyprus to bring humanitarian aid by sea to Gaza to be distributed by the World Food Program.