Recently, Hamas affiliated terrorists kidnapped and murdered three teenagers in Judea and Samaria, including a U.S. citizen. The students, identified as Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaer, and Naftali Frankel were abducted and killed as they were on their way home from school in Hebron.
But, in spite of these recent murders, the Obama administration continues to jump through hoops to legitimize the perpetrators of this crime in order to provide them with financial support.
When asked to comment on the death of these teens and the escalation of violence, State Department official Jen Psaki stated that the administration would continue their support for the Palestinian government, citing that Palestinians “are making every effort” to reject violence and reiterating the line that the new Palestinian government is a “technocratic government that doesn’t involve members of Hamas.”
The term ‘technocrat’ is the latest buzzword for administration officials when describing the new Palestinian unity government. In an attempt to find loopholes in the language of American Law regarding Hamas, the administration has been using the term “technocrat” to describe the members of the new unity government.
Administration officials aren’t the only ones using this terminology. Recently, in an interview on Canadian television, Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton jumped on the bandwagon when she told a Toronto audience that she supported the Obama administration’s decision to continued funding of the new Palestinian unity government. She went on to call the new government officials are “largely technocrats” and cited that they’re “academics” that “don’t represent… hard-core Hamas leadership.”
But what is a Technocrat?
A technocrat is an expert who exercises managerial authority in the fields of their respective ministries. The modern concept of a technocrat grew from works of science fiction first developed in the 1920’s. The concept grew throughout the 1930’s to becoming a full fledge movement. The term has recently grown very popular in Europe, specifically in Greece and Italy.
In a technocracy, power is placed in the hands of scientist, engineers and other experts in the field in which the hold power. In essence, it is a highly educated bureaucracy. The theory is premised on the idea that a Ministry of Health would be run by doctors, teachers would run a Ministry of Education and so forth.
This idea of a technocrat wrongly dismisses the idea that one can be an expert at a particular discipline and still be a terrorist. Unfortunately for the Obama administration, they are not mutually exclusive ideas. Not all terrorists are uneducated simpletons. For example, Humam al-Balawi, who perpetrated a suicide attack on the Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan in 2009, was a medical doctor. Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s deputy and al-Qaeda’s chief strategist is a trained surgeon. In fact, all of Hamas’s leaders are university graduates and several have advanced degrees.
The White House has decided not only to discount the death of these three young boys, they have also decided to skirt U.S. law and provide financial support to a terrorist entity by describing them as experts via science-fiction terminology.
According to U.S. law, aid must be cut from any Palestinian government where Hamas holds “undue influence” unless Hamas complies with a set of strict criteria. Hamas has played a central role in new unity government. They have exercised their influence by identifying, appointing, and even calling for the resignation of these ministers. Yet, they have yet to meet the criteria U.S. law requires for legitimization – including the recognition of Israel right to exist.
Hamas is an openly anti-Semitic terrorist organization that has claimed responsibility for countless vicious terrorist acts against innocent Israeli civilians. They were founded under a platform, which calls for the death of Jews and the complete destruction of Israel.
It is important that the administration change course and classify the newly formed unity government as a terrorist organization, until the Palestinians stop associating with terrorist, violence, and can show their willingness to accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.
Additionally, as Mrs. Clinton mulls a presidential run, it would behoove her to recognize the failings of this administrations foreign policy – which she helped direct for four years – and change course with her rhetoric. Mrs. Clinton should realize that calling Hamas terrorists by another name does not make them any less dangerous.
Alex VanNess is the Manager of Public Information for the Center for Security Policy.