Trapped?

In a Tuesday night interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, Hillary Clinton expressed pity for Gazans who are 'trapped by their leadership' (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

In her first comments on the broken Gaza cease-fire, the former secretary of state expressed sympathy for people in Gaza who are “trapped by their leadership” but also said Israel has a right to defend itself.

“When I negotiated the cease-fire in November of 2012, it was right on the brink with Israel once again invading Gaza because of the rockets … and the Israelis are absolutely right in saying that they can’t just sit there and let rockets rain down,” Clinton told the Comedy Central host. “They have a missile defense which is working well, but that can’t be certain, and now there are drones, apparently, that are being launched from Gaza.”

Clinton said the Hamas leadership is now viewed as a threat by the Egyptian government, saying that Hamas isn’t interested in making “the situation too much better because that gives them a lot of leverage over the poor people in Gaza.”

“Unless we can give people enough of a sense of security on both sides that they will be better off and their children are going to be better off,” Clinton added, “then the guys with the guns can always disrupt anything.”

I can guarantee you that any Gazan who wants to leave - permanently and not to Judea or Samaria - will be allowed free passage by the government of Israel. But Clinton makes it sound like Hamas is a dictatorship that no one in Gaza wants, and unfortunately that just isn't true. Were it not for the blockade, many, if not most, Gazans would  be happy to live under Hamas with whom they share a hatred for Jews and Israel.