Feeling Sorry for Gazan Civilians?
I want to feel sorry for the civilians in Gaza killed either by our missiles (the very few that take innocent civilians along with targetted Hamas leaders or fighters) or by their own missiles that fall short and kill their own. I want to.
But right now I find it hard to feel sorry for them.
I remember a video by a German journalist of a demonstration against Israel coordinated by Hamas in which they were dragging an old Gazan woman to join in and she was yelling at the Hamas operatives that they were worse than the Jews. I cannot find it now, but back in 2014 during the last open war between Gaza and Israel, there were articles reporting on the voices raised within Gaza against Hamas. For example, here and here and here. One might think, then, that after they had voted in Hamas in 2007 because of the humanitarian social welfare activities of the organization, now that they know the truth of it, they would behave differently today. But by what we see in Judea & Samaria (the region Jordan named, The West Bank), I have my doubts that today they would change their vote.
We learn that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas cancelled the elections scheduled for this summer because he was afraid that Hamas would win in Judea & Samaria as well as in Gaza. That means that voters in the PA — who see Hamas throw homosexuals off roofs in Gaza, who see Hamas line dissidents against the wall and shoot them, who see that Hamas leaders are as corrupt, dictatorial and inhumane as are the PLO leaders they want to get rid of — they would vote for that accursed organization to run their own lives in the Judea & Samaria section of the PA? If they would willingly vote (or vote again) for such an oppressive regime (while blaming Israel for their woes) then who am I to feel sorry for? After all, they all know that Hamas stands for Jihad against the Jewish state and if that is a more important consideration than societal welfare when placing a ballot in the voting box, should I feel sorry for someone who feels that way?
Furthermore, as my Facebook friend Brian Pikelny wrote:
I saw a video where they cheered as rockets were launched. I only feel sorry that they are so gullible and brainwashed since they were children to hate Israel. I feel sorry that their leaders are corrupt and really don’t have their best interest in mind and that the money they get from their Iranian and Qatar benefactors go to buying weapons and paying terrorists while people there are living in poverty.
Yes, there may be something to that and we could debate how much they are under the influence of mind control (like cult leaders engender) and how much they are making active decisions about their lives. A 30-second phone call between the IDF and a Gazan civilian may tilt the scales on that debate:
So, sorry, not so sorry! To disrespect their agency as rational human beings and to not hold them responsible for their actions would be to hold them to a lower standard. I expect Gazan voters to accept the consequences of their votes and the consequences of their actions yesterday and today and tomorrow. Anything else is just simply patronizing.
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p.s. You can read about the Gaza that those in the West apparently do not want to know about here. And the potential when Gazans take positive action can be seen here. When they don’t think only about how to kill Jews, that is, like the creative individuals here, we see Hamas and others lie about the supposed siege Israel has on Gaza, the seige during which the receive enough materials and funds to build the tunnels under their cities for militants rather than bomb shelters for civilians, the seige of a kind that the “oppressor” risks getting shot at while moving medical supplies and more across the border before and after which the “victim” launches missiles against the “occupiers'” civilian population, and more.
Feature Image Credit: Osps7, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Hamas was formed in 1987, several decades after the Zionists launched their war and conquest of Palestine. If you want to know why Hamas exists, look in the mirror. You will see the face of settler colonialism, a Zionist from Toronto with Eastern European ancestry who thinks that she see is more entitled to her own state in Palestinians than a Palestinian whose family has lived in Palestine for generations.
While you are beating up on Palestine, take a look at your own government, dreck like Benjamin Netanyahu née Mileikowsky, Bezalel Smotrich and his fellow Kahanists. Take a look at the past terrorists that served as Israeli Prime Ministers, including David Ben-Gurion née Gruen from Eastern Europe, Menachem Begin née Biegun from Eastern Europe, Yitzhak Shamir née Yezernitsky from Eastern Europe, Ariel Sharon née Scheinermann, son of immigrants from Eastern Europe. Think there wasn’t a European conquest?
Meant beating up on Hamas.
You should have checked history of Hamas on Wikipedia. Thi is what you would have found: “Hamas’s origins can be traced to the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928.[110] The Muslim Brotherhood arose as an attempt to have Islamic values extend beyond the mosque into the secular sphere, where it challenged the core assumptions, social, political, ideological, nationalist and economic of the existing ruling order.[111] In 1935 it established contacts in Mandatory Palestine and in 1945 inaugurated its first branch in Jerusalem.[112] Following the Nakba in 1948, which shattered Palestinian society, the Muslim Brotherhood was one of the first organizations to reestablish itself among the Palestinians.”
So nationalism is okay when it is Islamic nationalism but not Jewish? And as you can see, Hamas/Moslem Brotherhood arose long before anyone could have accused Jews of colonizing their own land.
You know darn well that I have never said that nationalism is okay when it is Islamic nationalism but not Jewish.
Zionism is settler colonialism and it is not solely Jewish land. The solipsism, the arrogant entitlement to exclusive rights to an area of land simply because you are of a certain religion, is highly distasteful.
Why is the video unavailable? Is it available elsewhere?
Thanks for the heads up. It has now been fixed.