Gaza’s Glimmer of Hope
Hamas, like all resistance groups, from the African National Congress to the Irish Republican Army, has been misunderstood and demonized. Contrary to what Israeli and US leadership say, Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Hamas is a religious, nationalist, political resistance movement. This is not to say that Hamas hasn’t ever used terrorism as a tactic, as the Jewish militias that created the state of Israel most certainly did. In fact, the terrorism used to create an Israeli state in the first half of the 20th century is legendary.(1)
Hamas does not hold the Palestinian population in Gaza captive. In fact, they’ve gained broad support among Palestinians who’ve been humiliated, impoverished, unfairly imprisoned, terrorized and tortured by Israeli authorities for decades. Hamas began to garner this broad support in the early 2000s, largely due to the corruption and incompetence within the PLO, which failed to properly assist in the delivery of the promises Israel made in the Oslo Accords of 1993.(2)
The First Suicide Shooting/Bombing: Baruch Goldstein’s Hebron Massacre.
On February 24, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli physician and a member of the ultra-Zionist Kach movement, carried out a shooting massacre in one of Palestine’s most revered places of worship, Ibrahimi Mosque. 29 Palestinians were killed and 125 others were seriously or otherwise wounded in the shooting on that day. (3)
Forty days after Goldstein’s terrorist attack, the first retaliatory suicide bomber attack was carried out by a member of the Hamas’ armed wing. It was Goldstein though, a confirmed American-Israeli Zionist, who instigated the back and forth wave of terrorist attacks between Hamas and Israel in the mid to late 1990s.
From 1995 – 2005
In the ten years that followed the Hebron Massacre, Hamas began building a reputation in Gaza as a movement of the people, acting for the people. Unlike the PLO, who became a financially well-situated and not always reliable intermediary between the people of Gaza and their Israeli oppressors, Hamas proved steadfast in its dedication to the eventual liberation of the entirety of Gaza’s Palestinian population.(4)
Hamas Wins in a Free and Fair Election in 2006
After decades of oppression and land-loss and of being failed by the PLO, with little to no hope of improvement in the future, the people of Gaza elected Hamas to lead them. Hamas victory, which was overseen by former US President Jimmy Carter, came as a shock to everyone from the people of Gaza to Israel and US leadership. In fact, United States Senator Hillary Clinton was caught on tape, saying that the US should’ve rigged the election.(5)
Israel Penalizes Gaza for Not Voting the “Correct” Way
Within a few months of Hamas’ entirely legitimate electoral win, Israel began to punish the people of Gaza for voting the wrong way. In June of 2007 a blockade was put into effect which effectively turned Gaza into a prison camp. From that point on, no Palestinian in Gaza was allowed to leave and no Palestinian was allowed to re-enter. Also, no food or other imports would be allowed to directly enter Gaza either. As of June 2007, Israel began to control every aspect of the lives of Gaza’s 2 million inhabitants.(6)
From 2007 on, Palestinians in Gaza were subjected to what Israeli authorities have playfully referred to as seasonal “lawn mowings” (the periodic bombing, displacement, torture and murder of Palestinians in order to keep them in a perpetual state of fear) by Israel, along with constant house searches, humiliations and a massive number of false arrests. (7)
What Would You Have Done?
To compare the amount of hopelessness, destruction and death that Israel caused for the people of Gaza from 2007 up until October 6, 2023, with what Hamas was able to do in its meager attempts at retaliation up until that point, would be absurd.
By the 2020s Gaza had become “an open air prison and concentration camp”.(8) This is the term that Human Rights Watch used to describe Gaza in June of 2022.
And so I ask you, what would you have done in the aforementioned situation? Try to curb your inner censor just for a moment. Be honest. What would you have done if it had been you and your loved ones living in these conditions in Gaza? Would you have resisted? Or would you have chosen suicide, maybe? Try (really) sitting with this question, just for a moment.
Imagine
Imagine, the 30 years of activity described above occurred BEFORE October 7th, 2023!
Compared to what has taken place in the 10 months since then, those 30 years were the good old days.
To Date: 39,000 Palestinians have been confirmed dead by direct violence in Gaza since late October of 2023. 800,000 Gazans are missing in the rubble and/or in the Sinai desert and/or elsewhere. The estimated total of dead Palestinians in the massacre so far is, conservatively, 180,000.(9) Notably, 70% of the dead have been women and children.
The False Allegations by Israel and the Western Media Regarding What Took Place on October 7th
I’ve been doing a deep dive into what actually occurred on October 7th, 2023. What I can say with some certainty now, is that we were lied to. Were there atrocities committed? The answer to that is yes. 1,189 people were killed. I am not excusing any of that here. As for the gruesome accounts of mass rape and baby beheadings, these allegations were completely fabricated. No one was raped by a member of Hamas on October 7th. And Hamas didn’t kill any babies on October 7th.(10),(11)
In a future article I will go into the details of the genocide-inducing hoax that was cooked up by Israel and US media more deeply.
For More Details
For more details about the situation in Gaza, look at my article from last week, entitled “Blood on the Leaves, Blood at the Root: Einstein’s Nightmare”
For More Info About Protests in Your Area Denouncing the Genocide in Gaza
CITATIONS:
1 https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/terror-out-zion-irgun-zvai-leumi-lehi-and-palestine-underground
2 https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/oslo
3 https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1652605
4 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/8/what-is-the-group-hamas-a-simple-guide-tothe-palestinian-group
5 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3885072/We-did-determine-going-win-Hillary-Clinton-heard-tape-making-stunning-argument-fixed-2006-Palestinian-election.html
6 https://www.unicef.org/mena/documents/gaza-strip-humanitarian-impact-15-years-blockade-june-2022
7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/14/israel-gaza-history/
8 https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/14/gaza-israels-open-air-prison-15
9 https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/12/gaza-death-toll-indirect-casualties#:~:text=In%20the%20most%20recent%20draft,of%20Gaza’s%202.4%20million%20people.
10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mxfnya3ZRc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0atzea-mPY&t=2978s
