Revolts are not surprising
“Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” came as a surprise to no one; least of all the apartheid state of Israel. Let’s set aside the fact that Gaza has essentially been made the world’s largest open air prison for the last 16 years. Let’s also ignore the fact that every year Palestinians are illegally and forcibly removed from their ancestral homes, not to mention the constant indignities and illegal detainment they face on a daily basis.
Hamas literally warned Israel that desecrating Al-Aqsa Mosque is a red-line since settlers stormed its doors during Ramadan 2021. Hamas again issued a warning, when a week ago Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa mosque attempting to perform Talmudic rituals, that retaliation for such trespasses was eminent. On September 25, 2023, both Saudi Arabia and Jordan condemned the affront to one of Islam’s holiest sites as barbaric and provocative. The only way for Israel to obfuscate their gross incompetence is to call it a surprise attack. No one is buying it that the US or Israel has not paid off!
Israel is an occupying power
According to international law, occupied people have the right to resist their occupying power, including armed resistance. The UN and various other international organizations declared Palestine an occupied territory and Israel by definition, the occupier. Therefore, Israel is a constant aggressor. It is a rogue terrorist state that should never be surprised when it is met with armed resistance.
Blaming Palestinians for fighting back is like blaming slaves in America for revolting against their slave owners. Or blaming Martin Luther King Jr. for his own assassination. It is a morally reprehensible position to take. Yet when it comes to Palestine and the apartheid state of Israel, it is the status quo.
Branding does not change genocide
I understand that a great deal of money and marketing have gone into making Israel look as if they are on the defensive. However, beneath that excuse of “Israel’s right to defend itself”, is a diabolical genocide taking place. The parallels to the holocaust are astounding. Gaza is a ghetto just as clearly as the Warsaw ghetto. Israel is using the same propaganda tactics as Hitler! For crying out loud, the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, likened Palestinians to “human animals”! If that doesn’t herald back to such Nazi propaganda as, “Jews are lice”, I don’t know what would! Dehumanizing the population you aim to wipe out is literally genocide 101.
Demonizing your opponent is also a tactic common to conflict. Israel is calling this their 9/11, making Hamas inhuman villains. By doing so they have complete impunity to commit war crimes! The blockade of aid and the targeting of civilians themselves and their infrastructure is a violation of the 4th Geneva convention. The EU sanctioned Russia for this very war crime just a year ago!
Using chemical weapons, such as the white phosphorous, which Israel is using on Gazan civilians RIGHT NOW, is also a war crime! Israel is committing war crimes on live TV and the U.S. is giving them more weapons to do so! Wake up America! If what Hamas did was deplorable, then what Israel is doing without any oversight whatsoever is criminal!
Jews are not Zionists
It is also important to suss out the difference between Jews and Zionists or Israelis. These terms cannot and should not be interchanged. Judaism and Jews are a religious group. Zionists or Israelis are a group of Jews and Christians that believe in the Jewish right to occupy the biblical land of Canaan. Zionism is a nationalist movement, Judaism a religious one. Zionism is a very convoluted response to anti-Semitism. Ironically, it seeks to separate Jews from the rest of the world as a solution for the world being prejudice against Jews. Stranger than fiction indeed!
It is astounding in this day and age where we acknowledge everyone’s truth may not be the same, that we allow an ideology such as Zionism to thrive. The land of Canaan (what Israel believes it occupies minus the few pieces it was forced to give back in skirmishes) was allegedly promised by God to the descendants of Abraham as their holy land. This of course would logically include the Palestinians as they are descendants of Abraham as well, but what are facts worth anyway?
By supporting Israel you are essentially agreeing with the idea that someone could come to your town tomorrow, show you a holy book you do not necessarily believe in and on its basis kick you out of your house. Ridiculous? Absolutely!
Being Pro-Palestinian does not make you anti-Semitic
Advocating for human rights for all people should not make you a target of slander. Yet we’ve seen repeatedly in the last few days just that. A group of Harvard student organizations who signed a letter stating that they essentially stood with Palestine have been maligned to the point where their budding professional futures are being threatened. I read the letter, it did not in anyway condone Hamas’ attack. What it did express was the idea that Hamas’ attack did not appear out of the ether or some deep seated hate for “Jews”. All they were saying is, if you oppress a people for long enough, those people have every right to resist.
We support Palestine as we supported South Africa and most recently Ukraine. We believe in the right to self determination. The right to autonomy and actual democracy. You cannot ask an intellectual with the facts to support the apartheid regime in Israel. Orthodox Jews are anti-Zionist, are they too anti-Semitic? It is a widely misused term anyway as Palestinians are Semitic people themselves. As most things in this conflict however, it is misinformation and abuse that prevails.
Israel has broken international law since its creation
Now in no way am I suggesting that Jews cannot or should not establish a homeland. In fact, I think we could comfortably give them the Dakotas and call it a day! The issue at hand is that since the Nakba, Israel has forced 6 million Palestinians to become refugees. The Palestinians it has failed to expel have been brutalized, murdered or imprisoned for half a century! You cannot establish your homeland on top of someone else’s and cry “terrorism” when they fight back. It is disingenuous and in the poorest of taste.
The only thing surprising about this response to Israeli aggression is the fact that these freedom fighters were able to exact such a potent response against a well funded and equipped terrorist state.
Featured image: Photo by Ahmed Abu Hameeda on Unsplash