Who shot first?
BY IAN LEVER
It’s easy when analyzing the conflict in southern Israel to get caught in the trap of trying to dissect, which happened first, and what caused what? But, in reality the conflict stems from a larger, more foundational problem. It isn’t just that nearly 13,000 rockets and shells have landed in Israel since 2001. It isn’t just that as Fathi Hamad, a political leader in Hamas, stated that Hamas protects themselves through the use of “human shields of the women, the children, the elderly.” It isn’t just that Israel’s surgical strikes attempting to minimize the cost of the lives of civilians contrast directly with Hamas tactless aggression towards soldiers, civilians and children.
What really matters is a more systemic issue, the issue that is the source of the problem in the Middle East. The issue of acceptance. The real problem lies within the fact that Hamas’ founding charter advocates for the destruction of Israel. The real problem is that Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip on their TV Shows witness “Mickey Mouse beaten to death by an Israeli.” The real problem is that that when not one settler was in Gaza Strip, the leaders in Gaza didn’t create the infrastructure for the country to succeed, instead they stockpiled missiles to bombard Israel.
The real crime of this conflict is not just that nearly half of Israel is within striking distance of Gaza. The real crime is that Hamas’ terrorist regime, and purported quest to annihilate Israel, prevents any real progress in this part of the world.
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Hamas is not main problem, although it is an issue.
We also have to look at why the Palestinians would vote for a party like Hamas; It’s not something a sane person do. You point towards propaganda, but people in the Middle East know how to dissect propaganda. They have a high level of education and are very politically aware.
This whole situation stems from the unintentional effects of British colonial policy, which pitted Jews vs Muslims vs Christians. The artificial creation of a new Nation-state after WW2 is also another problem. No one pulls that shit. No one just makes a new nation out of thin air and expects it to go down well. Realize that Arab muslim leaders at the time were vehemently opposed to the idea of the creation of Israel, and yet Europeans still went ahead and did it. Were the Europeans right or wrong in creating a land for the Jewish people? I can’t say, but they should’ve known that the creation of Israel would instigate the anger of the Arab Muslim world. They should’ve known that it has led to the situation that we see in the Middle East today. Unless Israel gives away everything they have to the surrounding Arab muslim population(obviously not economically feasible, makes no sense), Israel will forever stand as a symbol of European imperialism and Zionism.
Infrastructure for the country to succeed? It’s hard to build that. Years of embargo (something that still continues) elevate the prices for goods and make it economically impossible to produce solid infrastructure.
So the real issue here is not Hamas. Yes, they are preventing progress. Yes, the right of return that Palestinians vy for will not be fulfilled by Hamas. But why would the Palestinians vote for a party like Hamas. 60+ years of “European oppression” have made them fed up.