The geopolitical situation in Israel is complex. It always has been and likely always will be. But there is no moral complexity in condemning terrorists who deliberately target civilians or the repugnant creatures around the world who believe that Israel “got what it deserved.” Every one of them deserves our contempt and scorn. I stand with Israel.
My Thoughts On Israel, Hamas, And The War Of Defense That Must Be Waged
Can you imagine if Mexico launched a surprise attack on California, massacring hundreds of people, taking hundreds more hostage, blowing up buildings, and finally executing hostages? After all, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago was signed under duress and that land used to be Mexican land.
Palestinians reasonably want a homeland. Their leadership has failed them over and over. Every attack against Israel sets back their stated goal of a territory of their own. The inability to recognize that Israelis also deserve a homeland will forever frustrate their aspirations of becoming a nation.
The Sabbath holiday attack on Saturday, nearly 50 years to the day of the start of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, caught Israel by surprise. But backed by Western powers and a population that is willing and able to fight for survival, Israel will emerge victorious and potentially stronger than ever vis a vis its Arab neighbors.
I do not like to hear Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk about revenge. Revenge does not belong to man. But governments are raised as propagators of justice and justice screams out for a response that permanently cripples the enemy’s ability to wage offense.
There is no high road. Using this as an opportunity to return evil for (temporary) peace will only embolden a crazed group of religious fanatics to launch further attacks. Peace would not be returning evil for good, it would mark an abdication of the primary role of a government to protect her citizens. That itself is evil.
I grieve for the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza who have corrupt and ineffective leadership that has derailed every opportunity for peace by refusing to even recognize the right of Israel to exist. Faced with Arab nations normalizing relations with Israel and even recognition by Saudi Arabia under negotiation, Hamas did what Hamas does best: make the matter worse by waging the wrong attack at the wrong time against the wrong people.
I grieve even more for the lives that were lost in Israel and that continue to be lost. Like Shani Louk, who was kidnapped, slaughtered, and then paraded naked through Gaza City by Hamas terrorists. Or Itay and Hadar Berdichevsky who fearlessly fought to protect their children from Hamas invaders. When they heard shouting and gunfire at their door, they decisively hid their two babies. Moments later, they were confronted by Hamas and brutally murdered. Amazingly, Israeli Defense Force soldiers found the babies alive 12 hours later.
Hundreds have been taken hostage by Hamas, which has vowed to begin executing via livestream in response to Israeli air strikes.
Hostages are such a thorny issue. I don’t believe that paying Iranians $1.2 billion per head does anything but embolden terrorism and I likewise believe there can be no negotiation with terrorists in Gaza.
It is hard to shield civilians when Hamas uses them as human shields. In an existential fight for survival, there will be civilian bloodshed. But it is not Israel that can be blamed – it is the aggressor that sacrificed its own people over a cause it will never win.
This is not a David and Goliath situation. Nothing can justify the Palestinian attacks and anyone who does seek to justify them is an anti-semetic bigot. Desperation does not justify murder. The domino effect of Arab nations normalizing relations with Israel demonstrates that even the Arab world sees the inevitably of a permanent Jewish homeland.
As Israel prepares to launch a massive invasion of the Gaza Strip, I can only say אני מאחל לך מזל טוב (godspeed).
Finally, I am reminded of a link running through Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Azerbaijan’s aggression against Armenia and the people of Artsakh, and the aggression of Hamas against Israel:
Let all people of good conscience condemn what is evil, promote justice, and acknowledge that there is no justification for the Hamas attack against Israel.
Thank you for taking a biblical stand, Matthew. This brings me back to Genesis chapter 12, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Also, I’m glad you included Armenia, the first Christian nation (currently fighting an evil Muslim nation in Azerbaijan). And Ukraine too, fighting the godless communists.
I thought Ukraine was fighting Russia. Russia hasn’t been a communist country since 1991.
stfu useful gentiles, chopped liver too stupid to embrace reality, too dumb to distinguish anti semitism from anti israelism
The problem with this statement “I stand with XYZ” implies you’re against the other side of XYZ, which is Palestine in this case. However, Hamas doesn’t represent Palestine. This means 2 problems –
1. While you’re actually condemning what HAMAS did, you’re penalizing all Palestine people
2. I didn’t see you condemn Israel for all the things they did to Palestine people in both Gaza and West Bank.
Sadly, tragically, I think it is impossible to target Hamas alone when they care so little about the people they claim to represent that they use them as human shields.
When Israel catches a terrorist whose parents live in the West Bank, they blow up the house even if the owners (parents) condemn terrorism and had no knowledge of their son’s acts. Israel is tough. They don’t care.
Many people in Gaza had their homes taken and they fled to Gaza decades ago. Israel provided no compensation. That is an unresolved issue even bigger than mutual recognition of 2 governments. These people can’t move back to their old family land nor get financial compensation.
Not solvable unless America gives away a trillion dollars.
“When Israel catches a terrorist whose parents live in the West Bank, they blow up the house even if the owners (parents) condemn terrorism and had no knowledge of their son’s acts.”
Assuming something such as this happened, doesn’t this mean the son dragged his parents into his terrorism business and doesn’t seem to mind the danger that represents for them?
They don’t just punish the parents, they sometimes punish the entire neighborhood.
No, what is means is that Israel will completely destroy terrorists’ homes, even if it is not their home and they don’t live there. They will do it to a parents’ house. Israel knows how to play tough.
If you can afford to go festivals, fly business and be a digital nomad, you’re good. And Matthew cares about you if you are murdered. If you’re a kid living in a giant camp with scarce food and water, you can be buried under rubble, we don’t care. That just means that the only value you have in the world is defined by how much money you have and you can spend.
@Clouseaus: Absurd conclusion.
There are no such thing as palestinians.
The people of Gaza are welcome to take matters into their own hands, rise up and turn over the Hamas terrorists to the Israelis. Problem solved.
Easily said by someone who has never lived as an unarmed ordinary civilian in an environment such as that.
Governments, like thuggish gangs, aim to have a monopoly on the use of deadly violence against and amongst the civilian population. They both horde the superior capability for violence and use it at their will. Do you really want Gaza’s Palestinians to commit mass suicide? That is what it would amount to for the 40% of Gaza’s population that is 14 years of age or younger and most of their older relatives. Hamas has the firepower. And Israel nowadays has too many with the will to see Hamas get the Palestinian civilians killed en masse.
Excellent article . Spot on .
+1
I would add that God gave the Jewish people wisdom and rational thought . Anyone can benefit from reading Torah .
And from reading most other religious texts as well.
+100
First off — unequivocally I also condemn the violence perpetuated here by Hamas. It is reprehensible and my heart goes out to each and every one of the victims and their families.
I am a dPhil student at the University of Oxford and my focus area is Israel-Palestine. Your analysis is apt in some ways but missing some crucial factors:
a) Palestinian leadership has obviously failed its people. The decision of Yasser Arafat not to sign with Ehud Barak in 2000 was insane. However – Israel’s leadership has also failed. It failed through its replacement of Ehud Barak with Ariel Sharon, a far-right zealot who paraded himself around Al-Aqsa in deliberate provocations, and finally with the ascent of Binyamin Netanyahu, who is perhaps the most divisive Israeli leader in history.
b) There is no question that Hamas is a terrorist group and must be treated as such. Attempts to justify Hamas’s actions constitute craven apologism. But ‘why did Hamas do this’ is the wrong question. The right question is ‘what factors led us here’. Factor 1: the failure of the PLO. The PLO recognized Israel and engaged in talks. It was Israeli intransigience, with the rise of Sharon, for example, and then BN, that lost the PLO all its credibility. Israel never returned the favor with a recognition of a Palestinian state. Hence, Hamas takes over Gaza around 18 years ago (note the timing here).
I could go on and on. The point here is that ‘Standing with Israel’ or wanting to “Free Palestine’ — in my view — constitute sloganeering rather than substance. More to the point, the Israeli government bears a large degree of responsibility for the plight of the Palestinians.
NONE of this excuses what Hamas has done, which is obviously barbaric.
But the only way to end this is if Israel recognizes the PLO (along with other good-faith leaders, see Barghouti or Zomlot on the Palestinian side — neither one is affiliated with Hamas) and the two sides come to an agreement. Only then can peace be restored to this Holy Land and terrorists like Hamas be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Keep on dreaming.
Do one of your so called “partners” PLO etc recognize Israel’s right to exist? They are celebrating kids getting beheaded. THESE ARE YOUR SO CALLED PEACE PARTNERS??? Any land Israel gives them will be used to plan more hate against Israel.
Look at History, we never started it, but we will finally end it!
Actually, you did start it…and it isn’t like Israel is in a rush to recognize a Palestinian state…
I agree with same. Just picking one side over the other ignores the complex history of the conflict.
Imho both sides are to blame and it seems neither side is interested in a peaceful resolution that would be acceptable for both sides anymore.
In the end we can point fingers all we want, but it doesn’t really help at all (to the contrary, it just helps to polarise even more). The fact remains it’s horrible, this should not have been allowed to happen. Both sides failed to prevent the escalation, rather they fuelled it and a lot of people are now dead, traumatised or worse.
What do you call Israel when they bomb the West Bank and Gaza Strip?
The same thing as the British bombing the Nazis. Destroying evil.
What a stupid thing to say.
Just an accurate thing to say…..40 toddlers decapitated? Rapes? Kidnapping? Threats of executing the hostages? Do you expect Israel to do nothing? Do you expect them to give up more land for peace? No they already made that mistake….The Gaza Strip will be obliterated and if Egypt would be willing to open their boarders for civilian refugees that would be great….but they won’t will they? Therefore the Gazans will sadly reap the consequences FOR THE LEADERSHIP THE VOTED FOR.
C. 40% of Gaza’s Palestinians has not even passed their 15th birthday, About half the place is literally minors.
I don’t know about you, but I consider it a crime against children when violence is committed right in front of the kids’ eyes even if the kids were to be left physically untouched by the violence perpetrated in their face. I stand with the young children, whether the violence impacting them is perpetrated by non-state terrorists or by state terrorists who are “following orders to defend the fatherland/motherland”.
Justified.
Er, Hamas and Hizbollah were created to do Israel occupying various lands…they didn’t just spring out of nowhere.
“I grieve for the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza who have corrupt and ineffective leadership that has derailed every opportunity for peace”
But you don’t grieve for the state sponsored terrorism inflicted on them by Israel? You don’t grieve their lands being stolen, the violence committed on them by settlers torching their farms, kicking them out of their homes and taking their homes from them, committing violence against them (with the Israel army and defense forces turning a blind eye to that), stealing their water.,.yeah, lets blame it ALL on the incompetent Palestinian leadership…
“I grieve even more for the lives that were lost in Israel and that continue to be lost. Like Shani Louk”
I hope you also grieved for Shireen Abu Akleh, an American-Palestinian journalist who was shot in the head by the Israeli army while reporting live during her job…
The case of Shireen Abu-Akhleh is an apt example of how Matthew’s depiction of events is one-sided to say the least.
Spot on!
This is unnecessary “whatboutism” at this point.
There are questions surrounding the culprit in the case of Shireen Abu Akleh. I mourn for her death too and if she was deliberately targeted, the murders should be held accountable (up to and including capital punishment for premeditated murder).
Uh, no questions. The bullet was Israeli IDF.
“Several independent investigations carried out by various bodies and organisations, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, concluded that Abu Akleh was most likely killed by seemingly well-targeted shots fired by Israeli forces”
Even your own government concluded that as well.
As for the perpetrators, Israel has said it will never let it’s soldiers be held accountable for anything.
First, it’s still speculatory, even in what you quoted.
Second, it seems we are in agreement (despite what the Israeli policy is toward shielding IDF soldiers) that the perpetrators should be held accountable. The IDF policy is problematic.
It isn’t speculatory. Not really.
Let’s say it was indeed the IDF’s bullet which killed her. So? That’s an unfortunate circumstance of being caught in the crossfire between terrorists who hide behind civilian’s and don’t wear uniforms.
No, that’s just a dumb thing for you to say. Journalists should not be shot at.
The US got both SIGINT and follow on human intelligence that made it pretty clear that she was deliberately targeted. But there is nothing strategic or political to be gained by the US making a fuss over it with Israel. Much like the USG’s approach to India’s assassinations in NATO countries, except in the Canadian case the USG has an intelligence sharing arrangement that made it harder to cover up once the Canadians got clued in that the suspicions were accurate and got a couple of pointers.
After this weekend, I hope Israel murders as many Gazans as they can get their hands on.
It’s on. It’s very, very on. Let’s see what the muslim dogs can do when they don’t have boo-hoo victimhood to cling to.
You are a disgusting person.
It doesn’t take too many words to be substituted in Loretta Jackson’s comment for it to sound like a statement from Nazis and other anti-semites in the the 1930s and 1940s. Just put it in German and to the soundtrack of Hitler’s favorite propagandist filmmakers and it will be a more obvious reminder about the sick mentality that celebrates mass murder.
Everyone should know GUWonder celebrated the rape and slaughter of innocent kids over the weekend, merely because they were Jewish.
He’s been a menace on various sites long enough. Do we know who he is?
GUWonder has done no such thing. I disagree with him on some of these issues, but let’s not make false accusations here.
Sara Smith, your defamatory statements about me have no basis in reality.
Hamas and its types hate me more than you. 😉 I am quite used to being seen as a problem by left wing nuts, despised by right-wing extremists of the religious, ethno-nationalist and shallow national jingoist sorts, and targeted by status quo apologists. That you’re in such company as Hamas in despising me — that too without evidence to support your false claims — comes with the territory of my good fortune of being an informed disruptor of lazy ideologically-based narratives which lack nuance and understanding of complex political dynamics and are rooted by a lack of willingness to see the humanity and human failings in all. I feel pity and sadness for those who have to resort to lies and baseless character assassination and/or fall for such lies like you put forth.
I understand that it’s uncomfortable when sacred cows are not blindly worshipped and are instead being subject to scrutiny, and I wish it were not that way. By the way, if your falsehoods about me were true, I would be an insult to myself. A lack of empathy for civilian victims of violence — whether violence perpetrated by state actors or not, whether victims are categorized as “collateral damage” or not — is not one of my failings.
I feel sorry for you if you believe the pitiful fictional account you put forward about me; and I wish you mercy if you are to be judged for knowingly fabricating and spreading slanderous falsehoods.
Just for safety, can we maybe share Loretta’s IP with the authorities? She sounds like a terrorist concern.
You’re a queer and those “palestinians” would be lynch within minutes if you were in gaza.
So would many Jews in certain parts of Israel.
Also, Palestinians, not “palestinians:, you fool.
You are correcting him on lack of capitalization and your calling him a fool?
A lot of right-wing supporters of far right Israeli policies and actions/behaviors have long had a deliberate habit of refusing to capitalize Palestinian and/or Arab and/or Muslim as a way to show such groups are to be considered lesser people and have no equal place beside Israelis and thus should never be referenced as or by way of a word that is a proper noun for the group.
You are a dishonor to the name your parents gave you.
^this comment was meant for Aaron.
You dishonor the human race.
The amount of cognitive dissonance in supporting Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion and attack while also simultaneously supporting Israel’s decades long brutal occupation of Palestinian lands and homes and Israel’s indiscriminate air strikes on civilian and residential targets is astounding.
It also completely unserious to compare Gaza (an open-air prison, lacking any sort of territorial sovereignty, under complete Israel siege with no freedom of movement or economic liberties) to Mexico (a massive country with a developing economy and resources and a sovereign, democratic government).
+1
+1
Convince your guilty conscience that you don’t support human animals who thrill at the chance to kill babies and grandmothers. Truly unbelievable how you attempt to justify terror.
+1
As if the Israeli’s don’t do the same and take glee in that. Except in that case it’s state sponsored terrorism.
There is no palestinain land. Its all israel, they are arab squatters on jewish land. Time for Israel to fix that problem once and for all.
Your ignorance is astounding.
They won all that land after beating back the multiple Arab invasions, if not for those conflicts the Palestinians would not not be in the situation they find themselves in. Egypt wouldn’t take them, neither will Jordan….they only squat on their lands but for the generosity of Israel.
@Josh: Your quip about Israel’s “brutal occupation of Palestinian lands” is simply a non-starter – I cannot take anything else you say seriously if you mean what I think you mean. The reality is so much more nuanced. As I’ve said I the past, you can blame the British, but not the Jewish settlers who were promised a homeland.
But even if I were to stipulate that much of modern Israel is land that was claimed by the people of Palestine, what does that do toward finding a solution in 2023? You think Israel is going to give back any land? Never. So your perception of reality becomes delusional if you become fixed on an incomplete picture (both in depth and breadth) of the past 100 years.
Do you believe Israel has a right to exist?
I hope the Biden Admin pushes to have the US’s Ukrainian and Israeli military assistance packaged together in Congress. National borders of democratic states — even flawed democratic ones — need to be defended against violent anti-democratic actions/actors.
Couldn’t have said it better Matthew, As A jew I pray for no bloodshed of innocent civilian’s israelis and palestinians, it is not my hope that israelis win the war, I hope man kind wins here!! I don’t know have all the answers and that’s OK.
@Matthew, thank you for your piece about the current conflict in Israel.
I spoke with my friend who lives in Tel Aviv and he and his family are thankfully safe and sound. They are contemplating trying to leave, but with limited flight options they are really unsure where to go.
I am afraid that it is a no win situation as you rightly point out, violence just brings about more violence.
Again, thank you for your opinion peace about the current conflict in Israel.
You fail to appreciate how beholden you are to propaganda. For every Israeli ruthlessly slaughtered, the IDF will ruthlessly slaughter 10 Palestinians. You give voice to the story about the young lady paraded through Gaza and the celebrations for the attack but fail to give voice to those children (386 dead as of now) killed in Gaza. Or to the fact that Israelis in Sderot pulled up chairs and celebrated as bombs rained down on Gaza. Nor do you give voice to the fact that the Netanyahu is openly cheering the same barbarism inflicted on his people:
https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/1711401659190886556
I stand against the war pigs on all sides and with the civilians on all sides just yearning to live their lives in peace.
Sadly, when civilians are used as human shields, there is no way to avoid tragic death.
None of those Palestinian children, each of which I mourn for, would have died had Hamas not launched an attack on Saturday.
Just for safety, can we maybe share Jay’s IP with the authorities? He sounds like a terrorist concern.
HEY “DO GOODERS” (@ SAM, JOSH, AARON). DO JEWS HAVE THE RIGHT TO THEIR HOMELAND IN THE MIDDLE EAST??? YES OR NO. OR ONLY YOUR ANCESTORS DESERVE HOMELAND AND MY PEOPLE DESERVE GAS CHAMBERS???
@ MATT – EXCELLENT PIECE. THANKS!
They deserve the same rights as the Palestinians do.
All the Israel hating countries and groups could bring about peace by simply accepting Israel’s right to exist.
And what of the Palestinians right to exist?
The successors to the Rabbi Meir Kahane mentality would have the Palestinians wiped off the face of the planet and Arabs in Israel and the PT be recognized only as Jordanians, Egyptians, Lebanese or Syrians. It’s part of why even Gaza won’t be allowed by Israel to be a sovereign Palestinian proto-nation-state.
There is no such thing as a palestinian. They are arabs squatters on jewish land. It’s time to forcefully deport them to arab lands.
You’re such an ignorant fool.
I’m pro-Israel, but that’s a ridiculous assertion. There are town after town in the West Bank (And Gaza) that have been Arab occupied for generations with only nominal Jewish presence. The idea you’d just eject all the Arabs from the West Bank / Gaza is as abhorrent as what Hamas did over the weekend.
That’s as offensive as the Iranian mullah regime saying there are and/or should be no Israelis. It’s neither for the Iranian mullah regime to determine whether Israelis are Israelis nor for non-Palestinians to determine whether Palestinians are Palestinians and/or should be.
This region and it’s issues are muddled by religion, history, and pain.
There is no easy solution, but armed conflict and terrorist or state-sponsored violence is not the way forward.
I wish them all peace in the future but am skeptical it will be found since they all feel they are right and that their God is on their side.
It is a beautiful area with lovely people, rich culture, and amazing food. I wish for peace so more people can visit and understand this.
Thank you for speaking this.
Not really the best time to “whataboutIsrael?” during the biggest Jew civilian genocide since the holocaust.
And if you “whatboutism” Israel killing more Palestinians, well I’ve just read reports that Hamas have been telling the folks in Gaza to stay where they are so they can say “Jews bad” when they turn Gaza into a glass parking lot and killing civilians along the way.
Oh please.
Thank you Matthew! Unfortunately, common sense seems to be less common then we think. If anyone thinks that such evil can be OK, they are worse than the actual murderers and rapists, they are enabling a world of evil. As we say on Passover, “For not only one (enemy) has risen up against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise up to destroy us. But the Holy One, Blessed be He, delivers us from their hands. We outlived the Nazis and we will outlive Hamas. Hate does not survive!
@bers … +1 .
And now you have become colonialist apartheid occupiers, Bravo
Your either a self hating Jew, or just plain ignorant of history and facts. Actually probably both. It was always our land (there was never a Palestinian arab, didn’t exist) and you obviously don’t know the definition of Apartheid, as Arab Israeli citizens have more opportunities then they ever had under any of their own leaders. But its way easier to cry victim…
I am hoping that finally we can call hate and evil what it is! There is no goal of peace or even a better life for themselves. The goal (like the Nazis) is to kill EVERY Jew, PLAIN AND SIMPLE! And sorry if we are not laying down our arms to allow it!
@bers … +1 .
Apartheid is justified.
Matthew, thank you for sharing your viewpoint. Happy to stand beside you on this.
Matthew wants to rewrite history but the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. 75 years later, the Nakba continues to this day.
If this is your viewpoint, you doom yourself to oblivion or death…that ship has sailed (and of course you grossly simplify and mischaracterize what really happened).
Apartheid is justified. Arabs are a threat to the jewish people.
Absolutely spot on. I’ve hesitated writing something about what’s happening because I’m so close to the situation, so it’s great to see you capturing my thoughts so clearly.
I hope this doesn’t become a massive setback for the continuing normalization of relations between Israel and neighboring Arab nations.
That was the point. Hamas saw that KSA was close to normalizing relations with Israel and launched this attack to prevent it, fearing that the more nations recognized Israel’s right to exist, the more difficult it would be for them ever to become an independent state.
Hamas actually fears quite the opposite. That the Palestinian people will realize that they have to come to terms with an independent Israel, and then Hamas is out of business (stealing millions of dollars allotted for “refugees”).
You can also replace “Hamas” with “Iran” and you’d also be just as accurate. Iran risks becoming even more of a pariah if the big fish in KSA normalizes relations.
This is the correct answer
Hamas is stupid — but what can you expect from a terrorist group other than stupid violence — if this attack on Israel was about them trying to put a stop to growing ties between Israel and the Saudis. The ones who slowed down those ties from growing this year are the Israelis who invaded the inside of the Muslims’ third holiest place of worship in the world, the place where a lot of Muslims believe Mohammed rode off into the sky.
We both know the Saudis hate Iran. And the Israeli-Saudi detente and rapprochement was only made possible because Hamas had been targeted for destruction by the Saudis too. Hamas instead found Iranian support for the taking, and Iran’s support for Hamas is why we say Iran is at least complicit in Hamas’ terrorism in Israel. This attack by Hamas had zero to do with stopping Israel and KSA from
teaming up more and more.
I’m not sure. It seems to me that if KSA and Israel formalize relations, it will demonstrate that support for an independent Palestinian state is no longer a priority for the Arab world. This week, KSA has returned to its usual attacks against Israel in light of the declared war. That appears to be a strong motive at play here.
On another note, I hope that Israelis expel the Jordanian custodians from the Temple Mount and open it as a place of worship for all faiths. It is a holy site in all three Abrahamic faiths and I think it is disgusting that there are limits on who can enter the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock.
The Palestinians — and Hamas in particular— have long known that they had run out of any and all “strong” Arab states’ backing, and it’s why the extremist Sunni group Hamas ran into the arms of Shia-ruled Iran. The KSA under MBS had already gone ahead with dismissing Palestinian national aspirations, and MBS’ father has been in no shape to disrupt the KSA’s ditching of Palestinian national aspirations under the rule of MBS.
I am still waiting for the Saudis to openly open Mecca and Medina up to non-Muslim tourists. After that I’ll get more on the case of the Jordanians’ guardianship rules for the site in Jerusalem if they try to maintain those exclusionary rules for the mosque.
One side wants to kill the Jews, and other side, which is Jewish, doesn’t want to be killed. Neither side will compromise, what is the solution???
Things are not that simple, sir.
Matthew, I wrote a respectful analysis of your post and it was rejected by moderation review. I stress that it contained no insults or abuse. I’ve seen far worse comments on this very post. Please explain?
Apologies, it is on now. The perils of heightened tension!
Sadly pre 1947 there was No Israel. The western powers of France, UK, and the USA screwed up massively when setting up this “new” country. Yet it all goes down hill from there as Israel has 100% failed to keep to the 1949 armistice agreement with new settlements and the IDF patrolling within Gaza and the West Bank.
It gets worse as The Gaza Strip was stolen from Egypt in the 1967 war. Did Israel have to take this land? What are the consequences for what they’ve done with Gaza. Israel could have left the Gaza strip to Egypt. Yet here we are today and a blockade since 2005 has left the territory with barely even potable water.
Those is Gaza cannot travel, cannot get passports, cannot leave. They have no money, no food, no water, and no housing. Nearly 2 million people who are prisoners within a Ghetto that Israel has created. The UN Once said by 2020 Gaza would be uninhabitable: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/01/un-predicted-gaza-would-be-uninhabitable-by-heres-what-that-actually-means/ – conditions mostly caused by the Israel Blockade.
The blockade has made life nearly impossible. When you have nothing left to live for, you fight for your freedom. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/israel-and-palestine
Human Rights Watch speaks vastly to the Apartheid that Israel has caused in Gaza: https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Attacks on citizens are unjustified and I do not support any type of attack on civilians. Yet for too long Israel has been the aggressor from blockades to settlements. Each year, Israel kills more Palestinian civilians than in reverse. The western media comes to Israel defense constantly. Not covering the full story. As the world stand by and accepts it in the name of the holy land and defends a country that never existed pre world war II, because they don’t want to admit that they screwed up in 1948 when Israel was created!
I stand with the people of Palestine who have suffered for too long.
You do realize you’d be as good as dead after five minutes on the Gaza Strip, right? They hate gay people, and not just ‘extremists’.
I hope the people you stand with come to a city near you, soon.
When it comes to populations which feel like they are under siege, their way of life threatened or as if they are falling behind “the other”, such insecure populations often turn to and try to find comfort by cozying up with right-wing, religion-waving culture warriors in their midst. That rather typically includes their hating on ethnic, religious and/or sexual orientation minorities and also trying to rewrite history so as to wipe away “the other” from being an integral part of the native historical and cultural landscape. It’s really not unique to Hamas and the Palestinians. We can see it in Trumpland, in Putinland, in Netanyahuland, in Ayatollahland, in Talibanland, Modiland and so on.
At least one American has knowledge about the conflict in the fundamental level.
I have zero sympathy to state called Israel. I have zero sympathy to organization called Hamas.
I call what just happened”Palestine upraising”. Israel runs a modern day biggest consentration camp, called “Palestine”.
Deciding when the electicity, gas etc. goes to Palestine, blockade from sea.
To add. British Kingdom betrayed Palestinians twice. 1915 they make written agreement with arab countries to get help with fighting agains Ottoman empire and agreed in written that Palestine territory belong to Arabs.
In 1917, British minister Balfour right a letter to Rotschild family, promising that Palestine land goes to jews after WW 1, who started massivly immigrate to Palestine between 1920-1947. First betrayal.
In 1947, UN, who had then 53 member countries gave right to divide land between Israel and Palestine to British Kingdom, which again draw in a favor to Israel. The second betrayal.
Then happened 1967 and 1973 as a consequence.
So Ivan, you justify the slaughter of civilians. And as you point out, the history is quite complicated – not just Jews stealing Arab lands. There were imperial powers at play.
Sorry about few typos and incorrect words in my previous reply.
To solve a problem, it must be returned to point where it started. That point is too far away now.
Fault of Brits to made that possible for two times, fault of national-socialist whose did with Jews(and not only) what they did and Jews who think that they can do now whatever they want with xenophobia card in their pocket.
It is totally acceptable to be against something, zionism, islam, Israel, Palestine etc.
Brits gave false promises to Arab countries and took the right to deside who lives where although the arabs were present in centuries but never had their own state.
I do not justify slaugthery but do not feel any kind of empathy because the bumerang returned.
State of Israel is occupant, an evil state, they are not in their land. With force they took land away from surrounding neighbours and keep justify it. Calling themselfs as democratic state is a joke.
There would be no peace in the world for the next decades, it goes worse, because of the battle of Communist evils China, Russia and North Corea with Capitalism evils USA and Israel.
Useless UN cannot do nothing.
During the entirety of the Ottoman rule, there were native Jewish communities beside the Palestinian ones in much of the area governed by Israel. That the dying days of the Sick Man of Europe opened the door for Europeans to colonize the area and for European colonial powers to change the local demographics was not a bug but a feature that understandably went into overdrive as the ugly, more contemporary face of state antisemitism got worse and worse in Europe and a follow on wave of antisemitism in the Arab-majority countries as the issue of Israel’s existence became exploitable by forces in those countries. But the reality is that once even migrant/colonial populations have established roots in an area for generations upon generations, that presence either gets accepted and the place accepted as their home too or things turn very, very ugly and we then unfortunately see too often how inhumane and cold-hearted humans can be toward one another,
It’s not stolen when its won in war. A war the arabs started 3 times and lost three times.
Its time Israel finish the crusades and deal with the arab subhumans.
Do you realize the crusades killed many indigenous Jews who were not only standing with but also fighting along with Muslims against the European invaders waving the banner of Christianity when European crusaders were trying to take Jerusalem and the surroundings from the indigenous Jews, indigenous Muslims and even some of the indigenous Christians at the time?
For centuries Jews and Muslims in this very area in dispute nowadays between Israelis and Palestinians were allies and even brothers in arms in the face of European efforts to seize the area under the banner of Christianity (but really for money and power in and across Europe itself). And when the Crusades and the crusaders ended up destroying themselves by their imperial ambitions and associated hubris, they repeatedly turned toward persecuting the Jews and Muslims (the latter especially in the Iberian peninsula and the former just about everywhere). Guess why there are as many Jews around now despite the Holocaust and countless pogroms in Europe long before the Holocaust. Clue: it was because Muslim rulers found advantage in providing a home for a lot of Jewish and Muslim refugees and it was considered halal for them to protect the People of the Book (and tax them if not subject to the rule of paying annual “zakat” — the wealth tax — as ordered to Muslims).
Thank you Matthew for the no nonsense, common sense post.
Unbelievable that you have to courage to post basic truths these days…
If you’re not careful, the bloggers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
Hmm, that sounds just like you. Will send a delegation of terrorists to greet you in Hell.
It seems like you are saying that you sponsor/support terrorism and terrorists to go after someone just because you don’t like what they think and say. Is that really how you think things should be resolved for having a difference of opinion and perspective?
I don’t consider it good nor common sense to fancy retaliatory escalation and related violence against unarmed civilians in response to a voiced disagreement.
Thank you for clearly laying out your logical conclusion. It is undeniable that a savage organization that has no qualms on killing innocent people must be stopped at all costs. I am sick and tired of people defending behavior that is so abhorrent. I believe that if we do not stop these savages now the US is next
Can you imagine if the US blockaded Mexico and cutoff all their food, water and jobs?
I can’t, because Mexico is a massive country with access to thousands of miles of coastline, the US doesn’t own their power and water supply, and even with cartels in consideration, they’re not lobbing down 5000 rockets while kidnapping, raping and maiming Coachella goers.
Seriously, what a retarded comment.
In his defense, he was questioning an analogy I used in my piece
250 Israelis raped and murdered at a music festival. Just wow. Anywhere else in the world it would be universally condemned. But not when it’s Jews being massacred. People’s true colors coming through.
Yes, people who deflect away from the kidnap, murder, rape and maiming women and children are the most evil of scumbags, full stop.
And you the same when the Israeli’s do it to the Palestinians…
You are a furry symphatizer, a degenerate, and a bully with blood on your hands, and now apparently an anti-semitic nazi running defense and deflecting for Hamas in this entire comments section, while ironically being a sodomite.
Wow, you’re a worthless human being!
Not in modern Germany. After Cologne New Years eve ” 1000 party”, grandmother Angela just said “sorry”. Just that, no other legal consequences.
All those who were participated, all intruders, should be sentenced for long time and then sent back from where they came. Although I would chose a different method to get rid of them.
It was 29 years ago this month when at least several thousand unarmed Sikhs were murdered on the streets of India and much of the world was muted in its response and just gave “thoughts and prayers”. Much the same when Modi and Shah green-lighted and paved the way for the murderous anti-Muslim pogroms in India and now Modi is welcomed into the arms of Netanyahu, Trump. Biden and others and paved the road for more extremism against minorities in India. How many churches have been destroyed in India this year? It’s in the hundreds. and who knows how many Christians in India have been paraded naked and gang raped this year by the Modi gang members but it’s way more than can be counted on our hands. And yet all these “I stand with Israel” leaders and even the sneaky double dealer leaders stand with Modi. I stand for humanity, not for unsaintly governments.
How can anyone look at the videos of the kids dancing in the desert and then being slaughtered, the grandmother in her wheelchair, the woman on the back of the motorcycle screaming don’t kill me, the kid covered in a white sheet in a golf cart being brought to Gaza and the many corpses on the road and find excuses for these savages??? Do you have no moral compass??? There is no equivalence between deliberately shooting civilians like it’s a video game, laughing and rejoicing about it, stomping on the corpse of that poor girl like the animals they are, and I can’t imagine what else they’re doing to the hostages now in Gaza (they’re talking about beheading them a-la ISIS) and a country that’s waging a war of necessity to root out this brutality. In all the years Hamas has been managing the strip they only managed to build rockets, tunnels and other means of destruction and indoctrinate their people. Just imagine if all the material and work that’s gone into these satanic activities had gone isntead into improving people’s lives.
Do you feel the same when it’s being done the Palestinians?
Generally speaking, in too many parts, the level of empathy for victims of violence seems to be higher when the victims appear to be of or closer to ethnic European origin than when the victims’ are perceived to be “brown” or “black” of ethnic Asian or African origin and “more foreign” in cultural appearance.
I also think this analysis is a bit superficial. Sympathies may tend to gravitate toward those who are ideologically closer to them, but I have great sympathy toward Rohingya Muslims being persecuted in Burma, Uyghurs being persecuted in China,and Sunnis in Yemen. And most pertinent to this discussion, I have great care for the Palestinians who find themselves at the mercy of leadership that has done nothing but made their lives worse.
Rulers making worse the lives of the ruled? Isn’t that the long-term political story of human history just about everywhere?
People in the world tend to have more empathy for people who remind them more of the person they see in their own mirror and remind them of themselves, of loved ones. and/or of those who are dominant representations in consumed media. And that empathy more typically goes along visual identification lines than ideological identification lines because people have long tended to initially “judge a book by its cover” when encountering other people.
Thank you Matthew. I agree wholeheartedly.
I am so glad I use adblock when I read sites such as this…
Are you a terrorist sympathizer?
Isn’t that what you said to the United FA before you got kicked off the flight?
Matthew,
As a long time-reader and American Israeli, thank you for the public support and wishes, Great article.
Thank you for your clear and unequivocal statement Matthew.
Love to hear the leaders in Israel calling these terrorists out for exactly what they are….savages and animals. Words we get bashed here for using, but truthful just the same.
May Netanyahu follow through with his plan to kill every Hamas member. No ceasefire, no negotiations, they started it, Israel ends it.
I disagree.
1) Israel should have the most state of the art Intelligence systems in place. Obviously either they didnt work or they knew an attack would be imminent and they decided to let it go so they can retaliate and use this as an opportunity to take even more land.
2) They can go after Hamas itself. Did the use bombard Iraq and Afghanistan and killed all civilians? Arguably they didnt and they went after Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Why is Israel bombing civilians and public places? Mosques? Come on, they can target Hamas. Sure, its not easy, but just blowing every building in Gaza is not the answer.
3) Why doesnt Israel provide safe passage from Gaza to West Bank? Oh that’s right, they never did. They blockaded Gaza to communicate even with their own Palestinians.
4) We all agree Hamas is a terrorist organization and should be remove. Hamas is not Gaza. Gaza is not Palestine.
5) Palestinians elected Hamas because they are the ones giving them food. Poor children not have food, whoever feeds them, they are the “good” guys.
6) Israel have had decades to relocate Palestinians to safe zones and given them what they deserved. They have instead gone after Mosques, closing East Jerusalem and access to Palestinians. They have to have ID cards.
7) People are fed up and this is what happens when no one listens.
8) It was Palestine before it was Israel. The west put Jews in someone else territory. First thing Jews did, was to displace and kill Arabs.
Enough is enough. CNN, NBC, Wall Street is run by Jews… who do you think run the US government and donations? This is all one sided. How many videos of poor Palestinians getting abducted and killed have you seen?
You forgot we control the weather as well 🙂 .
Lets call a spade a spade. YOU ARE AN ANTISEMITE!
Between a quarter and half a million civilians died in Irak and Afghanistan. Lot of absurd comments, but this may be the worst.
Matthew, what do you make of Netanyahu’s comments from 2019, where he said ““Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas” to his own cabinet?
https://www.vox.com/23910085/netanyahu-israel-right-hamas-gaza-war-history
Hamas’s actions are reprehensible, but it is absolutely clear that the Israeli governing coalition has no interest in working towards a two-state solution, and is instead content to use Hamas’s actions as fuel to bolster their own domestic standing?
Do you not think it is a bit callous to say, so broadly, that you “stand with Israel” while giving no attention to the history of the Israeli government in Gaza – for example, the fact that since 2006, they have (illegally under international law) blockaded Gaza from land/sea/air such that it is impossible for Gazans to get water, food, or electricity without Israeli involvement? Would you also justify the actions of the IDF during the 2018-19 Gaza border protests as “self-defense,” even when every single international body and NGO found that there was no justification for the IDF shooting peaceful protesters (who in many cases were women and children)?
Respectfully, I am truly shocked at the lack of nuance that you employed in this post, as you are generally very thoughtful about your observations. It does seem that you have joined the chorus of many Americans of your generation who have an instinctive and reflexive bias towards Israel, even when the facts suggest otherwise.
Exactly- the fact that Hamas are reprehensible and should be wiped off the face of the planet doesn’t mean that the Israeli political establishment won’t be taking advantage of the situation in order to turn Gaza into rubble and deny statehood to Palestinians even if/after it manages to completely disband the organisation in question. I definitely stand with the victims and hope that the perpetrators are punished, but Israel’s past conduct indicates that it’s likely to go well overboard in persecuting people who may not even be connected to terrorism, and for that reason it doesn’t seem clever to preemptively endorse whatever actions they decide to take.
Even back in the 1990s, Netanyahu was having some verbalized political wet dreams of Gaza being made into such a miserable place that the Palestinians there would flee or be forced to leave from Gaza into Egypt or the sea and create space for Israeli settlers there that way.
Thank you, Matthew for your massive post and beautiful graphic.
Perhaps some of the readers and posters would appreciate a historical timeline of the pioneering aviation efforts of radicalized Islamic Jihadists.
Start with the PLO and Palestinian leadership detail the origins of who started hijacking planes and/or blowing them up and murdering passengers. Make to include how the Swiss government paid millions to the Palestinians in exchange for not blowing up one of their passenger-filled planes, and, given safe passage to the terrorists. Then, follow their bloody actions with bombings and shootings at airports. Please include the heroic efforts of the Israelis with the Raid on Entebbe. Or, launching RPGs at airplanes like in Tanzania. Or, bombs on a tourist bus in Bulgaria carrying Israelis.
Let’s not forget the first cruise ship hijacking. The Achille Laurel. Palestinians again.
Many hotels blown up around the world by radicalized Islamic terrorists. From Mumbai, to Jakarta. Or simply just blow up a bar in Bali killing hundreds.
Then, follow the money trail for the Qatari government; including the preferred airline of terrorist; Qatar (Jihad) Airways. The government is the #2 supporter of Hammas. Then, how Hammas leadership has HQ’s in Qatar’s finest hotels,
So much to cover in travel blogs.
Great review.
Nitpicking – Tanzania was not RPG but Russian made anti-aircraft missile. Likely missed due to bad operation.
Also, Qatari support of Hamas was in agreement with Israeli government, under the premise that money will lead to stability. Crazy place.
Let me add a number of airport attacks – TLV 1972, FRA 1986, BRU 2016, ISL 2016 and more and more. What a trip review this could be!
A sudden act of horrific violence is always harder to digest than the continued acts of horrific violence to an entire population. One burst of terror and out come all your holy-book-waving political stands. The sudden act is visible. The other is also actually visible but because its sustained, it’s more palatable to the likes of you and your holy-book-thumping readers…
You should read more. I’m not blind to the plight of Palestinians:
https://liveandletsfly.com/walled-off-hotel/
This ‘poverty-tourism’ report you made is your example of sympathy with the Palestinians? Jeez.
“…the beautiful aspirations of the Israeli people for a peaceful and stable homeland…” I’m sorry did you say stable homeland? Did you mean a homeland built on the blood of an entire populace? Yes, children and women including? You know you’re allowed to be openly one-sided because of your religious leanings. It is your blog at the end of the day. But don’t please claim to be sensitive when what you actually are is deliberately blind.
Elsewhere in your poverty tourism report – “It would be like asking the U.S. to give back land to Native American tribes. It’s simply not an option.” Why is it not an option? Because…you know…it’s all in the past!
You are blind. Laughably so. You think Israel is going to lay down its arms? Vacate the land? What a joke. You dabble in fantasy. There will be no progress when you begin from an impossible starting point or premise.
I simply pointed out a gaping hole in the logic of your argument. the gist of which was ‘The best solution is not a solution because it simply won’t happen” LOL you are ludicrous. I’m simply saying you are blind to decades of oppression which has led to this point, to which you raise your hand and go “but but but I went to the border and took pictures at the hotel. I sympathise!”
I don’t condone violence and what Hamas did is atrocious and should go punished. But it does not represent the poor Palestinians who have been living like rats in a lab run by the Israelis.
With all your traveling I would have thought you had a more balanced world view. But you cannot seem to shake off your privileged ‘coloniser’ view point. The world needs less people like you who look at solutions that they dont want as “simply won’t happen”
We were told that Israel was willing to give land for peace with the Palestinians in the 1990s. But the Clinton “land for peace” “deal” in 2000 was a sham and really was to do nothing but pave the way for more land grabs and buying time to see “strong” Arab states’ support for the Palestinians dissipate and become a non-factor in Israel’s dynamics with the Palestinians.
The far right Israelis have seized the political landscape and are getting their way despite that mentality being what led to Rabin’s assassination by an Israeli.
I stand with Palestine and their rights to live as humans are allowed to live: in freedom, liberty and safety. Unless that is given to them, it is inhumane to stand with the aggressors that has taken their liberty away.
Shame on you for posting such an insensitive post.
I also stand with Israel. There can be no acceptance, agreement with or tolerance of the evil of Hamas and Hezbollah, and certainly no support for it.
Apartheid in Israel and mass imprisonment of millions of people, disposition of their land, led to this. Unless you, Matt and others, recognize that and unless this problem gets solved, Israel will never be in peace- never, neither will the Palestinians. Unless you also recognize both sides as human, there will be no peace- you cannot “grieve even more for the lives that were lost in Israel”- more than Palestinian lives lost, and expect peace. You are dehumanizing an entire population by stating that. This is the problem. The problem starts with denying Palestinians their homeland, and will have to end by that- yes with Israel also in existence. Palestinians X Hamas have formally recognized Israel’s right to exist, and need to do more to highlight that, but Israel also needs to recognize the Palestinian right to have their own society and self-determination. They instead deny those rights, take their land, build settlements on them, and perpetuate this Apartheid state of affairs. As long as one society exists at the cost of another, this will keep happening. No nuclear weapons, wall, IT, intelligence, bombs, F16, F35, tank or iron dome will stop this and nothing else will get peace. If enough people recognize that both sides are human, we will have a starting point. Otherwise, this back and forth will continue. Again, think about what you stated: “I grieve even more for the lives that were lost in Israel”. That sums it all.
I think you misunderstood my point. The point was not that an Israeli life is worth more than a Palestinian life. I’ve long argued on this blog that life is a sacred gift and that every human being is an image bearer of their creator, equal in dignity and worth.
But what I did say was that I grieve more for the lives that were deliberately targeted and murdered in cold blood versus those that will sadly die as a result of their government using them as human shields, but not specifically targeted by Israel. Both are tragic. But there is a difference in mens rea.
You are right in that there has to be unequivocal condemnation for Hamas and what they have done. There are no ifs and buts about that. There is no justification, and there can be no justification. End of story.
However, your overall assessment seems to completely ignore the Israeli oppression of and apartheid against the Palestinian people (most of whom have no love for Hamas, by the way). It is remarkably disingenous of you to pretend that the only problem for the Palestinians has been their own leadership failure. It undermines everything, and falls into propagandist narrative.
If you really want to see a peace break out, then you need to take religion and old books out of it, focus on humanity, and actually acknowledge that there is systemic inhumanity against Palestinians going on as well as Hamas being what they are.
This is no way to live,not for either side.As far as American media and politician stance,everyone knows Jews and Blacks are the 3rd rail,one negative remark or truth perceived as such,and you’re career is over.Note longtime white house reporter Helen Thomas and CNN anchor Rick Sanchez,for examples.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is unfortunately even more embedded in the political corridors of power after peddling the her crazy “Jewish space lasers” nonsense than even before that became headline news.
Everyone knows Green is a nutbag with zero credibility and a flash in the pan career.Helen Thomas and Rick Sanchez were respected journalists for decades.
Trump is still not entirely politically dead, and he’s long been peddling antisemitic tropes and rallied support from and for his antisemitic fans. And yet the far right in Israel has been a fan of Trump.
Thank you for remembering the Armenians at this time. Much of the media was silent on it anyway and with these appalling events in Israel, what happened in Nagorno Karabakh is likely to be even more disregarded.
I’m encouraged to see most of the Middle Eastern countries condemning the atrocity, which makes it less likely to spill over into an even wider and worse conflict.
But with the military build up in the Balkans, I fear there may be yet another conflict before the end of the year.
What nonsense virtue signalling! Evil on both sides. The IDF bombs apartment buildings knowing that babies are inside. Israelis too are capable of horror. We all are. War brings out the worst in us.
https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1711857419075084474
Israel sends out warnings before bombing buildings. Don’t compare apples to oranges.
Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. This time around, Israel is definitely not always sending out warnings as some Americans in Gaza have realized. And even with warnings from an attacking force, warning alone doesn’t make it acceptable to terrorize and kill civilians, destroy civilians homes and take out civilian infrastructure needed for sustenance of human life. How can any decent person think it’s ok to support or engage in communal punishment and the use of lethal force against civilian targets just because “we told you so” sometimes, sometime and somehow “we” would if X, Y or Z happened and/or A, B, C didn’t happen? Terrorist thinking: “we let you know in advance to surrender to our demands, and so now any and all use of force is justified since you didn’t do as we demanded following our threats/warnings.” No, it’s not morally defensible just because of a warning.
Just think about this: Hamas has long warned Israel that it wants to see Israel gone and would attack Israel at a time and a place of Hamas’s own choosing. That warning doesn’t make Hamas’s atrocious attacks on Israeli and other civilians more humane.
To be fair – that is largely all lip service from the IDF.
It reminds me how the IDF sometimes releases ads/posts on social media about how “decent” they are for sending out mass emergency text messages to folks in Gaza before they bomb them.
People in Gaza are often without electricity (as they are now – where are they charging their phones?) and mobile phone ownership isn’t anywhere near what it is in the developed world – more than half the population in Gaza is either a minor or an elderly person.
Also, there are no safe places in Gaza to shelter in place, as the Associated Press and Reuters have just reported (but major U.S. news outlets have not covered). Palestinians in Gaza will often attempt to shelter in place at UN facilities, which Israel continues to bomb – they bombed six UN facilities since Sunday, as of yesterday.
What Hamas did to the Israelis – particularly the kids at the kibbutz and those at the music festival – was disgusting and I’m glad it is getting the media attention it deserves. I just wish the innocent Palestinian civilians would get the same.*
*And before people say “Well folks in Gaza voted for Hamas – they deserve it” keep in mind that the last election in Gaza was held in 2006 – almost 18 years ago. Half of the population of Gaza is under 18 and wasn’t even alive then.
Dehumanization is stage 4 in the stages of genocide. You’re going to have blood on your conscience, Matthew, with your “I stand with Israel” chants.
“Both are tragic. But there is a difference in mens rea.” You’re playing trial lawyer. Mens rea is relevant to the perpetrator, not the victim. For the sake of argument, I’ll agree that Hamas has a mens rea of homicidal intent while the IDF has a mens rea of recklessness. How in the name of the Lord does the “difference in mens rea” of the perpetrator of violence suggest that you ought to ” grieve more for the lives that were deliberately targeted and murdered in cold blood versus those that will sadly die as a result of their government using them as human shields”? Your statement is dehumanizing to Palestinians. Logically, accepting the difference in mens rea for the perpetrators and accepting that all victims are children of the Lord, the grieving should be equivalent for both victims but the anger should be more directed at Hamas than at the IDF. By stating that you grieve more for Israelli victims, you are participating in the act of dehumanizing the Palestinian victims. You don’t even realize how beholden you are to propaganda. Wake up, my friend.
I appreciate where you are coming from and agree that anger should be more directed at Hamas than at the IDF. Perhaps you’ve just said what I meant far more artfully than I have.
Yeah, right!
Dear Palestinians, please move out from your homes because we will destroy them tomorrow!
So human, at least trying to save their lives with nowhere to go and nowhere to live. What a joke!
A lot more civilized in a war than showing up and behaving babies, wouldn’t you say?
I pose this question to you (please see my comment above) – where are the Palestinians of Gaza supposed to go?
Let’s say that the IDF is getting its warning message across to 100% of Gaza’s Palestinian population – where are they supposed to shelter in place? They cannot enter Egypt nor can they enter Israel. There are no designated bomb shelters. UN-sponsored facilities are not safe (frankly likely just as dangerous as the individual apartment blocks) as the IDF is targeting those buildings, too.
There is nowhere for them to go.
Your moral equivalency argument is BS, bombing terrorists who us children as human shields is nowhere near as bad as mutilating babies, and raping and sodomizing women then killing them, and celebrating over their corpses and posting it on social media. There are levels here. In that regard, Hamas is literally worse than Nazis.
I have no problem with IDF turning Gaza into glass with the bastards still on it like I had no issues with Fat Man and Little Boy.
What I find noteworthy is that people understandably taking aim at supposed moral equivalency think it’s justifiable to advocate wiping out Gaza’s Palestinians with a weapon of mass destruction or two. What is also noteworthy is how such advocates and advocacy of war crimes by supposedly responsible state actors seem to get so little direct criticism. Something is truly rotten in the human spirit with the cheerleading for atrocities.
I’ve been fascinated by the comments in this post over the days and reflecting on different sentiments. As such a few thoughts to add to this in ways that perhaps contributes solutions over demands.
There is no choice now, Hamas must be eradicated completely. However, this must come in a way that minimizes civilian casualties or the sentiment that Israel has now across most of the world will quickly evaporate. How to do it?
1. The global community (U.N. etc) works with Egypt to provide money and infrastructure to quickly set up within days temporary camps over the border from Gaza where women, children, and elderly can be transported out of Gaza.
2. Israel holds back for ten days a ground invasion and ceases all aerial attacks for that time allowing that particular segment of the population to evacuate to temporary camps
3. Within that time Israel also allows for any Hamas fighters to surrender at the gates to IDF with a promise to be transported to an International monitored holding area to await trial and prison sentencing. Any male between 18 and 70 who is not part of Hamas but wishes may also give themselves to IDF under the watch of the International community to be screened and processed as an innocent, to where they can then be released to the temporary camp in Egypt.
4. Anyone remaining in Gaza will be then considered hostile. Israel will enter and take control of Gaza in its entirety. Any Hamas soldiers who engage in fighting will be killed. There will be no allowance for surrender at that point.
5. Once the area is contained, Israel will work with the International community to establish a plan for Gaza to be rebuilt and monitored. A global effort in building a better education system and more opportunity for its residents will be provided BUT under the eye of Israeli and International supervision/military occupation.
This allows for both a humanitarian approach in enacting punishment to Hamas while protecting as best as possible the innocent. While harsh in many ways, at least lives will be spared and Israel will show that it is not wanting to target anyone beyond Hamas.
Gaza has been under de facto Israeli “occupation” since the early 2000s – Israel may have removed forces and closed settlements in 2005 but the Israeli government still largely controls life in Gaza – Israel controls Gaza’s air and maritime space, most of its land crossings, and the IDF reserves the right to enter Gaza at any time at will. It controls its water, energy, and telecommunication systems. All they really did was remove their personnel from within Gaza and place them instead on Gaza’s own borders. I’ve had the unfortunate displeasure of traveling there a few years back – it’s an unfortunate open-air prison.
Why would a new Israeli-occupied Gaza not give us the same result we have today? The cycle will simply repeat itself and we will just find ourselves in the same position say 25 years from now that we are in today.
Hamas needs to be destroyed – no doubt about it. But folks in Gaza also need to control their own destiny – a destiny that is free from Israeli interference. The absence of violence isn’t justice- justice is freedom.
Which is why I added that a real and passionate international effort to better education and career opportunities in Gaza can lift that next generation of fighters out of poverty and into a sense of purpose.
What you are suggesting is the ethnic cleansing plan to eliminate most Palestinians from Gaza.
Ethnic cleansing of an indigenous community is part and parcel of genocidal ambitions.
I believe my suggestions avoid just that. More like a Hamas cleansing. It allows for a humanitarian approach that may be strict and cruel on some levels but is certainly better than aerial and ground invasions that will end up killing hundreds of thousands. In the absence of any other solutions out there what other options are there in what I laid out?
A drive to depopulate Gaza of most Palestinians — no matter the excuse — is ethnic cleansing.
All will return, other than Hamas, to a better place. It is temporary displacement to free Gaza of Hamas once and for all. If you believe that terrorists define an ethnicity you are wrong.
All will return to Gaza? Let’s be honest as that is not what would happen. It would be an ethnic cleansing from Gaza because — and let’s be honest about this — Israel would play the same game its played in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to displace Palestinians more permanently.
Instead of Egypt, how about Europe as the Palestinian homeland as it was European anti-semitism that created the need/demand for a modern state of Israel in the Palestinian homeland and seeded so much Palestinian displacement since? “We are here because you were there.”?
There is a profile of Deif that says he’s so inwardly destroyed by the killing of his daughters and wife that he is resigned to seeing massive numbers of Palestinians wiped out in hopes that the surviving ones remain and become angry long enough to be around when WMDs are more widely available that his Masada complex can play out down the road to wipe out his priority enemy even long after him.
I really hope no one is playing into Deif’s evil hands, but this wouldn’t be the first time someone with such a complex would hope to bait their enemies into strategically counterproductive retaliation and run up the angry meter for hot-heads.
IF EVERYONE LAID DOWN THEIR WEAPONS THERE WOULD BE PEACE.
This has been going on for decades since the 1950’s, older than most of us, and sadly, will never end. Jimmy Carter 39th US president is still alive and he just must be heartbroken seeing this. Because he made some treaty for them to be at peace.
He is like 99 years old. Egypt and Israel have remained in a peaceful partnership of sorts ever since Carter greased the wheels and got them to sign up for “peace” back while he was POTUS.
The idea that the Palestinians would ever get a fair shake must have died decades ago, and I suspect it’s part of why Carter and Clinton never really got along — and that’s beside the fact that Carter limited his adultery to his eyes while Bill had trouble keeping “it” in his pants when Hillary was out of sight and had a different idea about the definition of “is”.
While I enjoy your posts, I think this is a travel blog, not an opinion column in a newspaper. Every day, everyone who uses the internet is bombarded with information and opinions about politics. So, as a reader, it really isn’t quite welcoming to see any political opinions. I respect your opinions, but I don’t come here for politics. It is your freedom to discuss what you want, yet the consequences will be lost readers and lower traffic.
If we assume that this blog is a business of sort and can take lessons from what View From The Wing also does, I think it’s safe to assume that generating attention from such topics and some controversy is also good for garnering more attention for the more travel-oriented topics on the blogs too and helps fund the sites/site owners that way. Also, I sort of understand where they come from, as they have an interest in topics of travel and politics and these sites are at heart a personal project and represent what kind of interests they have and want to share as an individual. Also, if there is a blog topic not of interest, it’s pretty easy to skip reading it by just selecting a different blog article after checking out the headline and the brief intros.
The interesting thing is that though this particular post is approaching 200 comments, it has not been very well trafficked. For better or for worse, my clickbait stories are what bring in the clicks and the revenue. Writing stories like this is not necessarily good for the brand or bottom line since there is a sizable minority of readers who are very anti-Isreal (which is different than being pro-Palestinian of course). These sorts of stories (or my religious musings) tend to pull readers away, but I cannot help but to write them…when I do a story like this, it is because it is on my mind and I feel compelled to address it.
I posted this on Instagram–
https://www.instagram.com/p/CyRgpMoSec7/
…and lost a lot of followers.
But I’m not running from my worldview or my faith and have chosen no longer to hide it.
Not sure why you should lose any followers. I’m of a different faith, not Abrahamic, and find solace in your words. You clearly are insightful and nuanced (much more so that the “I stand with Israel” slogan would suggest).
I long ago learned that I learn more from those who disagree with my words or even who loathe me for whatever reason than I learn from those who would think like me and share the same opinions. And so I don’t understand what there is to gain by turning a blind eye to the kinds of thinking and opinions that are out there. Also, people really aren’t meant to be clones of each other and agree about everything. We were born with mental faculties to use on our own and to produce some diversity for the advancement of the species.
With this going on for decades and decades since the 1940s, and nobody has ever been able to stop the hate, I think you should say you should stand for NO WAR.
Israel is going to do whatever it deems necessary to deal with the threat to their people. That will seem harsh to many people but Hamas and other terrorists are well known to use civilians as human shields and then turn around and cry bloody murder when some of those civilians are unfortunately among the casualties. I understand Israel tries to keep innocent casualties to a minimum but some unfortunately cannot be avoided. I too stand with Israel and wish that Israel would come to grips with the fact that the Islamic religion has some teachings that are not compatible with a civilised society and therefore any Moslems allowed to reside in Israel are a potential threat.
All that said I am opposed to any USA taxpayer dollars going to help Israel or any other foreign country. I would like to see a total across the board ban on the use of US taxpayer dollars for any type of foreign aid under any circumstances whatsoever as I believe that such foreign aid is not among the enumerated powers given to the federal government by the Constitution. I do believe the USA should engage in fair trade with Israel for the mutual benefit of both nations.
Thanks, Matthew for the only moral and decent stand one can take in this scenario. Nothing can justify what we’ve seen, full stop. Hamas’ actions will only directly result in further suffering of the Palestinian people.
I admire Matthew’s brave and moral stand here.
There are faults all around, but some things are simple not done, like gleefully mutilating and murdering kids, and live-streaming it all to score points with your blood-thirsty friends back home.
You’re also right about the innocent civilians in Gaza. They will suffer, and most had nothing to do with it. But they are lucky to neighbor Israel. After such a murderous attack on its people, the US, UK, or any other country would have obliterated the attacking country to smithereens.