Infanticide, Rape, and Torture are Not Liberation Struggle
The absurd effort of the West to cram Hamas into a familiar category is leading to terrible moral errors
I will be as blunt as possible here: to claim that the actions of Hamas are the natural and understandable results of geopolitical struggle and state oppression in the region is clearly wrong. It is ahistorical, anti-ethical, and it’s a strenuous attempt by liberal Westerners to force barbaric murder into a decision framework that they recognize. I have studied dozens of liberation struggles. Many of them were non-violent. Even those who were violent did not perpetrate the acts of Hamas. You know who did? ISIS. ISIS was composed of many people who grew up in relative privilege (not oppressed or legitimately aggrieved). They share a dark and religiously-obsessed worldview with Hamas, which discounts any value of (non-Muslim) life or any commandment toward mercy or consideration of others.
People do not always behave like liberal Westerners. It’s easy for us to see the Nazi atrocities or the lynching of black men in the antebellum South as evil and based in racial hatred and to condemn them absolutely. Somehow the idea that such ideas and such urges are still alive in our species (a mere 80 years later) and are being displayed by Hamas right now seems to never occur to the apologists for Palestinian murderers.
I could go point by point and make many valid statements. Jewish newcomers to Israel in the 1930’s and 1940’s bought every piece of land they occupied freely and fairly. The neighbors of the Jews in Israel have launched 4 wars of annihilation, which Israel has defended itself against, without even occupying the territory they won (something which I can’t recall ever being done throughout history). The Nakba (when 700,000 Arabs fled because they were ordered to by their community leaders or because they feared reprisals in the wake of the 1948 existential war against the fledging state of Israel) happened contemporaneously with the expulsion of 800,000 Jews from Muslim countries. These expulsions were caused by pogroms which killed thousands, yet we never hear about them. There are millions of Muslim Arabs living in Israel now. There are NO JEWS living in any of these countries now (and the Christian communities have mostly been expelled by similar waves of intercommunal violence). Israel has tried to offer a Palestinian state to the Arabs a half dozen times and each time been rebuffed… because a large share of Palestinians don’t just want their own state-they want the total destruction of Israel. Much of the sentiments around this issue on the Arab side relate to a historical sense of humiliation and a sense of religious commandment, not the desire for a homeland or self governance which Westerners often presume are operative (the Palestinians already have both of these things). Most clearly and consequentially: Hamas is not a ‘Palestinian’ movement, in its origin or its charter. It’s not fighting for a Palestinian nation. It is explicitly a MUSLIM movement fighting for the obliteration of Judaism across the entire globe. When people tell you what they are you should believe them.
I won’t spend time in this political and historical debates though. Instead I will list the verified (and in some cases recorded) recent actions of Hamas in Israel, and you can decide if you want to excuse and support them. It’s your soul after all.
Hamas paraded the corpses of killed Israelis to cheering crowds, who beat and tore at them.
Hamas took women and girls with the express and stated purpose of hostage-taking, and also gang-rape
Hamas burned people alive
Hamas tied children to their parents, and burned them alive
Hamas used guest workers to collect intelligence on the Israeli settlements, with a special emphasis on children, which they then targeted for torture and murder, sometimes in front of their living parents
Hamas killed parents in front of their children and then killed the children
Hamas killed children in front of their parents and then killed the parents
Hamas killed the elderly
Hamas mutilated the bodies of the dead
Hamas cut limbs off of children and left them to bleed out, which sometimes took hours
And, regarding its own people:
Hamas has claimed that it’s the UN’s responsibility to protect Gazans (despite IT being the elected government of the area)
Hamas has hoarded water and food and fuel while shortages afflict civilians
Hamas built workshops and armories and tunnels for its fighters… but not bomb shelters for its civilians
Hamas has killed it’s own people with misfired rockets and poorly timed bombs
Hamas has blocked evacuation routes
Hamas has ordered civilians to remain above and around military targets, even after they’ve been expressly warned to leave by the Israelis
The media and commentators have many suggestions for Israel… but no one ever makes demands of Hamas. “Pro-Palestinian” protestors have many grievance against Israel… but I never hear them criticize Hamas. Palestinians will wail on television and blame Israel… but never lodge any word of blame against their jailers and the group which has impoverished them and used them as pawns, in death.
If you’re REALLY pro-Palestinian you cannot be pro-Hamas. If all of your criticism and blame is saved for Israel then you have excused the most evil actor in this entire saga, and the only one who really wants the deaths of civilians.
If Israel had the power no civilians would die. If Hamas had the power 8 million civilians would die. There’s no moral equivalence.
