By Ralph Nader March 5, 2024 Since the Hamas raid penetrated the multi-tiered Israeli border security on October 7, 2023 (an unexplained collapse of Israel’s defensive capabilities), 2.3 million utterly defenseless Palestinians in the tiny crowded Gaza enclave have been on the receiving end of over 65,000 bombs/missiles plus non-stop…
If you ambush a music festival and kill hundreds of unarmed people, you’re a monster, and you’re going to hell. I’m comfortable saying that about Hamas, the IDF, American GIs during World War 2, Black Lives Matter supporters, Trump supporters. Anyone. It’s not a “sided” thing.
And of course the IDF and the current Israeli government are also currently committing unspeakable crimes in Gaza every day, starving children and the old, and bombing houses with little babies inside.
Anyone who could possibly disagree with either one of those statements, I’m not sure what I could say to you.
Well, it is a sided thing. One side is a colonial occupier employing genocidal means to maintain their dominance and on the other side are their victims, a practically stateless, displaced, and disenfranchised people with modest and fair demands to return home and have equal rights. It is the righteous, existential imperative of the latter to resist the former by any means necessary, including deadly terrorism. The case for Palestinian armed resistance and Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in particular is especially justified given Israel’s spectacular response to The Great March of Return in 2018 and 2019. The Israeli’s made it abundantly clear that non-violent resistance would only be answered with brutal punishment. Given what Palestinians are up against, I don’t think it’s really fair to expect any better from their armed resistance.
Nothing justifies the rape, murder, abductions of October 7 and I am disgusted that you are using the propaganda name Hamas chose for this string of war crimes. You do not fight violent oppression by being a violent oppressor yourself, which is what Hamas is.
Rapes may have occurred on that day as they do every other day of the year everywhere, and there has never been a fighting force that was completely innocent of it, but rape was not a part of the plan for Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. That allegation was a hoax designed to stoke the genocide against Palestinians, so it’s important to set that record straight.
That said, I don’t know how you can construe any of the Palestinian resistance as oppressors, except possibly to the extent that the PA has cooperated with the Israelis, but I digress. Violent, armed resistance to a colonial occupier is not oppression. It’s part of the struggle for liberation. No people ever got their freedom by asking nicely. At the very least they were able to leverage a credible threat of violence.
“Isn’t perfect”?
If you ambush a music festival and kill hundreds of unarmed people, you’re a monster, and you’re going to hell. I’m comfortable saying that about Hamas, the IDF, American GIs during World War 2, Black Lives Matter supporters, Trump supporters. Anyone. It’s not a “sided” thing.
And of course the IDF and the current Israeli government are also currently committing unspeakable crimes in Gaza every day, starving children and the old, and bombing houses with little babies inside.
Anyone who could possibly disagree with either one of those statements, I’m not sure what I could say to you.
Well, it is a sided thing. One side is a colonial occupier employing genocidal means to maintain their dominance and on the other side are their victims, a practically stateless, displaced, and disenfranchised people with modest and fair demands to return home and have equal rights. It is the righteous, existential imperative of the latter to resist the former by any means necessary, including deadly terrorism. The case for Palestinian armed resistance and Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in particular is especially justified given Israel’s spectacular response to The Great March of Return in 2018 and 2019. The Israeli’s made it abundantly clear that non-violent resistance would only be answered with brutal punishment. Given what Palestinians are up against, I don’t think it’s really fair to expect any better from their armed resistance.
Nothing justifies the rape, murder, abductions of October 7 and I am disgusted that you are using the propaganda name Hamas chose for this string of war crimes. You do not fight violent oppression by being a violent oppressor yourself, which is what Hamas is.
Rapes may have occurred on that day as they do every other day of the year everywhere, and there has never been a fighting force that was completely innocent of it, but rape was not a part of the plan for Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. That allegation was a hoax designed to stoke the genocide against Palestinians, so it’s important to set that record straight.
That said, I don’t know how you can construe any of the Palestinian resistance as oppressors, except possibly to the extent that the PA has cooperated with the Israelis, but I digress. Violent, armed resistance to a colonial occupier is not oppression. It’s part of the struggle for liberation. No people ever got their freedom by asking nicely. At the very least they were able to leverage a credible threat of violence.
I’m honestly disgusted by the sheer indifference and malice expressed by this this half sentence alone.
There’s no indifference or malice in my words. Sorry if you feel that way.