Hamas isn’t a group, it’s an ideology*. An ideology created and reinforced by the actions of the Israeli government. And I mean that in the most literal way possible. Netanyahu himself is on record having helped prop up Hamas because having a more violent group helped to delegitimise the Palestinian democracy and weaken the parties they thought of as more likely to succeed.
The only acceptable response here is a total, unilateral surrender from Israel. For them to give back Palestinians all of their land to at least the 1967 borders (but ideally 1947) and to treat the nation of Palestine with the same respect they would give any other foreign country.
Anything less is just Israel continuing to perpetuate the violence that they created.
We look back at apartheid South Africa and say that yeah, violent resistance on the part of black activists was justified and fair. At the time they were called terrorists, same as Hamas today. The same is true of Irish independence movements, of American civil rights activists, and many other movements throughout history.
You can’t oppress people for decades and then act all surprised and indignant when they lash out against that.
* yes, it is actually a group and its members are awful people who, ideally, would be stopped. But it is a group formed with an ideology and even if every current member is killed, an identical group will spring up as long as the conditions creating it exist. The idea of stopping the group is a complete fantasy.
The better question is why did the events of 7 October 2023 take place in the first place?
Again, you cannot put the blame on a victim of oppression for lashing out against that oppression. The blame lies squarely on the oppressor. Especially when the violent group which did the lashing out was propped up by the oppressor as a means to justify increasing that oppression.
You don’t lash out against oppression by massacring, raping and abducting civilians. Hamas are not resistance fighters. They deliberately attacked small, peaceful communities that were far-left and extremely pro-Palestine, the very opposite of the current Israeli government and its policies. One of the most well-known Israeli pro-Palestinian advocates was among the victims:
Read the article. She was the kind of exemplary human being that is instrumental in bringing Palestinians and Israelis together. Her death alone was a terrible blow to the peace process.
This is not a coincidence - Hamas targeted these communities in order to make peaceful coexistence unpopular in Israel, push voters to the right, because they know this would result in more heavy-handed reactions by the Israeli state. One of their many miscalculations was just how destructive to their organization this response would be.
Hamas relationship with the Israeli government in general is far more complicated than how you are trying to describe it. For starters, this off-shoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood began as a less militant religious alternative to the far more dangerous secular PLO, which is why there was initial clandestine Israeli support for them. The far more recent influx of Qatari cash that Israel signed off on happened after significant international pressure against Israel - and Netanyahu sold it to his power base as some kind of “divide and conquer” strategy after the fact. In reality, the Israeli government was under the delusion that Hamas were growing fat and lazy in power, that the billions in misappropriated aid money enabling a luxury lifestyle for the leadership would make this leadership less militant and thereby pacify Gaza. This was a foolish miscalculation.
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Hamas isn’t a group, it’s an ideology*. An ideology created and reinforced by the actions of the Israeli government. And I mean that in the most literal way possible. Netanyahu himself is on record having helped prop up Hamas because having a more violent group helped to delegitimise the Palestinian democracy and weaken the parties they thought of as more likely to succeed.
The only acceptable response here is a total, unilateral surrender from Israel. For them to give back Palestinians all of their land to at least the 1967 borders (but ideally 1947) and to treat the nation of Palestine with the same respect they would give any other foreign country.
Anything less is just Israel continuing to perpetuate the violence that they created.
We look back at apartheid South Africa and say that yeah, violent resistance on the part of black activists was justified and fair. At the time they were called terrorists, same as Hamas today. The same is true of Irish independence movements, of American civil rights activists, and many other movements throughout history.
You can’t oppress people for decades and then act all surprised and indignant when they lash out against that.
* yes, it is actually a group and its members are awful people who, ideally, would be stopped. But it is a group formed with an ideology and even if every current member is killed, an identical group will spring up as long as the conditions creating it exist. The idea of stopping the group is a complete fantasy.
Excellent summary
That is how you would respond to the terrorist attacks of October 7? Seriously? Have you even thought about this for more than one second?
The better question is why did the events of 7 October 2023 take place in the first place?
Again, you cannot put the blame on a victim of oppression for lashing out against that oppression. The blame lies squarely on the oppressor. Especially when the violent group which did the lashing out was propped up by the oppressor as a means to justify increasing that oppression.
You don’t lash out against oppression by massacring, raping and abducting civilians. Hamas are not resistance fighters. They deliberately attacked small, peaceful communities that were far-left and extremely pro-Palestine, the very opposite of the current Israeli government and its policies. One of the most well-known Israeli pro-Palestinian advocates was among the victims:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Silver
Read the article. She was the kind of exemplary human being that is instrumental in bringing Palestinians and Israelis together. Her death alone was a terrible blow to the peace process.
This is not a coincidence - Hamas targeted these communities in order to make peaceful coexistence unpopular in Israel, push voters to the right, because they know this would result in more heavy-handed reactions by the Israeli state. One of their many miscalculations was just how destructive to their organization this response would be.
Hamas relationship with the Israeli government in general is far more complicated than how you are trying to describe it. For starters, this off-shoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood began as a less militant religious alternative to the far more dangerous secular PLO, which is why there was initial clandestine Israeli support for them. The far more recent influx of Qatari cash that Israel signed off on happened after significant international pressure against Israel - and Netanyahu sold it to his power base as some kind of “divide and conquer” strategy after the fact. In reality, the Israeli government was under the delusion that Hamas were growing fat and lazy in power, that the billions in misappropriated aid money enabling a luxury lifestyle for the leadership would make this leadership less militant and thereby pacify Gaza. This was a foolish miscalculation.