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Originally Posted by jfman
In fairness it wasn't Hamas that bombed them into oblivion, which is probably their most immediate concern. If you asked them today support for armed struggle against Israel has probably gone up - it's a far easier choice if you have nothing left and will be collectively punished anyway.
Equally if Hamas - terrorists - were so all encompassing in terms if the administration of Gaza prior to this why would anyone civilian speak out to put themselves and their families at risk for the performative pleasure of people in the west indifferent to their destruction?
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As always with this conflict, one picks one’s starting point for outrage, and off one goes ….
I’d argue that on 7/10/23 when thousands of them - and not all die-hard Hamas lifers - went on a raping, torturing, murdering spree around southern Israel, support for Hamas seemed pretty high, what with all the Ally Ackbar chanting that was broadcast round the world that day. The fact that when it came to retaliation, Israel was simply better at it should surprise nobody. And the idea that the IDF poured all those munitions into a situation with no back-story is for the birds.
And on the subject of starting points, the problem for Palestinian activists has never been 1967, it was always 1948. ‘From the River to the Sea’ claims the entire land as Palestinian and requiring to be freed from Jews. It is in the political DNA of every ethnic Arab who calls himself Palestinian. Even the relatively moderate Palestinians, the ones sane enough to be invited to treaty talks, always refused the two-state solution when it came to signing on the dotted line. Two states has never truly been on the table. Not in 1948, not at Camp David, not now.
Meanwhile, yes, I acknowledge, speaking out against Hamas has obvious risks. But turning a blind eye and letting them turn the whole of Gaza into an underground terror bunker hasn’t exactly worked out well for them either. Eventually a person has to make some honest appraisal of what’s in the best interests of his family. Golda Meir always believed “ Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.”