This is totally incorrect for the case of the Hamas and is overused as a statement. It gives a terrible name to actual freedom fighters.
The Hamas isn't an organization with freedom as its goal. It's goal is strictly holy war (Jihad) and it considers the Palestinian children it kills along the way as martyrs. It has been a cancer on the people living in Gaza and has physically stopped the peace treaty (Oslo accord) from proceeding.
Honest question because I'm not super educated on this matter... I keep hearing all this awful stuff about Hamas: they use human shields, they're launching rockets from hospitals and churches, they dont care about the lives of Palestinian people. The only people I ever hear making these claims are Israelis and pro-Israeli westerners. I haven't heard any of these claims from Palestinian people. If it was true that they're being used as human shields by these awful thugs that are ruining their lives wouldn't there be more of an outcry against them by Palestinians? Maybe that's happening and I'm just not seeing it?
If you want to learn more about the way Palestinians and Hamas interact, look up "Son of Hamas", a book by the Palestinian son of one of the founders of Hamas. Here's an interview with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v738Wogza0
That's a good start. You can find reports of rockets launched from civilian areas on your own. I'm sure you can find others condemning Hamas. But the reason there isn't more obvious outcry is because Palestinians are largely supportive, and those that aren't don't exactly have robust freedom of speech protections - speaking out can get you killed. And the media doesn't seem to like portraying Palestine as anything other than a monoculture.
> Support of armed resistance was not always present. When Hamas openly fought the Palestinian Authority – which governs the West Bank and questioned the legitimacy of Hamas’ victory – and seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, over 73% of Palestinians opposed that seizure and any further armed conflict.
> At that time, fewer than one-third of Gazans supported any military action against Israel. Over 80% condemned kidnapping, arson and indiscriminate violence.
> If read over time, polls of Gazans from 2007 to 2023 tell a story. They help make clear that Gazan support for armed resistance grew alongside increasing frustration, anger and a sense of hopelessness with any political solution to their suffering.
It's very easy to judge people born into what is essentially the largest open-air prison in the world for being able to be driven mad, blow by blow by blow. You think you'd fare better?
I'm one of the Naaive people who think the Oslo accord would have worked if the Hamas was stopped and if Benjamin Netanyahu wouldn't have sabotaged it from the other side.
Unfortunately, today they are weakened due to terrible Israeli policy (specifically by Netanyahu). I hope Israelis understand that mistake but I'm not very optimistic.
I hope that after the dust settles Netanyahu will be gone and who ever is in charge will come to a reasonable agreement with the PLO. However, I'm not very optimistic. I think they have a more justified claim since the west bank has been expanding settlements (against Israeli law).
They are conducting a religious Jihad. Their ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel and an Islamic state in the area. They want to outcast every Jew living in the region. That is part of their charter.
In this conflict their goal was to start a regional war by inflaming Jordan, Egypt, etc. This would make them dissolve the peace agreement and go back to an all out war. To do that they need Israeli war crimes at a terrible scale especially against their own civilians.
They are using the bombings as propaganda to further their goals. Netanyahu is an idiot who (as usual) gives them exactly what they want. Unfortunately, eliminating them is nearly impossible as they are deeply embedded in civilian areas.
Your argument that they want this war crimes to initiate a regional war is funny. Why would you even go all this direction while an easier and more logical reason is that they are fighting for a Palestinian state [1]. And its funny that you put the blame on war crimes on anyone except who make them. No one is ever forced to make war crimes. If it is done, the perpetrators are never considered the victims at least in a sane world.
What I can see your comment is some version of, these savage people are forcing nice people at the Isreali army to make war crimes. So the victims in this story are the poor Isreali soldiers who have to kill all these people and might suffer emotionally as a result!!
> Why would you even go all this direction while an easier and more logical reason is that they are fighting for a Palestinian state
Because that would make them freedom fighters, and it’s important to make sure that the Palestinians are never, ever validated in any of their grievances. It’s a key step in dehumanization.
Have Russian grievances ever been validated since they started the war with Ukraine?
It seems like Hamas Grievances have been validated across academia and the mainstream media since they started the war with Israel.
If they were fighting for a Palestinian state they would have collaborated on the Oslo accord which was leading there. Or they would have waited for the state to form and then taken over that state.
I suggest you read the link that you provided. Read it. E.g.
> Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras al-Naqurah in the north to Umm al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people.
They want the entire country. Not a separate state of their own. They know they can't get to their goal with a direct conflict against a far superior fighting force, so they use this approach.
> No one is ever forced to make war crimes.
I didn't say that. I said the Hamas is hoping for that or at least something they can present as war crimes. It's actually pretty easy to incite violence and rage. Just burning families with their babies alive pretty much does that to people.
> If it is done, the perpetrators are never considered the victims at least in a sane world.
Sane? Have you seen the pictures and read the stories of what they did?
They are now surrounded by a lot of soldiers who read these things and are furious. That's no excuse for war crimes but all it takes are a few soldiers who go a bit too far.
> What I can see your comment is some version of, these savage people are forcing nice people at the Isreali army to make war crimes.
That's very selective reading. Israeli army soldiers did lots of bad things. This is documented mostly by Israeli groups e.g.
And many others. But here's the difference, it's a country of laws. Things get reported and even soldiers can be tried for crimes. Does Israel have a perfect record?
No. But it's pretty good even when compared to other liberal democracies such as the USA.
I never said or implied that the Palestinian people aren't victims. They are caught between the Hamas and Israel. The thing that bothers me is that people blame Israel for this conflict when the blame should be on Hamas first by a HUGE margin then on Israel. There's justified grievances to have against Israel (especially the current administration which is downright criminal), but this should be a footnote after the blame on the Hamas.
> If they were fighting for a Palestinian state they would have collaborated on the Oslo accord which was leading there. Or they would have waited for the state to form and then taken over that state.
Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. Osolo accords was in 1993. That's 20 years of Israel not doing anything to actually give Palestinians a state after they sign the accords. Not only that but literally they build many settlements inside the Palestinian territories, and it is still expanding until today [1] and recently as this year they expand new settlements [2] . Not to mention the violence and terror that the armed settlers are spreading (i.e [[3] [4]).
> They want the entire country. Not a separate state of their own. They know they can't get to their goal with a direct conflict against a far superior fighting force, so they use this approach.
They believe the entire land is theirs and there is an argument that they were stolen from them. We can argue about that, but there are people in Israel who also think that this is their entire land (And it is a fact that the vast majority of Israeli people came from other places). Also, they displaced Arab population and keep doing that to expand settlements. But lets pass this point and move to another important thing.
> I didn't say that. I said the Hamas is hoping for that or at least something they can present as war crimes. It's actually pretty easy to incite violence and rage. Just burning families with their babies alive pretty much does that to people.
Aren't we past the point of explaining that burning people and beheading people are false claims that even Biden spread? [5]
But ironically, this is actually happened to Palestinian family by Israeli settlers in west bank in 2015 [6] and here is another one [7] . Which city in Israel would you suggest gets flattened as a price of that? (Rhetorical question, if that is not obvious enough)
> Sane? Have you seen the pictures and read the stories of what they did?
I have seen a lot of fake photos and claims. I'm not saying that there were no civilians in Israeli side were killed, and I'm against that. But the Israeli war crime and carpet bombing of Gaza where hundreds of children are dead and thousands are killed is much worse, and what's crazy is that the world is letting this continue on a daily basis.
> They are now surrounded by a lot of soldiers who read these things and are furious. That's no excuse for war crimes but all it takes are a few soldiers who go a bit too far.
Can't we say the same things about Palestinian fighters. Well their people are killed, homes takes and bombed for decades. Can this logic extend to them, and some of them will not act according to what should happen. Or it is just easy to just extend that to all people. Isn't that what happened with every resistance movement in the world?
Again, to be clear, I'm against these actions. And even don't like Hamas for many reasons. But I just try to follow your logic. If you consider actions are terror. Apply these criteria to all sides. Don't say "takes are a few soldiers who go a bit too far" to describe war crimes by one side.
> There's justified grievances to have against Israel (especially the current administration which is downright criminal), but this should be a footnote after the blame on the Hamas.
A footnote, why? Because Arab blood is much cheaper for you than Israeli one? Specially that civilian's death toll is much higher on their side.
Most of the Gazan prisoners are soldiers, policemen, army reservists. The ones scooped up by accident are being released - two on Friday and two before. Hamas has asked for a brief 24 hour ceasefire to release prisoners but Israel has refused, prolonging the imprisonment.
Ahmad Sa'adat is a "military fighter"? At the age of 70? He has been in Israeli prison for years.
I totally forgot the time Nelson Mandela burned children alive, kidnapped kids and the elderly and just brutally murdered unarmed civilians...
Far be it from me to defend everything that Israel does. But even during the current bombings Israel tracks cellphone signals to try and bomb areas with minimal civilian presence. There's a huge difference between collateral damage and explicitly targeting civilians.
Israel tried to let more Gazans into its borders to work and reduce the burden on the people living there (not enough but it was improving) the Hamas chose murder with complete disregard to the lives of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They are WAY worse than anything the French resistance did, and they were fighting damn nazis.
Always? They have been very clear about trying to avoid civilian casualties. Saying they are not always successful doesn't prove anything when you are fighting an entrenched enemy that is using human shields.
Rofl are you serious? Human shield is something like launching rockets from a playground, the roof of an apartment building, a mosque etc. Having a village a mile *behind* the border wall is not a human shield.
I really don't get this argument. Israel has easily 100x more military power than palestinians. If you come to the conclusion that the only path to freedom is violence and you're up against someone 100x more powerful than you who has imprisoned you terrorism is pretty much your only option. Anything else will just lead to your immediate annihilation. It's easy to say "follow the rules of war" when they assure your victory.
Now I don't believe Hamas is actually fighting for freedom, but if they were and israel was unwilling to negotiate it's easy to see how they decide to massacre civilians.
The ones that won the war for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba, and drove 80% of the indigenous population out of their homes at gunpoint.
(At least, they are currently hailed as freedom fighters by one side in that conflict. The Palestinians condemn them, but nobody cares what they think.)
Oh, you mean the war where multiple arabs armies attacked the newly formed Israel at the behest of the local arabs? Where the leader of the Arab League Azzam Pasha said, "this will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades [1]."
The newly formed Israel, that was formed because of constant (arguably terrorist) attacks on the British army, alongside actions against indigenous Palestinian Arabs (actions that could justly be called pogroms themselves), by Jewish separatists.
Those separatists were justifiably motivated, by the reality of the Holocaust, and the endless series of pogroms in pre-WWII Eastern Europe, to want a place of their own.
There was a certain kind of Jewish settler who decided that moving slowly back, and doing so in a friendly fashion to the people they were necessarily displacing, was unacceptable. it did not matter that other people had been living for centuries on the land they felt was theirs. It did not matter to them that most Jews were forced out of Palestine by ancient Rome.
I think a lot about the establishment of Israel in 1948, and the Landback movement here in the states. Is there a statute of limitations on giving land back to a displaced people? It feels like there should be.
There are a lot of claims there. Some fair some not. Neither ones relate to the current conflict. The claims of "drove 80% of the indigenous population out of their homes at gunpoint." is repeated often but is also missing a lot of context:
* Israelis didn't start that war
* Israelis were surrounded and attacked on all sides. They won.
* Many Arabs stayed and were invited to stay. They enjoy equal votes, supreme court positions and freedom of religion.
* Jews living in Arab countries were chased out and lost all their property too.
Furthermore, the occupied territories is the area we're talking about. That area belonged to Jordan/Egypt respectively. None of them wanted them back during peace talks. These people didn't have freedom before Israel came in.
Israel TRIED to make a peace treaty. The *HAMAS* destroyed that treaty by blowing people up. Its stated goal is the destruction of Israel. It is NOT about freedom in any way. It's about murder. Plain and simple...
The only way Palestinians will ever be free from Israel is if the Hamas is destroyed.
A bunch of European Jews turned up in West Asia and and claimed it was their land on the basis of a story book. This was the starting point from which they wanted peace. It's not hard to understand why it was unacceptable to Arabs.
Muslims believe that same book of nonsense too... Half of these Jews lived in Arab states and were chased out of these lands (losing their homes too).
The Jews started coming in the 19th century and purchased lands. Many areas were bought during those years. During that time the land wasn't "owned" by any country so there was never a Palestinian country. It was controlled by the Ottoman empire and then by the English.
When the English left they divided the land between both factions giving the Jews a piece after the horrors of the Holocaust. Arabs started a war and lost.
I have empathy to the plight of the Palestinians. They shouldn't pay for the sins of their and our forefathers. But it's been multiple generations by now. It's fair to have a grievance, it's stupid to pick up arms when that hasn't worked well in the past.
While the Holocaust is used as justification for the creation of Israel, the Balfour declaration came decades before. Zionism was a European colonial project lead by Ashkenazim. The Mizrahim from Arab states migrated in numbers after the State of Israel was proclaimed.
The Palestinian identity is definitely a modern creation, shaped primarily as a reaction against Israel. But it's not too different from the notion of a Jewish People who need a separate homeland, shaped by European anti-Semitism.
Just so I understand you correctly, are you saying that it's okay for freedom fighters to displace a civilian population at gunpoint, as long as it's the other side who started the conflict?
Not what I said. That was one point only. There are stories of the Jews in Haifa who begged their Arab neighbors to stay. They did. OTOH there are plenty of stories of slaughter of Jews during that war. It was a terrible war. There was no law since there was no country. No organized army with discipline and rules. I'm sorry these things happened.
That first war had war crimes on both sides. Lots of them. The Israeli side won. If it had lost I'm sure the Jews would be in a far worse situation than the Arabs are in the state of Israel.
The Hamas isn't an organization with freedom as its goal. It's goal is strictly holy war (Jihad) and it considers the Palestinian children it kills along the way as martyrs. It has been a cancer on the people living in Gaza and has physically stopped the peace treaty (Oslo accord) from proceeding.