Portrait of A Nation (GAZA): How To Make A Terrorist
- CIVILIAN Magazine
- Nov 1, 2023
- 8 min read
Updated: Nov 24
"GAZA" // Hearts break for the innocent victims of Hamas' horrific attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. Lives lost in such a manner is a tragedy that should be felt by all. Hearts equally ache for Palestinians who, for so many years, have been dealt unbearable pain while international governing bodies stand idle, watching an apartheid unfold before their blind eyes with no desire, or economic motivation, to intervene. As we witness the tragic result of their years of inaction, it feels inappropriate to call the recent attacks on Israel "unprovoked" as stated by the U.S. government and many of its allies.
It’s important to understand that these words are not intended to condone Hamas’ violence against Israeli civilians—a blatant act of terrorism. Just like civilians who march against colonialism are not celebrating Hamas as perpetuated by media. This instead serves to dissect the motives of these enraged militants who have been led wildly astray by the solipsistic nature of the organization's leadership as well as to shed light on the hypocrisy of the powers of the world who choose to ignore the Israeli government's crimes against humanity all for the sake of protecting economic and ideological interests. Simply labeling all Palestinians as terrorists is a manipulative attempt at omitting an entire history of violence and radically unfair treatment that the people of Palestine have experienced for decades. These are people who feel as though they are facing an existential threat, fighting for survival by any means necessary. Likewise, Israel declares this same sense of an existential threat due to Hamas' 1988 charter which stated that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it". Although Hamas softened its stance on Israel with an updated charter in 2017, the vindictive nature of these words lingering over the years, coupled with past traumas of the jewish community, has eliminated any conversation of peace.
Today, deep hatred disguised as a quest for survival has left both sides—Hamas and Israel's IDF—lacking any honour for the preservation of innocent human life as they callously murder civilians who want, and deserve, nothing more than a normal existence.
“Some say Israel has the right to defend itself. What rights do we have? Do we have the right to resist occupation?” -Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s representative in the United Nations.
“My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs” - Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir
It's difficult to pinpoint the root cause of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Some highlight the Balfour Declaration as the pivotal moment. Others look further back in history at the years surrounding the Young Turks Revolution in 1908. Whichever way the story is told, one must identify the likes of Albert Antebi and Theodore Herzl as leading figures of a Zionist movement which was birthed as a result of growing anti jewish rhetoric in Europe at the tail end of the nineteenth century. According to Amy Dockser Marcus' Jerusalem 1913, however, even Herzl didn't believe in Palestine as the right choice for Jewish settlement and only "political pragmatism made [him] realize that Palestine was the choice most likely to win the broadest support".
Zionists' colonial ambitions have been well documented throughout the conflict's history. The movement's sole aim was to establish a land where Jews can be majority. A clear mission to return the land occupied mostly by Arabs to its “rightful owners”. Unfortunately for individuals who genuinely seek peace, the beliefs from Herzl’s manifesto, The Jewish State, are the very same philosophies driving the Israeli government today as can be witnessed in the West Bank where Palestinians are continuously displaced from their homes and treated as inferior occupants of the region.
With Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returning to power only after forming a coalition government with the nation’s far-right ultranationalist political parties, tensions in the Palestinian occupied regions have since only escalated with far too frequent reports of civilians losing their lives to bullets casually dished out, with impunity, by Israeli soldiers. According to the UN, 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians in 16 years.
Some lowlights include the August 5 Israeli attack on the Gaza strip in which they claimed to have been targeting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This attack destroyed about 1,700 Palestinian homes, killing at least 17 civilians (eight children) with hundreds more injured and displaced. Just two days later, five more children were killed after a missile hit the Jabalia refugee camp—an action Amnesty reported was a direct attack on civilians. In the same year, the Israeli military's use of force during raids cost the lives of 151 Palestinians (36 children) in the West Bank.
Since 2007, a year after Hamas’ general election victory in Gaza, Palestinians in the region have lived under the Israeli government’s illegal land, air and sea blockade. 2.3 million people have been forced to endure life with a feeling of inferiority–nothingness. They have been denied access to basic human necessities with very limited access to external resources.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “the volume of truckloads entering Gaza in the first five months of 2022, around 8,000 per month, was about 30 percent below the monthly average for the first half of 2007, before the blockade”. Their report highlights that Gaza’s population has grown by more than 50% since the blockade, emphasizing the increasing lack of resources the people of Gaza have for their survival. The region has been plagued with restricted access to agricultural land or to the coastal waters for fishing, and unemployment is amongst the highest in the world with almost half of the population possessing no means of an income.
Children in school have only a bleak future to look towards as youth unemployment sits at 62.5 percent. The most heartbreaking byproduct of Israel’s economic warfare on Gaza, however, is that “1.3 million out of 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza (62 percent) require food assistance”.
Furthermore, although Gaza and the West Bank are technically recognized as one territory, different Identification Cards are issued to the residents by Israel with the sole aim of further dividing the Palestinian people. One-third of Gaza's residents have relatives living in the West Bank whom they must first acquire permits from the Israeli government to visit. Some are forced to embark on three day journeys through neighbouring Jordan and Egypt to complete a trip that should only take three hours.
"There is a tremendous need to travel to see family members. But the criteria are such that you can only travel in very exceptional humanitarian circumstances. If your mother is [extremely] ill, you may get a permit. Weddings are also allowed. Funerals are allowed for first degree relatives. But if you just want to see your mother because you haven't seen her in 20 years, that doesn't count." said Sari Bashi, an Israeli lawyer at the Freedom of Movement Centre in Al Jazeera's 2015 documentary 'Palestine Divided'.
These humiliating conditions undoubtedly make it easier for an organization like Hamas to recruit soldiers who need little convincing about who their enemies are. Just like in the gang wars on the streets of Chicago or New York City, these young men are driven by a deep rooted thirst for revenge following years of bloodshed and a loss of meaning to life. It is easy to understand the endless nature of this conflict when put in these terms as with each missile launched by Hamas in retaliation to an Israeli strike, a Jewish boy is also convinced of his own duty to protect his land from its enemies. The two regions have unfortunately become submerged in the blood of their martyrs, descending deeper into a cycle of retaliation with every bullet fired—both parties ironically operating with an enhanced sense of vocation.
Although Hamas has refused to recognize Israel as a state, following its updated charter in 2017, its leaders entertained the idea of a two-state solution to the deadly dispute, however, one of the conditions was that Palestine regains the borders it had prior to the 1967 war which Israel won to gain control of Gaza and the West Bank. Unfortunately, this, along with other stipulations such as Hamas' claim that the highly disputed al-Aqsa Mosque belongs exclusively to Palestine, would be rejected by the Israeli government as such a concession would be counterintuitive to the Zionist movement's colonial ambitions. Today, the West Bank remains illegally occupied by Jewish settlers who are sporadically spread out across the region in a strategic manner, fragmenting the territory, making it impossible for Palestinians to lay claim to the lands. With Arabs in the region subject to segregation, unlawful land seizures, killings, and "arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement", according to Amnesty International, it is no surprise that resistance groups similar to Hamas (i.e. the Jenin Brigade) are now emerging in the West Bank.
So far, since October 7, the Israeli government's collective punishment approach has reportedly taken the lives of at least 10000 Palestinian in Gaza—almost half of which are innocent children. Israel's Defence Forces (IDF) dropped leaflets urging the 1.3 million residents of northern Gaza to flee south while they target militants in the north, an order that the UN deemed "impossible". Civilians who complied, however, were still murdered in cold blood on their evacuation route after airstrikes killed at least 70 people comprising of mostly women and children, according to Al Jazeera. There have now been more reports of deadly airstrikes in southern Gaza where civilians were urged, by the Israeli Defence Forces, to go to for their own safety.
At this moment, to desperately hang on to a believe that the Israeli government’s attack on Gaza is solely about targeting Hamas militants and not an excuse to destroy Gaza and all its people in an attempt inch closer to Herzl's vision of Zion is to foolishly, and naively, ignore evidence that showcases the deranged methods of the current Israeli regime.
To understand the irrational nature of the Israeli government's approach, one must first acknowledge that amongst us walk men and women who are born-soldiers, only awaiting a catalyst that motivates them to pick up arms. There is no greater motivation than avenging the murder of a loved one.
Following the Israeli government's impetuous bombardment of Gaza, visualizing a future that is rid of Hamas is unimaginable. They have attempted to eradicate Hamas using the very same ingredients that created the resistance.
With entire families wiped out in the blink of an eye, the year 2023 has no doubt primed the minds of many more angry young Palestinian men who will, in an unguided attempt to fill a void, join a future Hamas—no matter what new name the group adopts assuming Israel successfully overthrows the current regime.
Although Hamas' recent act cannot be described as anything less than a heinous act of terror considering the number of civilian casualties being reported from Israel, the forces that have antagonized these broken men into sadistic radicalism cannot, in the same breath, be anointed patriotic heroes simply fulfilling a god-given right to take back sacred land. Only blind faith makes one stand with the Israeli government without also condemning their methods. I wholeheartedly regret the actions of Hamas which reportedly took the lives of more than 1400 civilians in Israel. Their incursion has put the lives of the very same people they claim to fight for in considerably more danger. Although there's a despairing history that led to these acts of ruthlessness, there is no justification for such brutality. My heart grieves for the families and victims of Hamas' attack who have been caught between the crossfires of blind hate.
That been said, I write this with no other intention than to reiterate the surprisingly polarizing viewpoint that one cannot stand with Israel—in the name of distaste for human suffering—while simultaneously ignoring the absolute brutality thrust upon Palestinians over so many years. You either have a low threshold for human suffering and endorse the sanctity of innocent human life, or you do not. If one fails to condemn Israel's years of apartheid—and ongoing genocide of the Palestinians—just as strongly as they do the actions of Hamas, then, frankly, they are not for the protection of human life. They are for the protection of human life, sometimes.
