The Israel-Gaza War
The loss of innocent life is always a tragedy and violence against civilians is always wrong.
Last Saturday, the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalated immensely due to a brutal and unprecedented attack on Israel conducted by Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist militant group that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas sent fighters over the border by land, air and sea and also launched a barrage of rockets into Israel. It has been widely reported that Hamas not only attacked Israeli military installations, but intentionally killed and harmed civilians as well and the group also claims to have taken over a hundred captives.
That Hamas took captives is not in dispute, though the real number remains unconfirmed.
As is always the case in such situations, it’s difficult to say with certainty what is true and what is not so early on, but graphic videos and images circulating online seem to support much of what has been reported. However, truth is the first casualty of war, so it’s important to remain skeptical of unverified information and to also be aware of the potential for atrocity propaganda.
In response to the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel is at war with Hamas and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has ordered a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip.
“There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant said before referring to Hamas, but also seemingly the citizens of Gaza in general, as “human animals”.
Israel has also continuously launched airstrikes on Gaza since the attack, a tactic that indiscriminately kills civilians and militants alike. Hamas has responded to these strikes by threatening to begin executing captives if Israel continues bombing civilian infrastructure.
This situation will likely continue to escalate in the coming days and possibly even weeks or longer. At the time of this writing, the total death toll is already nearing 3,000 people with both sides suffering significant losses. The US is anticipating that Israel will launch a ground incursion into Gaza soon, which will drastically increase the amount of civilian casualties caused by this conflict, and the Biden administration has come out in full support of Israel.
A Brief History
When discussing this attack, many people have started repeating a line of propaganda that has frequently been used in regards to the war in Ukraine as well. Namely, that the attack by Hamas was “unprovoked”.
Make no mistake about it, the Hamas fighters who attacked Israel are extreme and violent and their assault was brutal and horrific. What Hamas did was immoral and inhumane, even if the worst rumors and stories about the attack are exaggerated. Regardless of the level of one’s sympathies toward the Palestinian cause, it is an undeniable fact that Hamas inflicted violence on innocent civilians to achieve political ends, and there is absolutely no justification for that.
However, the claim that this brutal assault was “unprovoked” is just not true.
With roughly 2.3 million people — about a million of those being children — the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated areas on earth. It’s a small strip of land that borders the Mediterranean Sea, Israel, and Egypt, and it is commonly referred to as the world’s largest open air prison as it is almost completely walled off from the outside world.
Both Gaza and the West Bank have essentially been under Israeli occupation since Israel took control of those areas following the 1967 Middle East war, and though the prospect of a two-state solution has long been discussed, it has never become a reality. Israel evacuated it’s troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, and the area has been nominally governed by Hamas since 2007. However, that doesn’t mean Israel relinquished control over Gaza, which has been under a blockade for the last 16 years.
In the late 1980s, Hamas first formed — with help from the Israeli government — and the group has long cited Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as justification for their violence toward Israeli soldiers and citizens. This recent attack, while being the largest of its kind in decades, is only the latest escalation in a conflict that has been ongoing for generations.
Israel’s blockade of Gaza and it’s current occupation of the West Bank — which often results in Israeli soldiers killing children and journalists — as well as the expansion of Israeli settlements into the West Bank, have led many to criticize the Israeli government and rally behind the Palestinians who live under what is widely considered to be an oppressive apartheid regime.
Criticism of Israel is often portrayed as antisemetic, but when one honestly looks at Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians through an objective lens, it’s difficult to disagree with the majority of those criticisms. One does not need to harbor resentment or disdain for the Jewish people in order to acknowledge the human rights abuses of the Israeli government.
That being said, Hamas is clearly a dangerous extremist group, and its violent behavior toward Israel ensures that ordinary Palestinians will suffer the consequences of its actions and likely furthers any anti-Palestinian sentiment that is held by Israeli citizens and ordinary people throughout the world.
Violence Against Civilians is Never Justified
Since this current wave of violence began last Saturday, there have been attempts by both sides of this conflict — and also by their respective supporters here in the US and other western countries — to justify the violent actions that have been taken even when that violence has been inflicted on civilians.
The US political and media establishments, as well as many US citizens more broadly, have long supported Israel despite its poor treatment of Palestinians, but the response to this attack by Hamas has shown how bloodthirsty and war-hungry many of Israel’s supporters really are. The amount of people calling for the eradication of Palestinians or for Israel to turn Gaza “into a parking lot” is truly disturbing, yet those who express those views seem to think their calls for the death of hundreds of thousands of people — if not millions — somehow places them on the side of morality and righteousness.
The brutality of Hamas does not give Israel the moral authority to wage a mass murder campaign against average Palestinians who are effectively trapped inside the Gaza Strip, and anyone in the US who supports the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians on the grounds that they deserve it for previously electing Hamas should sincerely think about what the implications of such logic are. (Hint: the US government has spent the 21st century killing or indirectly causing the death of millions of people in unnecessary wars all over the world; should US civilians be seen as legitimate targets because of the actions of our elected leaders? Obviously the answer is no, and that also applies to the Palestinians inside Gaza.)
On the other side, there have been people coming out in support of not just the innocent Palestinians caught in the crossfire, but also for Hamas and the violent actions the group took against Israelis. I think it’s completely accurate to say that the Israeli government is cruel and oppressive toward Palestinians, but that in no way justifies the decision by Hamas to murder, rape, torture, kidnap, or otherwise harm Israeli civilians. Yet, just like with Israel and its supporters, those who have come out in support of Hamas seem to think they have some sort of moral high ground.
One of the best and simplest takes I’ve seen on this issue has come from Australian journalist and commentator Caitlin Johnstone in a post she made on X, formerly known as Twitter:
“Hamas is responsible for Hamas' decisions, Israel is responsible for Israel's decisions. Hamas is responsible for the Hamas attack, Israel is responsible for provoking that attack via apartheid abuses and for bombing civilians in retaliation for it. It's not actually complicated.”
She’s right, it’s really not complicated.
Understanding the historical context that led up to Hamas’ attack is not the same as condoning or supporting that attack, and condemning Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is not the same as celebrating the death of innocent Israeli citizens.
Violence only leads to more violence. Israel’s violent oppression of Palestinians leads to violent responses like this most recent attack, and that then leads to violent retaliation from the Israeli government like the carpet bombing of civilian infrastructure within Gaza, and that cycle will continue until meaningful attempts at peace are made.
It’s important to remember, regardless of where one stands on this conflict, that the loss of innocent life is always a tragedy and violence against civilians is always wrong.
The Threat of Escalation
The potential for this conflict to expand beyond Israel and Gaza is increasing as the fighting continues, and we should all be concerned about that possibility.
The Biden administration is planning to request that Congress authorize more military aid to Israel — on top of the $3.8 billion Israel receives annually from the US — and has also sent an aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, to the Mediterranean Sea. Even though that ship only just arrived on Tuesday of this week, the Biden administration is already considering sending a second aircraft carrier.
The US has been involved in Israel’s affairs since the state’s inception in the late 1940s, but that doesn’t mean the US can drastically increase its involvement in this war without risking escalation.
The US also gives foreign aid to several Palestinian groups within Gaza and the West Bank, and some of that money finds its way to Hamas. That means that the US government — or more accurately, the US taxpayer — is actively funding both sides of this war already. There is no need for us to get more involved.
There have also been attempts to blame Iran for the attack, though even the Israeli government and US intelligence officials admit there’s no conclusive evidence to support that claim.
As part of a prisoner swap agreed upon in September of this year, the Biden administration released $6 billion of Iran’s money — which was frozen in South Korea due to sanctions the US has placed on Iran — to Qatar, and from there Iran would only be able to access it for humanitarian purposes.
That deal has led many US politicians — mostly Republicans, but some Democrats as well — to claim that Iran used that $6 billion to help fund Hamas’ attack on Israel, and the Biden administration, as well as Qatar, is once again freezing those funds. As Antiwar’s Dave Decamp recently put it, that decision “dims hopes that the prisoner swap deal would foster more diplomacy between the US and Iran.”
This development also comes on top of US-Iran relations already being at a low point due to Iran’s recent seizures of oil tankers and the US’s response to those seizures.
It’s entirely within the realm of possibility that Iran had some involvement in Hamas’ attack on Israel, but to make that claim — and to preemptively punish Iran — without evidence to support it is reckless and irresponsible. If Iran isn’t already involved in the conflict but is still being treated as if it is, then that may give Iran more of an incentive to join the conflict on the side of Hamas; if that happens it’s all too likely that the US and other western governments would increase their involvement on Israel’s side, which would lead to a much larger and deadlier situation.
Iran isn’t the only country in the region that could potentially get involved, either. In fact, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) held a phone call together for the first time since Saudi Arabia and Iran reestablished ties following a Chinese-brokered agreement, and the point of that call was to discuss the ongoing situation in Gaza.
Saudi Arabia has recently been in talks with the US about normalizing with Israel, and it has been reported that Riyadh would forgo getting concessions for the Palestinians out of normalization as long as it gets a security guarantee from the US. Those talks have yet to come to anything conclusive and this latest escalation of tensions might be enough for Saudi Arabia to change course and move away from normalization with Israel, though only time will tell.
Other countries in the region could also cause the situation to escalate.
Shortly after violence broke out between Israel and Hamas, another Islamist militant group that is based in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah, fired rockets into Israel and the Israeli government responded with artillery fire.
Rockets were also sent into Israel from Syria this week, and Israel responded by shelling the site where the attack was supposedly launched.
Both of these instances highlight how much potential there is for the situation with Israel and Hamas to spread farther out into the region and escalate into a much broader conflict.
The US government should refrain from getting more involved in this war and instead do all that it can to de-escalate the situation. Unfortunately, however, that is very unlikely to be what ends up happening.
Intelligence Failure
An interesting aspect to this recent attack is how effective it was and how off-guard the Israeli military seemed to be.
Most of the aid the US gives to Israel is military aid, and the US is not the only country that does so. That aid includes funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system which failed to intercept many of the rockets Hamas fired into Israel during the attack. Israel’s military, surveillance systems, and intelligence apparatus are all widely considered to be some of the best in the world, yet somehow Hamas bypassed all of it and took Israel completely by surprise.
This has led many to comment on how devastating an intelligence failure this was, but it has also led to speculation on whether or not this attack was allowed to happen in the first place.
I’m in no position to argue that this attack was some sort of false flag operation, I’m simply saying it should at least be viewed as a possibility.
It has been reported that the Israeli government ignored several warnings from Egypt that Hamas was planning “something big”, and it’s hard to believe that Israeli intelligence ignored those warnings out of sheer arrogance or incompetence (though that is a possibility). Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has denied that Egypt gave Israel any warnings, however.
Between Israel’s massive intelligence failure and reports of Israel ignoring warnings of an attack by Hamas, it’s easy to see how speculation and conspiracy theories would form, but so far no conclusive evidence has emerged suggesting that the Israeli government allowed this attack to happen.
Conclusion
The attack on Israel by Hamas was horrific, and it’s despicable that innocent civilians were killed or harmed because of it. However, it’s also despicable that innocent civilians within Gaza have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and that many more are likely to die when Israel inevitably launches its ground incursion or from any other form of escalation.
Feeling sympathy for the Israeli citizens who have been killed or are otherwise suffering from this attack is not mutually exclusive from feeling sympathy for the civilians within Gaza who are also suffering under horrible conditions.
More meaningful attempts at a two-state solution should have been made long before tensions reached this level, but continuing this cycle of violence will only guarantee more pain will be inflicted on both Israelis and Palestinians. Unfortunately, peace doesn’t seem to be an option anytime soon.
The US government has aided Israel throughout all of its human rights abuses of Palestinians, and it is likely to ramp up that aid as this war escalates. The Biden administration seems to consistently reject any attempts at diplomacy during this sort of situation so we shouldn’t expect the US to play the role of peacemaker in this conflict, but at the very least the US government could simply stay out of it — at least as much as is possible considering the US’s already existing involvement — instead of actively increasing tensions.
We should all hope for cooler heads to prevail and for this violence to cease before it escalates further and even more innocent life is lost. There is no justification for the murder of civilians, and both supporters of Israel and Palestine would do well to remember that.
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Great piece, man!