In recent days, some of the bloodiest and most shocking fighting has come out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Over years of uproar and condemnation regarding Israel’s settlements, their walls, their segregation and the apartheid that the Palestinian people have been put through, the complaints settle into a dull roar in the mind of the average American.
This is not without reason, as we have come to know Palestine as an occupied territory over most of our adult lives and we have come to expect the extreme deprivation, violence and discrimination that the Palestinian people are subjected to at the hands of an increasingly out of control Israeli security apparatus.
The humanitarian situation is Palestine is absolutely the fault of the Israeli government and their actions which seek explicitly to degrade the lives of Palestinians, both in times of relative violence and peace. On Tuesday the 29th of July, Gaza’s only power plant was hit by Israeli shelling, possibly turning a brutal war into a humanitarian crisis unparalleled in recent years.
Without power, without adequate food stocks and with little water, the situation in Palestine is rapidly degrading, with only the most chronically failed states finding anything to envy about their situation.
At this time, it seems important to say that in the face of a brutal and callous Israeli regime, I would go so far as to say that the rocket attacks used by Hamas against Israel are completely justified and should not be scorned in this current climate.
This of course bears some explanation, through mainstream media coverage of the long standing conflict, perceptions have been warped so much that Hamas’s retaliation against Israeli invasion and other assorted acts of war could be perceived as a tacit support of terrorism.
I contend that this is not true and that supporting retaliation against a force that threatens harm and deprives people of life and liberty is an absolutely moral standpoint. These things are only perceived as immoral when it is the powerless fighting against the powerful, as opposed to the powerful against the powerful.
To understand why Hamas has stepped up its rocket attacks in recent years, you must see what they are reacting to.
Since 2007, Israel has been engaged in a massive blockade of the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air. Little to no materials are allowed through to Gaza depending on the political climate at the time and this has led to an extreme deprivation among citizens of the Gaza Strip. One only has to have a cursory knowledge of international law to know that a blockade of such magnitude is an act of war and that maintaining the ability to strangle ones neighbors is the motivation of murderer, not a good citizen of the world.
Israel, with all their crimes against the Palestinian people, particularly the aforementioned blockade finds itself constantly in an undeclared war against the people of the Gaza Strip and the people of Palestine as a whole. I contend that any peace Israel claims to work toward is a massive fraud, undertaken against the world as a whole.
Hamas, despite the many ideas that they harbor which I find repugnant and reprehensible is completely fair in its demands. They simply ask for an end to the blockade in return for ending their rocket fire against Israel. This is in essence, asking for a true peace agreement before they exit hostilities, which is something that any sane nation at war would desire in a similar situation.
We all desire peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis and I wouldn’t like anyone to have the wrong idea about my opinion. Israel has the right to exist and so does Palestine. These are both nations, which are entitled to self-determination and prosperity, same as any other.
My support of Hamas’s attacks doesn’t come from a place of hatred against Israelis or as many critics are prone to say, from the ignorant place of anti-Semitism. No, it comes from the fact that for the past seven years, Israel has been at war with the Palestinian people and I believe in the right of all people to defend themselves against violence, whether it comes in the form of deprivation and starvation or in the form of bullets and bombs.
The Palestinians have every right to defend themselves against an aggressor and until Israel makes a serious commitment to ending this seven year long war, I see no reason why Hamas and the people of the Gaza Strip shouldn’t defend themselves by any means necessary.