so something has been bothering us and i wanted to write about it on our main blog but people would probably get pissed at us so i’m writing it here.
we saw a post a while back that had a list of contradictory truths surrounding jewish folks and the palestinian genocide. we were going to reblog the post, as it had a lot of points we agree with. there was one point, though, that had us balking and we ended up having to move on.
that point was the contradictory truths: “hamas committed war crimes” and “israeli politicians helped put hamas in power.”
we have a lot of issues with these statements.
1. hamas, to our understanding, has committed little to no war crimes, actually. taking part in a war, initiating a war, and fighting back against occupation… none of those are war crimes. we do believe they have been fighting with dignity, and have been targeting iof soldiers, equipment, and stolen land over civilians.
2. of the 1200 israelis killed on october 7th… 600 were iof soldiers. and of that remaining 600, a staggering 80% of the casualties were caused by the iof themselves with their indiscriminate bombing and gunning down people.
3. we thought that hamas was elected into power by the palestinian majority (albeit 7-8 years ago). also, hamas is not the only actor fighting for resistance in palestine. there are lots of militant groups who are working together for the goal of liberating palestine. even if israel played a role in putting hamas in power, that doesn’t change the fact that right now hamas is fighting for a free palestine.
4. israel has committed a vast amount of atrocious war crimes, such as killing those who are surrendering, purposefully killing non-combatants, bombing houses, hospitals, schools, and places of worship, cutting civilians off from access to food, fuel, and clean water, mistreatment of hostages and pows, targeting journalists and medical personnel… the list goes on and on. hamas has not committed even a tiny fraction of the war crimes that israel is responsible for. hell, we’ve all heard about the israeli hostages released by hamas who were treated ethically and with compassion by their captors.
so yeah, that post made us upset because, while many of the contradictory truths were serious and interesting and excellent points to be made, we can’t stand to see people so willing to condemn hamas for literally making a genuine, valiant, and somewhat successful attempt to liberate palestine from israeli occupation. there is no such thing as a non-violent resistance. “non-violent resistance” is just another word for complacency.
if we’re wrong about anything we’ve said here, we’re happy to be corrected. but please, be critical of your sources! we all know the media is all-too-willing to lie in order to properly side with israel. we all know israel is regularly amending and retracting statements, getting caught in lies, and is actively trying to craft a narrative that demonizes hamas and the people of palestine. this is why we’ve been trusting people on the ground in palestine and diaspora palestinians more than any news outlet. all too often journalists will craft a fake narrative that twists palestinian resistance into something it’s not, their words spread like wildfire, and then by the time they’re caught in their lies and have to delete their articles… it’s too late. the people have seen it and choose to believe it, even when it’s not true. so we stay wary and vigilant, always.
from the river to the sea, palestine will be free!