We are told the Israel-Palestine subject is full of trapdoors and tripwires…
but after murdering 63,000+ people including 18,000+ children and 12,000+ women, bombing hospitals, universities, mosques, churches, schools, electricity grids, water desalination plants, restricting entry of fuel, orchestrating a famine and posting videos of war crimes on social media……
how can we still claim Hamas is the terrorist?
1. DO YOU CONDEMN HAMAS?
I condemn the Balfour declaration, Sykes Picot agreement, Great Britain handing over a piece of land that was never theirs. the Nakba (the catastrophe) in 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes, the massacres committed by Israel over the last 76 years, the hundreds of thousands of hostages and prisoners including the 15,000 Palestinians men, women and children held in Israeli jails without trial today, the airstrikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure in total continuous violation of international law, the tank shelling on hospitals universities and schools, 56 years of brutal Israeli occupation of West Bank and East Jerusalem, the shooting of unarmed civilians, the apartheid laws, the 22-year old separation wall, the 17-year siege, embargo and sanctions the people of Gaza have endured. (Words by Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, 2024).
2. BUT DO YOU CONDEMN HAMAS?
Israeli hostages didn’t even condemn Hamas. They were hugging, high-fiving and dabbing their captors as they left but yes, I condemn anyone who is responsible for the killing of innocent civilians. Everyone. I am however a believer in international law and order – and if international law says the Occupied has the right to resist the occupying force including by taking up arms, I believe in the right of resistance. But to answer your box-ticking question, I condemn the killing of all innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians before 7 October, 1139 Israelis killed on 7 October (including those Israelis killed by Israel itself), and the 61,000+ Palestinians who have been killed since 7 October. Now, my turn: Do you condemn the terror state of Israel?
3. HAMAS CAUSED 7 OCTOBER!
If it weren’t the siege, blockade, sanctions, occupation and periodic airstrikes of Gaza, there would be no need to break out of jail and let 7 October unfold. 7 October did not happen in a vacuum. October 6 and for decades before was not calm. It was a continuation of 77 years of the illegal occupation of Palestine. It was a continuation of 58 years of the illegal occupation of West Bank. Hamas was formed in the 1987 (39 years after Israel was created) as a result of the illegal occupation of Palestine. It is a byproduct of the occupation. Therefore, the occupation caused 7 October, not Hamas. Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on OPT said it best: “An unlawful act of resistance (7 October) does not make the whole resistance unlawful” and to paraphrase, “The continuing unlawful occupation by Israel is what remains unlawful”.
4. BUT ISRAEL WITHDREW FROM GAZA IN 2005, DISMANTLING 21 SETTLEMENTS & REMOVING 8500 SETTLERS
Yes, after 38 years of occupying Gaza, Israel withdrew from Gaza because the costs of maintaining it for Israel was too high to bear. Two years later in 2007 however, Israel imposed a debilitating siege and crippling blockade on the people of Gaza, the full blowback of which we all saw on 7 October, after 17 years of living under the inhumane sanctions.
5. IT IS IN THE HAMAS CHARTER TO DESTROY ISRAEL
Why waste time debating the old version of Hamas’ charter that may or may not argue about the destruction of Israel. But for argument purposes, let me just concede that it does but Israel through its words and actions since 7 October (if not before) has proven its genocidal intent against Palestinians, without a shadow of doubt.
6. THE CHANT “RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE” IS ANTISEMITIC
The 1977 charter of the Likud party (Israel’s largest political party) asserts that the land of Israel, which includes the area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, is the historic homeland of the Jewish people. It emphasizes that Israel has a right to sovereignty over this entire territory. When Palestinians say this, it is antisemitism but pin-drop silence when this is found deep at the core of Israel’s political system?
7. HAMAS IS A TERRORIST GROUP
Hamas is resisting the occupation just like what the French did against Germany. What did America called Vietnam in the 1970s? What did the French call Algeria? What did the invading “coalition-of-the-willing” call the Afghans and Iraqis? Terrorists. John Brown, an abolitionist, northerner was known as a terrorist to southerners. Nelson Mandela (who spent 27 years in jail) and ANC were declared terrorists. It also took USA 18 years after Nelson Mandela was released from prison to remove him from US Terrorism Watch List. Jews who built tunnels and fought block by block in the Warsaw ghetto just as Hamas were doing, are branded terrorists. Gerry Adams was part of the IRA, considered a terrorist organization by the UK government. The Mujahideen who fought against Soviet Union in the 1980s were romanticised as freedom fighters but when they became the Taliban, they became terrorists. To avoid engaging in direct negotiations with a resistance group, label someone a terrorist and use that distraction as a bogeyman to prolong the occupation status quo.
8. DO YOU CONDEMN OCTOBER 7?
I don’t believe in selective outrage so I condemn violence against civilians for every single 27,000+ days since 12 May 1948 when Palestine was illegally occupied. I condemn 76 years of Israeli occupation and the 17-year siege, embargo and sanctions the people of Gaza have endured. One innocent civilian Israeli death on October 7 is far too many but no matter how many of the 1139 deaths were caused by Hamas and how many were caused by Israeli helicopter and tank shelling, nothing justifies the 61,600+ deaths Gaza has endured since and before. So, do you condemn October 8, 9,10, 11…..?
9. DO YOU CONDEMN THE SEXUAL VIOLENCE BY HAMAS?
Apart from Israeli claims, where is the third-party, independent, verified and fact-checked evidence of sexual violence or the widely debunked “40-beheaded babies” by Hamas? Assuming there is even one case, or more than one case. Assuming there are 10 cases, nothing justifies the thousands of known, documented and well-reported cases of decapitated babies and children or sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners by Israeli soldiers and prison guards, independently confirmed by Israeli and international human rights groups.
10. 1,139 ISRAELIS WERE KILLED BY HAMAS ON 7 OCTOBER.
With the vast majority of bodies so badly charred and burnt according to Israel, how can anyone know for sure how many of the 1139 people killed were killed by Hamas and how many were killed by Israeli helicopter machine gunfire, Israeli artillery tank fire and the notorious Hannibal directive of the IDF?
11. HAMAS TOOK 250 HOSTAGES AS PRISONERS OF WAR FROM ISRAEL
Prior to 7 October, over 5000+ prisoners (or what Palestinian view as hostages) were taken into Israeli prisons (with or without charge). Since 7 October, the number has shot up to 10,000+. Where is your selective outrage?
12. ISRAEL: WE DON’T TARGET CIVILIANS
After dropping 100,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza over the last 22 months, where is the evidence Hamas was among those killed in every single airstrike and massacre undertaken? How does Israel know how many members of Hamas were killed, after each strike? How can Israel tell which dismembered body is that of a Hamas fighter and which belonged to that of a women, child, elderly or male civilian – when even some surviving Palestinians families can’t?
13. DO YOU RECOGNISE THE STATE OF ISRAEL?
Does the state of Israel recognise the need for a state of Palestine? Does Israel recognise the 750,000+ exiled Palestinians along with their children in refugee camps or those living in West Bank and East Jerusalem, and overseas? Are Palestinians living in Occupied Palestinian Territories afforded the same rights and access to roads, healthcare, schools, utilities and infrastructure as those offered to the illegal settlers of Israel? How can I recognise you when you don’t even recognise my existence?
14. ISRAEL HAS A RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF
Okay but where is this written in law? Palestinians have a right to resist and this is enshrined by international law. Please refer to UN General Assembly Resolution 3246 – 11/29/1974. Which international law stipulates Israel has a right to defend itself through airstrikes, international assassinations and violation of international sovereign law?
15. WE HAVE TO LOOK AT TWO SIDES
On the one side, we have an occupying power that receives billions in aid, has a US$20 billion defence budget and access to high-tech weaponry. On the other side, we have a politically and geographically fragmented population that is encaged with nowhere to flee. A civilian population that cannot escape through the border to another country. A complete power imbalance. What two sides?
16. ISRAEL WANTS PEACE
When Israel says: We want peaceful co-existence, what Israel means is we want Palestinians to stop resistance and stay quiet. Peace means peace for Israel not Palestinians who have to continue putting up with checkpoints. Peace means once Israel stops bombing Gaza, it is nice and peaceful for Israel but people in Gaza have to continue living under occupation.
17. IF PALESTINIANS ARE GIVEN RIGHTS & FREEDOM, JEWS WON’T BE SAFE
Slavery was wrong and abhorring and slavery abolition 100 years in the United States was absolutely necessary. Were people scared that if you freed all the black peoples it was going to be mayhem. People who have been treated so violently for decades endured so much injustice . What would keep them from killing the white people? Yet they went ahead with it. Therefore, instead of asking how are we going to protect the colonisers we should be asking how do we set free the people who have been colonised?
18. WHAT IF HAMAS GIVES UP?
What if Hamas dumped all their rockets in the sea tomorrow? Would Gazans enjoy the same freedoms as other nations? Would they be able to open their sea port to foreign ships and rebuild and operate their airport? Would they be able to import and export and carry on trade and develop their economy and prosper like other countries? Would they be allowed to exploit and develop their offshore gas field? Would their fishermen be allowed to fish in unpolluted waters? Would their young people be able to come and go and take up places at foreign universities? Would Israel clear out of Gazan airspace permanently? Would the Israeli navy cease its piracy and stay out of Palestinian territorial waters? Would you and I be able to visit Gaza direct? Fat chance. None of this would suit Israel. There are no rockets coming out of the West Bank. Yet the illegal Israeli occupation there continues and so does the ethnic cleansing, the land theft, the illegal settlements, the colonization, the demolition of Palestinian homes, the throttling of the economy, the abduction and ‘administrative detention’ of civilians and the massive interference with freedom of movement. Nothing has changed for West Bank Palestinians who DO NOT fire rockets. (Source: Stuart Littlewood)
19. ISRAEL IS THE ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East that receives US$3 billion in U.S aid each year. The only democracy in the world that uses internationally-banned white phosphorus on civilian population. The only democracy in the Middle East to impose a siege on 2.3 million Gazans, calling it “putting Gaza on a diet”. The only democracy in the Middle East that bombs Gaza once every couple of years and calls it “mowing the lawn”. The only democracy in the Middle East where soldiers film themselves committing war crimes and with zero impunity while uploading such videos online. (Source: Aamer Rahman, Culture War)
Israel is also the only democracy in the Middle East with a whole segment of Israeli society that is behaving like Hitler youth, bent on genocide. The only democracy in the Middle East that is rogue, pariah, fascist and an apartheid state. A pharaonic model.
20. ISRAEL IS OUR ONLY FRIEND IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Fun fact: Before Israel was formed in 1948, U.S had no enemies in the Middle East
21. WHY AREN’T MUSLIM COUNTRIES TAKING IN PEOPLE FROM GAZA?
Why aren’t blond hair, blued-eye countries taking in the people of Ukraine & giving up Ukraine to Russia?
22. 500,000 KILLED BY ASSAD IN SYRIA AND 200,000 KILLED BY SAUDIS IN YEMEN BUT NO PROTESTS IN U.S AND U.K FOR THOSE MUSLIMS KILLED?
Assad started killing exactly because Muslims alone, rose up to protests against his rule and as a result were massacred. In Yemen, Muslims were killed led by Saudi, UAE and others – and not by the West.
Why no Muslim protests in London, Sydney against Syria & Yemen? Because the Syria & Yemen massacres were not supported or enabled by U.K, U.S but led by Assad & Saudi/UAE alone. Meanwhile we see so much protests against in the West against Israel precisely because the West supports and enables Israel militarily, politically, and ideologically. Therefore, try asking: why no western intervention to stop the killings in Syria & Yemen like we saw in oil-rich Libya & Iraq?
23. WHAT ABOUT THE CHINA, RUSSIA, SYRIA, SAUDI ARABIA, IRAN, SUDAN AND BURMA? WHERE ARE THE PROTESTS AGAINST ISIS, BOKO HARAM OR THE TALIBAN?
First of all, does Israel that likes to claim it is “Middle East’ only democracy” really want to be held to the standards of these countries? Secondly, why did we single out apartheid South Africa in the 1980s for condemnation and boycott? There were many other dictatorial regimes in Africa at the time, including Mengistu in Ethiopia or Mobutu in Zaire. Someone once said the fact that you cannot do the right thing everywhere does not mean that you should not do the right thing somewhere.
24. YES ISRAEL PLANS TO MOVE 2.3M PALESTINIANS BUT 2M MUSLIMS WERE MOVED FROM PAKISTAN INTO AFGHANISTAN. WHY NO CONDEMNATION BY MUSLIMS THEN?
Yes, 1.7 million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan were forcibly transferred back to Afghanistan because Pakistan could no longer support these Afghan refugees that were created in the first place, as a result of the war-on-terror the West and the coalition-of-the-willing is largely responsible for. Meanwhile, Israel is forcibly transferring Palestinians from their homes in Gaza. Huge difference. Pakistan’ decision is not a violation of international law. Israel’ actions are.
