Some further thoughts on Israel and Palestine

One thing that is unavoidable in the Middle East violence is the role of  Hamas. Israel, naturally, emphasises the cruelty and destruction of Hamas, and laments  the taking  of hostages by Hamas.

There is of course another side: the thinking of Hamas.I don’t mean their shrewdness in somehow overcoming Israeli intelligence, who over a period of years apparently failed to notice that something was brewing under their noses. I’m thinking of the Hamas fighters. Freedom fighters, terrorists – I don’t expect they care what people call them.

The point I was making in an earlier blog about viewing the Hamas incursion into Israel context-free has been borne out not once but twice this morning. The first was a highly-educated, professional man who said “I don’t care what else has happened, but that killing of young people at a music festival was just ghastly” – or words to that effect.  The second was William Crawley, who was talking back on Talkback  today to a woman called Jackie, and telling her with some passion that some of the actions of Hamas (I didn’t catch it all but it appears to have involved motor-bikes) was simply wrong, and it didn’t matter what other things had happened in the past or might happen in the future, it was 100% wrong. That seemed to be the point he was making.

Both my highly-educated man and Crawley are shutting down in their heads a key part of the whole Hamas-Israel conflict.  Hamas did what they did because Israel has been doing for decades what Israel had been doing. If we deal with the morality of an action and close our eyes to the context of events generally, we’re under-utilizing our brain-boxes. Follow that blinkered approach and you’d find yourself denouncing doctors and nurses for sticking needles in babies and making them cry.

Back to Hamas. When Russia invaded Ukraine, did they plan to take over that entire country? Almost certainly. But Ukrainian resistance – that is, willingness to kill the invading Russians (see what I mean about context?) – and Western support has made that a much more daunting ambition.

When Hamas invaded Israel, did they plan to take over that entire country? Almost certainly not. In fact definitely certainly not.  Their aim was to avenge the many killings of Palestinians carried out over decades and show the world that Palestinians could fight/kill back.

They also knew, with absolute certainty, that the invasion of Israel would cost them their lives. There are reports in several media today which talk about the bodies of some 1500 Hamas fighters having been “found” in Israel. They could have said that the Hamas fighters were shot dead but presumably they thought the bodies being “found” sounded better.

How much must those Hamas fighters have believed in their cause, that they’d go to their certain deaths in the service of that cause? Completely and totally, is the answer. Unlike the Ukrainian army, they cannot hope to defeat or even repulse the Israeli enemy. But they still believed that it was worth dying for.

Our own history carries examples not a million miles from the strategy and motivation of the Hamas fighters.

And one last thing: if you punch someone in the face/treat some people as sub-human for decades, should you be surprised if at some point they punch you back/treat you as sub-human?