In Search Of Hamas

On 5/15/2021, the Israeli Defense Force bombed the al-Jalaa building in Gaza, which hosts Al Jazeera, one of the top media sources in the Middle East, and the Associated Press. Here’s Al Jazeera explaining what happened in an article published on the same day:

Youmna al-Sayed had less than an hour to get to safety.

But with just one elevator working in al-Jalaa tower, an 11-storey building in Gaza City housing some 60 residential apartments and a number of offices, including those of Al Jazeera Media Network and The Associated Press, al-Sayed made a dash for the stairs.

“We left the elevator for the elderly and for the children to evacuate,” the Palestinian freelance journalist said. “And we were all running down the stairs and whoever could help children took them down,” she added. “I myself helped two children of the residents there and I took them downstairs – everyone was just running quickly.”

The same day that happened, the White House Twitter account tweeted the following:

Today the President spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, reaffirmed his strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks from Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza, and condemned these indiscriminate attacks against Israel.

Odd a President who ran against a man who called the media “the enemy of the people” is now supporting a country that is bombing the media that might be too kind to its opposition — but expecting American politicians to have any values besides mindless support for Israel has proven to be a waste of time. And make no mistake, the reason why Israel bombed this building was because the media inside was too harsh on them. As Stephen L. Miller, a hardcore Zionist (with no relation to the Trump appointee — there are just an odd amount of right-wing morons named Stephen Miller) tweeted in response to the incident:

Israel took out a building that was used by shameless propagandists who want to see Israel wiped off the map. Hamas was in that building too.

Mind you, nobody can present hard evidence that anyone in the al-Jalaa building was associated with Hamas. As The Associated Press wrote the same day as the bombing:

The Israeli government says the building contained Hamas military intelligence assets. We have called on the Israeli government to put forward the evidence. AP’s bureau has been in this building for 15 years. We have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building. This is something we actively check to the best of our ability. We would never knowingly put our journalists at risk.

Ken Klippenstein of The Intercept also tried to email President Biden for comment, to which a representative told him this over email:

Happy Sunday and thank you for reaching out but we have no comment.

Now, fair is fair and many of Israel’s drone strikes in Gaza over the past week have killed members of Hamas, however, that does not mean that Israel has not killed some innocents as well. Since these drone strikes began, 218 Palestinians have been killed, 56 of which were children at the time of their death — are we to believe that all of them were top members of Hamas? Because that’s what Israel is telling is, and that’s what Israel really wants the rest of the world to believe. It doesn’t matter what happens, Israel is never to blame and Hamas is always at fault.

Of course, Israel has long blamed anything that could be seen negatively on their part on Hamas. Back in 2018, after Israel shot Palestinian citizens trying to get close to the Gaza fence, the IDF posted a video of them killing Palestinians on Twitter with the caption “Hamas’s use of human shields must end.” This narrative about “human shields,” something that has been debunked time and time again, has been a go-to of Israel whenever they kill innocent civilians.

And yes, they did try and use it in this case. After the bombing, Aaron Klein, an adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu wrote an article for The New York Post defending the strike. However, the article also gives us this quote regarding the strike:

The jihad building was only targeted after the IDF first warned civilians inside about an impending strike and waited enough time for the occupants to entirely evacuate. Israeli warnings included calls and SMS to the building’s residents and “roof knocker” explosives that make loud noises but do not cause real damage.

First off, “roof knocker” explosions still cause civilian injuries as both found by the Goldstone Commission in 2009 and admitted by the Israeli government that same year.

Second off, I thought the point of the airstrike was to kill members of Hamas. If that’s the case, then why would Israel give a warning meaning that the terrorists would have the chance to evacuate? If, in order to bomb a building containing your enemies, you either have to kill a bunch of innocent civilians or you have to let everyone, including your enemies, get out of the building, maybe you shouldn’t be bombing that specific building.

For the record, Israel does not even have to resort to bombs in order to go after Hamas. Israel has a police and military presence in Gaza and has had such for decades, you might even remember them using it to raid the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan — last month. If Israel truly believed that there were members of Hamas in that building right beside a group of journalists who they had no intention of hurting — a claim to which they have provided no evidence of — they could have easily raided the building and arrested all members of Hamas.

And this is not even the only time something like this has happened this week. Over the past week, Israel has also bombed a Gaza refugee camp and a Gaza apartment building. One of these bombings actually led to Michael Scott Doran, a neoconservative writer who was a member of the George W. Bush administration, to post a video of it along with this on Twitter:

This Palestinian photographer in Gaza has complete confidence in the trustworthiness of the Israeli Air Force, which announced its target in advance, allowing the building to be evacuated. He, whose life depends on it, trusts Israel’s statements more than does the Western media.

Now that’s great and all, but Israel still bombed a building in Gaza that homes hundreds if not thousands of people. And again, if Israel was destroying this building to kill members of Hamas, why are they giving everyone in that building, Hamas members included, time to evacuate? The United States didn’t send a smaller group of Navy Seals to Bilal Town before we killed Osama Bin Laden to warn the locals, because doing so would be incredibly stupid.

And again, nobody is denying that Hamas is a terrorist organization run by radical anti-Zionists, what people are denying is that Hamas deserves the response Israel is giving it. Going back to Aaron Klein’s New York Post article, in it he gives this figure that is supposed to back up Israel’s point, but does the exact opposite:

As of this writing, Hamas fired over 2,900 rockets from Gaza into Israel, carried out border attacks and instigated violent riots across the Jewish state, killing ten Israelis including two children.

2,900 rockets killing ten people is a success rate of 0.34% — hardly worth bombing refugee camps and media buildings over. Meanwhile, Israel’s bombs have killed 218 Palestinians, or twenty-one (nearly twenty-two) times as many people. Of every fifteen people who die in the Israel-Palestine conflict, thirteen are Palestinians and two are Israelis.

Oh, and don’t think I’d miss this little chestnut:

Hamas cannot be granted immunity from IDF strikes for their decision to embed their extensive terror apparatus in the same building as the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera. Yet the international condemnation wrongly aimed at Israel is providing Hamas with a victory.

Ignoring the fact that the Israeli government and the Biden Administration have both failed to provide evidence of this, and ignoring the fact that Israel has ways besides bombs to get specific people in a building if that is truly what they need, here’s one question Israel never seems to ask: Where else is Hamas supposed to set up shop? The Gaza Strip is roughly twice the size of the District of Columbia and yet has roughly three times the population — and by the way, maybe Gaza would be bigger if Israel didn’t consistently settle on land in that strip.

Look, nobody denies the situation is complicated — well, okay, some do but they’re Zionists. Like Matthew Foldi of The Washington Free Beacon, who tweeted the following on 5/14/2021:

The Arab-Israeli conflict is so simple that only college-educated liberals could be so wrong about it. Israel protects its people. The other side seeks to maximize indiscriminate murder. Pay attention to who sides with evil.

Nobody who is even mildly critical of Zionism denies that the situation is complicated, what people deny is that Israel’s current strategy is working. People believe that Israel is acting overly aggressively and that Israel should demilitarize by destroying its stockpile of WMDs and by decreasing its military budget. What we deny, to put it simply, that Israel’s neoconservative foreign policy is good, that’s all most people are criticizing.

Israel’s scapegoating of Hamas whenever an innocent is killed is simply nonsensical, Israel has repeatedly shown to have a “shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later” policy regarding Gaza. Over the past week, Hamas has repeatedly attempted to create a cease-fire in Gaza and Israel. Here’s what Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz had to say while Hamas was offering this (this is a direct translation, so if the grammar is slightly odd, that’s why):

Today, I am Minister of Defense, and Hamas does not stop its violence the strike of 2021 will be harder and more painful than that of 2014. Hamas leaders bear responsibility for your being hunkered down in your homes instead of preparing for the holiday. Unfortunately, they operate out of civilian areas and therefore the damage will be extensive and intense. They are sacrificing you for their personal interests. If citizens of Israel have to sleep in shelters, then Gaza will burn. There is no other equation.

For the record, those strikes from 2014 killed over 2,000 people and injured roughly 10,000 others. And Israel citizens would not have to sleep in bunkers (which, by the way, they already don’t have to because Hamas rocket attacks are almost always stopped by Israel’s Iron Dome) if Israel would accept the cease-fire Hamas just put on the table.

And, one more thing, if Israel really just wanted peace in the Middle East, as Zionists keep saying is the case, then they could not make a single worse statement than “Gaza will burn.” And, of course, when Israel refuses to allow a ceasefire they, therefore, allow a war to keep continuing which only means Hamas will fire more rockets. Meaning, when rockets are fired that do kill citizens of Israel — as some do, albeit it’s a rather rare event — then you can blame Netanyahu and Gantz for refusing Hamas’s offer to stop the fighting then and there.

This is a clear example of aggression on the part of Israel, there is no way around it. And now Israel is using the rightful hatred of Hamas among the international community, especially in the West, in order to cover its tracks. There is no way to view what Israel is doing as anything but scapegoating Hamas for its evil acts, and that is quite possibly the evilest thing a human being could do.