It’s entirely possible to criticize/condemn political Israel without being anti-Semitic. Equally so, it’s entirely possible for one to criticize/condemn Hamas without being anti-Palestinian. And so I feel I can safely criticize both without being anti-Jewish or anti-Islamic, for I’m neither.
For better or for worse, people are people wherever you go in this world, capable of acts of great beauty and joy as well as acts of reprehensible depravity. It is, sadly, part of the human condition. For me, there will be no judgement of another human based upon race, skin colour, or religion, but rather upon how you treat your fellow humans and the things that come out of your mouth. Both sides in this conflict, and their virulent supporters, fail on both counts.
The Hamas attack on Israel in early October was nothing short of blindly criminal, no matter the long history of deprivation and violence foisted upon them by both political Israel and their own leadership. The Israeli response in killing over 20,000 innocent people, to date, is equally criminal, regardless of the killing of Israeli innocents. The callous murder of innocents will always have the stench of criminality attached to it, whether it be done in the interests of Palestine or Israel.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is both a criminal and an abhorrent human being. He’s a far-right demagogue and war monger par excellence, with the resume to back that claim up. Under threat of criminal prosecution in Israel for corruption, he’s managed to cobble together a coalition of far-right reactionary politicians in order to seize back power, albeit democratically, as all of these coalition members were elected to office. From his perch in the prime minister’s office, he shields himself from this very prosecution, using the office to blunt any attempt to hold him to account. If convicted, Netanyahu faces ten years in jail, and the case(s) against him appear to be pretty solid. But as prime minister, he can bob and weave and frustrate the criminal justice process arrayed against him, hopefully exhausting such processes until they disappear completely. It reminds me a lot of that Trump loser south of the border.
Further, he has put in motion attempts to change the Israeli Supreme Court in ways that weaken Israel’s claim to be a fully functioning democracy. The right wing doesn’t like the idea of judicial activism, where court decisions can nullify legislation of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) if they are viewed to be “unreasonable.” Also, of the fifteen members of Israel’s top court, eleven are considered to be liberals, something that is anathema to the right-wing small-c conservative coalition. Thus, the current government wants to reduce the power of the supreme court and have more influence over the nomination of justices. Currently, I suppose, Israel finds itself as a conservative nation with a liberal supreme court. And the right wants to change that.
Israeli settlers squatting on West Bank territories are equally odious. Hiding behind their religion, many of these types tote automatic weapons and terrorize the local Palestinian population. There are not many outside Israel who don’t view the West Bank as part of a legitimate Palestine, but these settlers run roughshod over the locals, and many Palestinians have been killed by these zealots who are certain they have the backing of their God. Political Israel continues to turn a blind eye to these encroachments upon Palestinian land, think that, if left alone, the increasing Jewish population will one day overwhelm the existing Palestinian population, creating “facts on the ground” that would “legitimize” a future Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
Hamas is a criminal and terrorist organization that uses violence as a means of seizing and maintaining power in Gaza and to further their political goals of pushing Jewish Israel back into the sea. A proxy of Israel’s existential enemy Iran, Hamas is no stranger to violence, even before the events of October 7. Blowing up buses and discos and killing Israeli citizens is all part of the job description for this group, one of several in the Middle East that take their marching orders from a religious theocracy and brutal dictatorship, Iran. Rocket attacks on Israeli settlements have been par for the course ever since Israel withdrew from Gaza back in 2005.
When Israel left Gaza, it erected a security zone bristling with defences, walls, fences, and razor wire, not that any to that mattered much on October 7. It basically adopted a “nobody-in nobody-out” blockade of Gaza that severely hampered the ability of Palestinians in Gaza living anything close to a normal life. So yes, hatred of Israel on the part of Palestinians in Gaza is an understandable thing, but gets fortified by the enmity that exists between Muslims and Jews, further making things impossible, admittedly in both directions.
Hamas is deplorable, building their command and control centres either in or under public infrastructure like schools and hospitals. The only way to get to them is to make the moral choice of bombing such places to get at the bad guys, a choice political Israel has no trouble making.
This current war, as tragic as it is, is being fought outside the Middle East as well, including right here in Canada. There appears to be no nuance of position allowed, you’re either pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian, and never the twain shall meet, which of course is entirely ridiculous and hopelessly immature. So protesters of either ilk demanding that something be done one way or the other are, in my mind, displaying their hopeless naiveté or are being led through the nose by agitators of either side.
Throwing paint and anti-Jewish slogans on an Indigo bookstore because the CEO is Jewish and supports Jewish humanitarian causes is absolutely brutal, made more so by the fact that the perpetrators were university professors, college students, and middle school teachers, people with a so-called education. The fact that they did it on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night the Nazis attacked Jewish properties in the late 1930’s, makes it even more deplorable. Likewise, running your truck through an intersection filled with pro-Palestinian protesters is equally odious. In cases like these, it’s hard not to think that people are using the conflict in Gaza as a cover for their personal racism.
A pox on all their houses. It’s an absolute crime that the war is being fought in the first place. It’s an even bigger crime that’s it being fought here as well. Sorry, but I recognize bad behaviour when I see it, either in myself or in the actions of others, and sadly I’m seeing much of what I would consider to be bad behaviour.
It seems, sadly, that we’ve not nearly run out of reasons to hate one another.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 