I was under the assumption that once-in-a-while we might actually engage in a real debate here. If not, that's cool. I thought the topic was worth a shot.
A few things:
- I am NOT in any way, shape, or form, a Hamas defender. I think what they did was horrendous and gut-wrenchingly personal to the extreme. I actually believe the Hamas leaders did what they did in most ghastly ways possible in order to get a violent response from Israel. They don't give a sh*t about the Palestinians so when Israel turns around and kills innocent Palestinians in response, it helps them fuel hate for Israel throughtout the Middle East (at a time when their was serious talk of the Abraham Accords becoming a reality.)
- Do you really believe that killing 4000 Palestinians -- 2000 of them women and children -- accomplishes anything good? This is 2023, not the Middle Ages.
- Hamas has over 200 hostages. Are widespread airstrikes and a planned land invasion into Gaza the way to get them all back safely?
- My adult sunday school class this morning had a professor from UNL (considered a local expert) talk to us about the conflict. (Nope, he's not an Arab American, but a bearded redhead of Czech ancestry.) He said that a scientific survey of the Gaza strip conducted back in 2021 revealed 73% of Palestinians do not support Hamas.
- The Gaza strip is essentially a fenced-in prison controlled by Israel (the fencing, the border crossings, the electricity, the internet, etc). My class heard today that nearly 50% of Palestinians live in poverty and--get this--the average age there is eighteen! (their average age probably dropped over the past three weeks)
- If you've got a lot of eighteen to twenty year old boys living in poverty who see no future for themselves, gee, where do you think Hamas gets its terrorists?
If some of you want to treat this issue as a big joke,
hey, you do you. I just thought some here might want to discuss it. Peace.