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Why as a Christian, I won’t be condemning Hamas anytime soon

Why as a Christian, I won’t be condemning Hamas anytime soon

Last updated on: June 21, 2024 at 3:27 pm by Kathryn Shihadah

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Why as a Christian, I won’t be condemning Hamas anytime soon 2024-06-21T15:27:06-04:00 Kathryn Shihadah

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If, over eight months into the war on Gaza, you are still obsessed with the violence of October 7th and the alarming situation in which dozens of Israeli prisoners in Gaza still find themselves – this is for you.

WARNING: If you can’t handle the truth, this post may cause dizziness, difficulty breathing, rapid pulse, and/or nausea. This is perfectly normal, and may signify a change in paradigm. Do not stop reading.

The standard narrative – how we’ve grown accustomed to telling the story

On October 7th, 2023, members of the terrorist group Hamas broke through the fence that surrounds Gaza and attacked Israeli Jews, killing 1,200 of them in cold blood, raping and beheading people, then burning them alive.

Several hundred Israelis were taken prisoner that day and brought to Gaza.

Not long after, Israeli leaders unleashed air, ground, and sea attacks on the population of Gaza in order to destroy Hamas and liberate the prisoners.

In November, Israel procured freedom for a large number of its prisoners during a temporary ceasefire. Since then, Israel has rescued a few more. Several dozen remain in captivity in Gaza.

Over three hundred Israeli soldiers have lost their lives fighting to eradicate Hamas and retrieve the rest of the prisoners.

Unfortunately, Hamas has embedded itself in the civilian population of Gaza, so a large number of civilians have been killed in the process.

Based on this narrative, many people are baffled by the huge crowds that come out to support Palestine and by those who refuse to “condemn Hamas” at the outset of any discussion or debate.

I have found people of faith – even those that ostensibly support the Palestinian cause in general – often insist that condemnation of Hamas is a must.

Here is why I, as a believer in Jesus, won’t be condemning Hamas anytime soon.

Start with the man in the mirror

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus exhorted us,

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)

YES, I’m calling Hamas’ crimes a speck of sawdust. Don’t get your knickers in a twist – keep breathing, keep reading. The standard narrative, presented above in blue, is only a fraction of the actual story of October 7th. Without going into too much detail (but follow the links if you want detail), here is the factual narrative, in green:

On October 7th, 2023, members of the terrorist group Hamas broke through the fence that surrounds Gaza and attacked Israeli Jews…

A view of destroyed apartment buildings in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza City on January 17

To begin with, the use of the word “terrorist” for a group that resists occupation and oppression is a political, not fact-based choice. In reality, international law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, the UN extending that right to the point of armed resistance. Hamas has clearly and openly stated that its enemy is not the Jewish people, but the racist ideology of Zionism – the ideology under which Israel dispossessed 750,000 Palestinian people and exiled them to Gaza and other locations.

For more than 27,000 days before October 7th, Palestinians had lived under the boot of Israel to one extent or another – including, for Gazans, being fenced in since 1996. Palestinians lost 78% of the historic land of Palestine, along with their right to self-determination, in 1948, as 500 of their villages were depopulated and destroyed, and 750,000 of their people were exiled from their homeland; they have been subject to apartheid for many years; occupation since 1967; a brutal blockade since 2007; ongoing land theft, human rights abuses, and other atrocities, subsidized by the United States.

If Gaza is, as many describe it, an “open-air prison,” which Israel has illegally kept the population locked in for seventeen years, their break-out is a relatively minor crime compared to what Israel has done.

Human rights organizations trying to get a full picture of what is going on in Israel and the territories it controls have regularly been blocked.

…killing 1,200 of them in cold blood, raping and beheading people, then burning them alive.

The number killed on October 7th is officially 1,139 – but what Israeli narratives rarely mention is that an unknown but significant number of them indiscriminately gunned down by their own Israeli military. Investigations are ongoing. Hundreds of the dead from that day were also current or former members of the Israeli military, whose actions were directly involved in the subjugation of Palestinians. Rarely mentioned is the fact that Hamas fighters attacked several Israeli military bases, which are legitimate targets under the laws of armed conflict. All this is to say: Hamas did not indiscriminately slaughter everyone in their path, but to a certain extent limited their violence to proper targets. That can not be said of Israel.

(Part of the official story of October 7th is that Hamas allegedly used “systematic sexual violence” against Israeli women, as well as beheading and torture. While this is stated as a fact, Israel has yet to provide forensic evidence or witnesses. The allegations persist, apparently, because American mainstream media continue to ignore the facts, though numerous websites have noted the weaknesses in reporting.)

Before October 7th, Israel had killed approximately 10,512 Palestinians, and Palestinians had killed approximately 1,315 Israelis since 2000.

Below is a chart showing these deaths year by year. Again, Israeli sins are egregious in comparison to those of Palestinians.

Palestinians killed by Israel

Palestinians killed by Israel (from https://ifamericansknew.org/stat/deaths.html)

Several hundred Israelis were taken prisoner that day and brought to Gaza.

By contrast, Israel holds 9,300 Palestinian political prisoners – of which over one third have not been charged with a crime. 250 of them are children. Overall, prison conditions for Palestinians are horrific, and include torture (including for children), in violation of international law and medical ethics. This torture has been ongoing since at least 1968. In the case of Gazan prisoners since October 7th, many were restrained so tightly for so long, that they required amputation of limbs; others were sodomized with burning hot objects.

Notably, many of the released Israeli captives have been in good health. They described their fear of being bombed by Israel, but did not report torture or rape (for which at least one was harassed). In the case of Noa Argamni, reportedly the worst complaints she had of her captors was that she “had to cook and wash dishes for the family,” and was not able to shower often. She was able to walk outside, but “was forced to dress like a Palestinian woman.” It is not hard to see which is the greater evil.

Not long after, Israeli leaders unleashed air, ground, and sea attacks on the population of Gaza in order to destroy Hamas and liberate the prisoners. Over three hundred Israeli soldiers have lost their lives fighting to eradicate Hamas and retrieve the rest of the prisoners.

In reality, only a few days after the attack, Hamas reportedly offered to release all of the hostages, if Israel would forego its planned ground invasion of Gaza. Israeli leaders refused.

As they rejected this overture, Israeli leaders uttered genocidal statements, including their plans to starve those they didn’t kill with bombs. Before long, these were joined by public comments endorsing ethnic cleansing.

While Israeli PM Netanyahu insists on continuing the war until Hamas is eradicated, Biden officials have been saying that this may be impossible. Hamas has been remarkably resilient, and angry, disillusioned youth – many of them orphans – may be their newest recruits. Many also believe the Israeli PM is prolonging the war simply for his own political survival.

A photo from Musa showing the building next door that had been bombed.

A photo from my nephew Musa showing the building next door that had been bombed.

The Israeli military strategy of evacuating Gazan civilians – and then bombing the “safe zones” and destroying entire neighborhoods, schools and universities, cultural centers, water supplies, and other facilities needed for normal life – looks less like war and more like expulsion, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

As of this writing, over 37,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli attacks. Again, there is no comparison in the degree of evil.

In November, Israel procured freedom for a large number of its prisoners during a temporary ceasefire. Since then, Israel has rescued a few more. Several dozen remain in captivity in Gaza.

By far the greatest number of captives were freed during a ceasefire; since then, Israel has actually killed more than it has rescued. In the process of rescuing a handful of Israeli captives, the Israeli military has caused massive casualties – of both Palestinians and Israeli captives – while Hamas has had offers of prisoner exchanges on the negotiation table. That is to say, on many occasions, Israel could have saved both Israeli and Palestinian lives, but didn’t.

Unfortunately, Hamas has embedded itself in the civilian population of Gaza, so a large number of civilians have been killed in the process.

In fact, this wildly popular narrative has been thoroughly debunked. In two groundbreaking reports, it was revealed that Israel uses AI to create kill lists, then tracks targeted individuals to their homes, and carries out bombings when they are present, often with their families.

Israel was reportedly willing to massacre fifteen to twenty innocents at one time in the process of taking out one “junior Hamas operative”; in the case of senior officials, the allowable collateral damage went up to one hundred.

These same individuals could have been taken out while away from home – meaning, Israel chose to wait for Hamas members to be “embedded,” and then killed them along with their civilian family members.

According to Israel’s own military:

“Nothing happens by accident. When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”

All of this is just the tip of the iceberg. Beyond these crimes, Israel stands before the International Court of Justice accused of genocide; its top leaders await arrest warrants at the International Criminal Court (full disclosure: arrest warrants may also be issued for Hamas leaders – but again, Hamas’ offenses are smaller in scope). Multiple highly respected organizations (including Israeli orgs) have documented the crime of apartheid. Israel knowingly lies to the world on the regular.

Most recently, Israel’s military has even been added to the “List of Shame” for abuses against children in war.

Not just a matter of magnitude

There is another critical difference between Israel’s and Hamas’ actions. Palestinians are in a struggle for their rights as human beings – rights that citizens of Israel (at least, Jewish citizens of Israel) have already achieved, at the expense of Palestinians’ rights. I refer here to the right to self-determination.

Self-determination is a human right, affirmed by the United Nations Charter; the UN General Assembly has reaffirmed that right, asserting “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for their independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid, and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.”

by Save_Palestine via Pixabay

Half of the population of Gaza are children.

This is the Palestinian struggle. This was the reason for October 7th. For seventy-six years, Israel has withheld Palestinians’ human rights; for seventy-six years, Palestinians have fought – sometime armed, often unarmed – to regain those rights (read this and this and this and this, for examples of unarmed struggle that Israel violently put down).

It is likely that Palestinians will keep fighting until either they win back their rights, or die trying (“give me liberty or give me death”).

The Israeli struggle, on the other hand, is a struggle to stop Palestinians from interrupting Israelis’ lives of comfort on land they took from the Palestinians – by either permanently subduing them, ethnically cleansing them, or committing genocide against them.

That is to say, Israel’s struggle against violent, unruly neighbors is not in the same league as Palestinians’ struggle for the basic collective human right of self-determination.

Bottom line: Hamas’ cause is just. Their methods may be worthy of critique, but their cause – the liberation of Palestinians from Israeli oppression – is honorable.

Israel’s cause is indefensible. Israeli leaders may say they are defending their people, but as long as Israel withholds basic rights from Palestinians, Palestinians will likely never stop resisting, and Israel will not be safe.

So, to those who feel the need to equally condemn the oppressor and the oppressed, you are blinded by your affinity for the oppressor. You can not see clearly the sins of the oppressed. Acknowledge and address the larger sins of Israel. Then move on to those of the Palestinians.

In the words of organizer, writer, and political commentator, James Ray:

The question we have to ask ourselves is not whether we condemn Hamas, but whether we condemn a settler colonial regime that makes armed struggle necessary for survival.

Like them or not, the efforts [Hamas] have waged and continue to wage have made more of a material impact toward the liberation of Palestine than anything any of us in the West will ever make…[They have] made the Zionist colony more of a pariah than it has ever been on a global stage and shattered the image of military invincibility and overall stability it has spent decades cultivating. Countless years of struggle have culminated in this flashpoint.

[Here’s how the Palestinian struggle has global significance:]

The question of whether we condemn Hamas is more than just a question of condemnation. At its core, we are being asked to disavow decolonial violence altogether — to support Palestinians only when they are perfect victims or only when the groups waging liberatory struggle align with the values of our ideologies and fraternal parties. It is a question that acts as a trap and misses the point entirely.

We cannot make the mistake of engaging seriously with such an obfuscation. It is on us, especially those of us on the Left, to understand that the core driver of the violence we are seeing is and always has been Zionist settler colonialism. This cycle of violence is perpetuated not by the colonized, as they seek to liberate themselves from the state of total subjugation and brutal reality of genocidal liquidation, but by the Zionist project and those advancing its interests.

The question we have to ask ourselves, and indeed answer, is not whether we condemn Hamas, but whether we condemn a settler colonial regime that makes armed struggle necessary for survival.

(This post has been edited since it was first released.)

As I recently wrote, I have for the time being washed my hands of Christians who refuse to engage with the issue of Palestine, and for now (at least until the end of this horrific war) I will be writing about the significance of what is going on “over there” from a global and historic perspective.

I’m here for anyone who cares to have an intelligent conversation about reality, instead of living in a silo of confirmation bias.

I invite you to subscribe to my newsletter. I write about the Palestine-Israel issue regularly, and other issues relevant to progressives or those considering becoming progressive. If you would like to comment on this post, please pop over to my Facebook page. All of my posts are there and open to constructive comment. I welcome your thoughts.

I also commend to you If Americans Knew (full disclosure: I am a writer and editor there), where you can get factual reporting on the Palestine-Israel issue. I can personally vouch for its accuracy.

If you are interested, here are some of my earlier posts on the Palestine issue:

Further reading on the Palestine-Israel issue: