Gaza is Hamas

This is a translation of a text I posted on Facebook, to which I added a few images. It’s difficult and useless to comment on the current situation in Israel, but I thought sharing a few thoughts with the Universe.

I think it’s crystal clear what Hamas has counted on. For these beasts, life has absolutely no value, be it Jews or Palestinians.

They have chosen to commit these terrorist attacks of an unparalleled bestiality in this century (except for Bucha) in order to force the state of Israel to react with maximum energy.

The fact that even so life in Gaza was difficult, with many deprivations, and that the population density is about 14 times higher than in Israel, making a “surgical” response by Israel impossible and guaranteeing high Palestinian civilian casualties, was simply a trump card for the Hamas plan.

Hamas’ intention is clear: the destruction of Israel must take place, even if the entire population of Gaza dies. The Prophet likes martyrs. Not to mention that the end justifies the means.

So it little matters if, as Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, has put it, Hamas launches its rockets “from a kitchen block”. Again, it doesn’t matter whether the civilian population knew what was going to happen or not (here Herzog exaggerates: there’s no way Palestinian civilians could have known and MOSSAD not have found out). What matters is that Hamas massacred and took hostages, that it continues to attack the state of Israel, that the death toll is rising, even if more on the Palestinian side.

The media and TV stations all over the Third World broadcast this narrative: the poor Palestinian people are being massacred by the Zionists. Billions of people are fooled into believing that out of the blue Israel started bombing Gaza, just like that, just to blow them away. “A new apartheid, massacre, genocide, down with Israel and the United States!”

Just like after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, people in countries where, justified or not by the historical past, the Americans are not particularly popular, instead of judging things in context, have fallen into the most foolish trap of all.

Reasonably and in context, one should have realized how inhumane Putin’s troops and Hamas terrorists can be. It would have been sensible to put aside grudges such as “the Americans and the West have been meddling too much in Ukraine instead of leaving it more neutral” (even though it was not bound to neutrality by any treaty, unlike Austria, for example), or “the Americans are clearly on Israel’s side in the Palestinian issue”, and to take the side of the victim, not of the aggressor. Because being on the side of Ukraine and of Israel does not mean to appreciate everything that is American, it does not mean to have to believe that the United States, Europe, the West are perfect or that they are always right. You could have had an argument with someone, but you pull them out of the way of an oncoming bus, you don’t push them under it! By the way, it is worth noting how, after numerous contestations of the legislative measures adopted by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israelis have put aside these grievances in the face of mortal danger from Hamas. This is both an emotional and a rational action; in any case, a welcome one.

With footage and images broadcast ad nauseam of the bombing of Gaza, the expectation of Hamas is to gang up against Israel, and as a consequence, against the whole of Western civilization, first and foremost the entire Arab world, but also those states that traditionally looked towards Russia (out of nostalgia for the former Soviet Union or just of anti-Americanism), as well as those now under the “protective” influence of China.

Already, the reactions of some Arab states are worrisome. Even non-Arab but majority Muslim countries have taken anti-Israeli positions. Turkish President Erdoğan has thundered and thundered against “Israel’s massacre of Palestinians”. Iran remains the Jewish state’s number one enemy. Hamas, however, hopes not only for the coalescence of various Arab terrorist organizations, but also possibly the outbreak of a generalized Jihad in the region, if not a Global Jihad. It seems unlikely to me that a coalition of Arab states (plus Iran) will form to wage war against Israel, but Hamas’s Machiavellian plan to sacrifice its own people, the population of the Gaza Strip, will still have consequences that will be difficult for Israel to counter.

If oil-producing countries in the Persian Gulf region agree to cut production to raise prices, the West stands to lose and Russia stands to gain.

If the large Muslim communities in Europe (the Muslims of France and Germany alone, minority as they are, together make more than the entire population of Israel!) demonstrate and unleash violence (even if not bombings), the West will be deeply shaken. We can already see how some European politicians are not unconditionally on Israel’s side (the Irish Prime Minister, for one).

Can the US, UK, France and Germany prevent an escalation of the Middle East conflict? Will European countries be able to maintain law and order in the face of very vocal and violent Palestinian minorities?

The situation suits Putin, who wanted a new world order anyway. We do not know what China is thinking. But we can see how the North-South polarization is deepening in the sense that public opinion in poor countries, which has come even more firmly on Russia’s side since the war in Ukraine (out of imbecility, but that’s another discussion), is becoming more anti-American and anti-Israeli than ever.

For Nicolás Maduro, Jesus was not a Jew, but a Palestinian crucified by imperialists (he confused the Roman Empire with the Spanish Empire, but what can we expect from such an individual?). If Maduro is hoping for an Arab-Christian coalition (Latin America being predominantly Catholic) against “the Jewish face of American imperialism,” then the 21st century will indeed be a dark one.

The 21st century will be a clusterfuck, or not at all. (China and Russia want the 21st century to no longer be one of Western values. Hamas wants the same.)

Of course, there are still many unknowns. Will Israel invade Gaza with troops? That would lead to heavy losses on its side too. Will it bomb everything it can, inadvertently playing into the hands of Hamas, which rejoices in every death, be it Palestinian?

There has been talk of “an Israeli 9/11”. The scale of the massacre on October 7 makes this comparison possible. But it is also said that Benjamin Netanyahu was informed of an imminent Hamas operation, yet did not react. “An Israeli Pearl Harbor” seems more appropriate, whether it was known or not. Two sides of the same tragedy. Bibi is a remarkably intelligent man (though no, he doesn’t have an IQ of 180) and well-educated at that, but could he have made such a mistake, or could he display such Stalinist cynicism?

However, the fact that the Hamas attack caught the IDF on the wrong foot shows that too much reliance was placed on technological support, neglecting the human side. Without undercover agents, without enough military and intelligence personnel, with too much self-satisfaction, and believing in the inviolability of their protective systems (The Iron Wall), Israel was in the situation of the United States on 9/11. Now it is Israel’s turn to reform its security system. Israelis from all over the world are joining the IDF; this is good, but not enough. Hamas wanted to show that even Israel can be humiliated, hoping that Israel’s other enemies will get the message.

In the long run, the Hamas plan will fail. In the short term, however, I fear that we will see hundreds of thousands dead in Gaza. Whether pro-Hamas or just hiding under a terrorist regime, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will be seen as victims of the Jewish state. Anti-Semitism in the world will reach heights unheard of before the 1930s and since then.

The collective responsibility of Palestinians in Gaza is also discussed. How many voted with Hamas, how many approve of Hamas’ actions, I don’t know. How difficult it would have been to oppose such a regime, again, I don’t know. Pro-Arab commentators insist that the regime is as cruel as the one in Iran, so no one has the courage to say anything. But what was the situation in 2007? Why have more than 15 years gone by without a single anti-Hamas dissident being heard of? Every voice in Gaza has been screaming against Israel.

Naturally, in Iran it is difficult to stand up, but there are dissidents nonetheless. Opponents existed in the Soviet Union and satellite states, too, though the communist regimes were unshakable. Can we speak of a collective responsibility of the Iranian people if the Islamic regime attacks Israel? I find it hard to comment.

Maybe at some point the comparison will be made between Gaza City and Dresden in 1945 (not with the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, phlease). German collective responsibility for Nazism remains a nuanced and disputed issue. But most of the world agrees that Nazism was an abomination, the greatest ever. How will Hamas’ terrorism be viewed after the war that has just begun in Gaza?

It is said that the victors usually write the History. It seems to me that this would be too great a task for the Jewish people alone.

B’ezrat Hashem.