The rocket attacks by the hardline Hamas leadership of Palestine's Gaza Strip, and the subsequent all-out war declared by Israel in retaliation, has met with almost unanimous condemnation from every quarter of the civilized world.
Very little of this response has been critical of Israel, partly because it was Iran-backed Hamas' first strike that initially set off the conflagration, and partly because most countries are absolutely paranoid about being branded as antisemitic, which (as I have observed before) the Netanyahu government is all too ready to weaponize whenever anyone criticizes the state of Israel in any way.
The few public statements in favour of Palestine and critical of Israel, such as by the odd trade union and the even odder politician, have been quickly closed down amid howls of outrage and indignation. Even a silence on the issue has been branded as tacit approval of Hamas' actions, which is kind of ridiculous. When Israeli atrocities start to outweigh Palestinian atrocities - and you just know that's going to happen; it arguably already has - will public criticism of Israel become acceptable even then? Hard to say.
But what if the Palestinian strike could be justified? Woah, you say, don't even go there! And I must confess, I am loath to. But let's just see what the justification might be, without making any judgements either way.
Hamas' own official justification for the strike is a bit lame, to tell you the truth. Hamas claims that the attack was provoked by Israeli "settlers" entering the al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims alike, in order to pray. Hamas claims this is an inexcusable desecration, and a vindication of their major incursion into Israel.
That said, Hamas and the Palestinians have plenty of other provocations and reasons to hate Israel, going back many decades. Israel has long blockaded Gaza, which has proved economically devastating. Poverty levels are horrendous, unemployment is at nearly 50%, and living conditions are abysmal in this tiny, overcrowded region. Gaza remains effectively under Israeli occupation, and has been described as an "open-air prison" by Human Rights Watch. Long before this conflict, the UN has warned that the area will soon become uninhabitable.
Although Israel has made fewer illegal settlements in Gaza than in the West Bank, there have still been some attempts to wrest back parts of this tiny little beleaguered enclave. Israel under Netanyahu has turned a blind eye to settler violence in Gaza, as it has in the West Bank, such as the brutal rampage through the Palestinian town of Huwara in February while Israel Defence Forces looked on with equanimity.
This constant tit-for-tat needling and provocation by Israel must be galling indeed for the Palestinians, and you can see why they might want to up the ante, partly in retaliation, but partly to shift the way the world sees Israel-Palestine relationships, and to send a message to those Arab countries that are making nice with Israel through the Trump-brokered Abraham Accord agreements.
So, maybe there is a strong case for Palestinian anger. But, while Hamas' egregious actions of last week may be understandable to some extent, that does not make them morally defensible. A pre-emptive strike that kills 1,200 Israeli civilians (more recently revealed as closer to 1,400) is hard - no, impossible - to justify or condone, and now the Palestinian people find themselves the target of a raging Israel full of righteous indignation. Thousands more innocents will die as a result of this action, and very few looking on will find themselves looking at Palestine and Hamas more kindly than before.
Israel's much stronger military will wreak much more havoc on Gaza than Hamas ever could. Hamas could never actually wipe out Israel, as they say they have ambitions to do, but Israel could well obliterate Gaza if they had a mind to. With its borders effectively already sealed, Gazan Palestinians have nowhere to go, and hundreds of thousands are already displaced. By all accounts, Israel is planning on cutting off all food, power, medicines, water and fuel to Gaza in a "complete siege", which will make the region even more uninhabitable than it already is (and may amount to genocide and a war crime). It is point-blank refusing diplomatic exhortations to avoid harming civilians, or even to establish safe corridors for refugees.
The whole thing is an ugly and futile exercise on both sides. As Israel prepares for a ground invasion and calls for over a million Palestinians to vacate the region with just 24 hours notice, Hamas leadership may be reflecting on whether their action isn't backfiring badly on the people and the enclave as a whole. Many Israelis believe that Palestinians would be better wiped off the map, just as strongly as Hamas believes that Israel should be decimated. Israel will happily take this opportunity presented it to eliminate the Palestinian thorn in its side.
Most of what is happening is indefensible by normal moral standards. Frankly, if you really want to blame someone or something, then you can lay the blame squarely on religion.
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