Why I Support Palestine
Before some very rude people accuse me of supporting Hamas, read again! Palestine! I support Palestine! Learn the difference. I support Palestine. I’ll talk about my views of Hamas bit later on. For now, I must say I resent, hate, loathe, being forced to condemn anyone just because…
That was the media’s first error. Do NOT assume that we will all buckle down. I will condemn when I am good and ready, i.e. satisfied with the evidence. I do NOT and never will condemn ANYONE blindly, or based on one side of the story. Where’s the justice in that?
And, I will NEVER ever condemn a whole group of people. We can condemn an organisation. But even then, we cannot assume that every member is equally evil. Nazis, for example, completely vicious organisation. Was every Nazi equally vicious?
In short, no nation should ever be condemned, that includes Palestine. Organisations can be condemned based on what they want and how they want to accomplish that. So, when it comes to organisations we look at their founding documents to see why they were set up, then we look at their objectives, and how they want to achieve those objectives. If their plan is to kill innocent people to get fame and fortune, that’s an example of a bad organisation. Very bad. But until we know this, we should not go around forcing people to condemn anyone. And if we have rules on what is acceptable and what is not, those rules MUST apply to all organisations, all over the world, equally. We should not have one set of rules for one, and a different set of rules for others. At least not at that initial stage. And don’t even get me started on excuses. Grow up, people. Excuses are pathetic.
Furthermore, I’ve learned through a very hard life that good people can be found anywhere. Plus, when you find good individuals in a bad group, you know you are in the presence of true greatness. But, that’s just a footnote. Back to Palestine.
I recently attended a demonstration of support for the people of Palestine in Sarajevo. I carried a sign that had two words on it ‘Free Palestine’. I’m usually asking for an individual to be freed. This was the first time in my life that I was asking for a nation to be freed. Even for Bosnia. I’ve never asked ‘Free Bosnia’. We were in a war. How did we not ask for Bosnia to be liberated, and why does that not make much sense even now? It was a war of aggression. My country was invaded. It should make sense, right? Anyway, this led to all kinds of thoughts.
What if we were to say ‘Free Israel’? It’s confusing, right? Israel is free, perhaps even given too many liberties. Hence, saying ‘free Israel’ would make no sense.
So, we have one group with a need to be freed and another group that already has too many liberties. Turns out that the one with too many liberties is the occupier. Well, that’s what we call ‘The plot thickens’.
I don’t know about you, but I do NOT believe that being an occupier is a virtue. In fact, I think that’s very bad. Let’s see.
Too many liberties have been translated into complete violation of Human Rights, for a very long time. And that’s not even all, Israeli authorities have given immigrants (or settler, but that’s the same thing) the right to abuse Palestinians, the local population.
I saw a video of a young man attacking a Palestinian farmer, destroying his seeds, and the Israeli army stood there, protecting the abuser.
I also saw footage of a Palestinian family, including an elderly couple being thrown out of their home so that a couple from New York would move in.
This was enough for me to stand up for Palestinians: Complete violation of their Human Rights (I’m pretty sure ALL the articles were violated to the point that it’s brutality), and immigrants have the right to abuse them.
But then, as soon as I stood up for Palestinians, I was asked about my views of Hamas. How do I feel about Hamas killing hundreds of people and kidnapping… I wasn’t told how many were kidnapped. Suddenly, the whole focus was on Hamas.
Oh, I do not like this. If there’s a huge disaster going on in one room, I do not like it when someone tries to divert my attention from that room to another room where there’s a smaller disaster taking place. I’ve learned that this is how someone tries to hide something. This makes me want to focus on the big disaster even more. Let alone when they try to excuse the big disaster with the smaller disaster. AND, let alone still when they try to guilty me into focusing on the smaller disaster. Big mistake.
And if this wasn’t bad enough, they tried to excuse collective punishment. I am a child of war. Do you have any idea what collective punishment means to me? It is fascism. You do NOT, I repeat, you do not try to promote, excuse, or even hint that you are in favour of collective punishment to a victim of war. I would sooner die, let the shit-show start with my death, than accept that collective punishment is anything but a brutally psychotic state of humanity.
This is where my involvement got real.
My first test was to bring up the absurd number of children that Israeli forces have killed in Palestine in a number of weeks. It was already clear that the number of children being killed was way too high. I had to assume that children were being targeted. Turns out, most of the population living in that part of the world were children. Who bombs a place where children live? As a reminder to some very stupid people (so I apologise to all the readers who are smart enough to know this): Children do NOT even have the right to vote.
I was shocked to find out how many officials did not care about so many children being killed. To make matters worse, apparently, some believed that children were being used as a shield by this group called Hamas. I saw buildings being demolished. Not bombed. A bombed building still has some kind of structure. Chances are that someone might survive a bombardment. Demolished means that chances of survival are in the ‘miracle’ category. There is no shield in this situation. The brick wall isn’t a shield, let alone a child.
Then I found out that Israeli officials admitted to intending to ‘clear the area’, i.e. carry out a genocide. However, because they said this in their own country, many of the officials around the world acted like they didn’t know this and carried on claiming how Israel was defending itself. Oh how much I hate this kind of circus.
Defence doesn’t exist without an attack. This is a rule that applies to all, equally. Now, did Palestine attack Israel or did Israel attack Palestine?
I had to do more research. Turns out, Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe started in 1948. I had to check this with other sources. I refused to believe that so soon after World War II the country where survivors of the Holocaust took refuge attacked the local population and forced hundreds-of-thousands to go. I can’t even imagine what those survivors went through. Of course, Palestinians were the main victims, but that MUST have been a nightmare for the Holocaust survivors. There is NO fucking way that those Holocaust survivors supported this.
Thank God for Social Media. I found reels from Israeli youth. A young woman says she is a Jew, raised by Zionist family, her grandfather was Holocaust survivor, she went through ‘Birth Right’ training even though she was nervous about being brainwashed, and she says she should not call the conflict between Israel and Palestine a conflict, but a genocide. She says that when you learn all about the stuff going on, you find out that Zionist state is vicious. Now that makes sense. Victims of crimes against humanity raise their children like that. We want goodness in the world. We’ve been on the bad side. We do NOT want that on anyone. And, as I type this about her, I fear for her safety. I’ll get to that.
There are also some reels from Israel that are shocking. The number of young people making fun of Palestinians who do not have water is horrific. That’s an unexpected level of heartlessness.
The voice of Jews from around the world is also mostly about being against the WAY Israel is now.
I feel it is important to mention at this stage, for the sake of full disclosure, that I do not believe we should have a world where Jews are safe in one country. I believe in a world where Jews should be safe anywhere. And, I would also like to mention that one of my heroes, a man from Bosnia, is a Jew. He has done so much good, that we see him as a hero. So, not only do I believe that Jews should be protected, but this one man and his amazing deeds, have made me convinced that Jews are a jewel in a society. Not because I believe in collective goodness. I don’t. Collective punishment, collective reward, both are absurd, though collective punishment is absurd, as well as dangerous, evil, vicious and such. But, his whole community deserves even more protection because any attack on his community would hurt him. I do not accept that he should hurt that way. Then again, his faith in justice and peace that made him so great, are also reasons to trust that anyone he protests deserves protection. Be that as it may, let’s have a world with both; a state for Jews, and a world where Jews can be safe anywhere.
How safe is Israel for Jews, ALL Jews?
We all know about this from Pastor Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.
The first lesson is that we must always speak against tyranny. But the second lesson is that tyranny will always want more.
Let’s put a pin in that question. Only speculation can answer it at the moment, and let’s not go down that road. So far, we have enough evidence to suggest tyranny. Evidence like: Be silenced on this, support collective punishment, do not look at that — look at this, do not care about the children, and so on, down to being attacked for raising a voice against genocide. We won’t even mention ‘word-manipulation’.
All of this is a cause for concern for every human being. It’s enough to just compare the speeches at the UN. Palestinian ambassador breaks down in tears talking about hospitals being without electricity, bombardments of civilians, and such. Israeli ambassador comes out, filled with anger talking about Palestinians throwing rocks. He even brought a rock to the meeting. You do not need to be a genius to put the two and two together, compare and contrast. You do need to be a human to stand up for the victims.
And I am a human. So before I end, I need to say what I think about Hamas. First of all, just like for the Palestinians, my heart goes out to the Israeli victims and their families. Wars are a horrific thing to endure. And it seems to me that the former Palestine region has been in a war since 1948. We need peace, we need Palestine to show us the truth about Hamas. Did they act outside the laws of war? They certainly acted against the laws of peace, but it seems that peace has not been present in the region for decades. I guess, the first political question that must be answered is whether the Palestine region has been in war since 1948?
If people do not have basic human rights, if people are abused, rebellion is the only reasonable expectation. Fight back. We cannot expect anyone in the world to turn around and say “yes, please, treat me like a pest”. However, even in conflicts, there are rules. Prisoners of war, while horrific, are common. The difference is in how those prisoners are treated. And I just don’t have enough clear evidence. I can say that ISIS is a bunch of psychos. I can tell you that Taliban are horrific morons. Asad? I don’t even know where to begin. But that means nothing when we look at Hamas. Israeli officials lost all credibility when they lied about the beheading of 40 babies. Let me tell you, as a child of war, hearing that anyone could have done that broke my heart. I literally cried. It still makes me sick. When I found out that it was a lie, I was beyond furious. I am still beyond furious. For me, this is such a horrific lie, I have no respect for any Israeli official anymore. They cannot tell me what to think about Hamas, because even lies must have a limit. Lies on their own should not be respected. This kind of lie… Forget it!
In short, I don’t know enough about Hamas to make a decision. We need evidence and truth.
This article could go on and on, but I think this is enough.
Peace to the world, and may we all be safe and free of evil, murder, and tyranny.