This Hamas official has said a couple of interesting things:
- He doesn’t want Sir Tony Blair (former UK prime minister) involved in the governance of Gaza, despite Trump’s plan for the region proposing this.
- Hamas doesn’t plan to disarm, unless they are giving their weapons to a future Palestinian army.
Quote about the first point:
“When it comes to Tony Blair, unfortunately, we Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims and maybe others around the world have bad memories of him… We can still remember his role in killing, causing thousands or millions of deaths to innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq… We can still remember him very well after destroying Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Quote about the second point:
Dr Naim said Hamas would not completely disarm and that weapons would only be handed over to the Palestinian state, with fighters integrated into the Palestinian National Army… “No one has the right to deny us the right to resist the occupation of armies,” he said.
Thoughts on this?
I think ethnic cleansing like mentioned in your link is bad. But does that justify Hamas attacking Israeli civilians? You mention liberation from the Nazis - the British and Americans bombed Dresden to try to defeat the Nazis, but they bombed many civilians, which is why some people see that attack as morally bad. The nuking of Japan also killed many civilians, and is also seen as pretty terrible. If attacking civilians in those cases was bad (it probably was) then maybe Hamas attacking Israeli civilians was bad, and Israel attacking Palestinian civilians was bad.
attacking civilians is bad… however. every israeli citizen is a member of the IDF and is required to undergo training and to be ready to be called up for war at any time.
so while attacking civilians is bad, there is a huge difference when you kill women, children, or protesters with rocks vs attacking well trained people off duty.
i am sure there are some PSYCHOs in hamas, there are PSYCHOs in every army. go out and read the history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_return_to_Israel
Yitzhak Pundak, commander of the 6th brigade, later testified
One day I was summoned to the central front. In the bureau of Maj. Gen. Zvi Ayalon, and in the presence of intelligence officer Binyamin Jibli, I was ordered to liquidate every infiltrator encountered by our forces, and as deterrence to leave the body in the field, to make an example of it. . When I asked why there was no order in writing, the general and the intelligence officer emphasized that they were speaking in the name of the chief of staff. Gradually the trails filled up with bloated bodies. … The stench that spread through the area reached our outposts and soldiers started to suffer from headaches, dizziness, nausea and breathing difficulties
btw “infiltrator” is the word used for any man woman or child trying to go home
Women and children were killed by Hamas in 2023 right? Also Israelis might be made to train in the IDF but that doesn’t mean every Israeli supports an aggressive policy towards Palestinians.
I’m not trying to take either side really - I think both Israel and Hamas should not have killed civilians. You said I should read the history, yeah maybe I should. Palestinians who were forcibly expelled from what is now Israel, maybe they should get compensation from Israel.
israel passed a law that no one will ever get anything for what was taken.
so i ask you . at what point should france have just accepted that nazis owed france?
at what point should ukraine stop fighting russia and just let them have the land they have taken?
you can look at the history. israel has deliberately targeted civilians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine
even their own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alon_Shamriz,_Yotam_Haim,_and_Samer_Talalka
The men had emerged from a building and were approaching a group of IDF soldiers when they were shot dead, in spite of the fact that they were shirtless and visibly unarmed while waving a makeshift white flag and calling out for help in Hebrew.
( deliberately killing civilians is a war crime)
do i take a side? yes the side that has killed less civilians deliberately.
When the british and american commited war crimes during the second world war their army didn’t lose the right to self defend. When israel commit war crimes i never hear anybody who want hamas to disarm saying Israel dhould disarm. It’s only when palestinians retaliate ( not always by respecting international law ) to brutal occupation that other countries try to not allow palestinians to have an army to defend itself
I think it would make sense for Palestine to have an army. If they did have an army, and if that army tried to push the Israeli military out of the West Bank (internationally recognised as Palestine), that might make sense. It is strange that Israel has borders but they’ve gone beyond them (into the West Bank and into Syria), which is supposed to be illegal, and the West has just been okay with that.