Israelis were shocked by the attack by Hamas on their Country on October 7, 2023.
They shouldn’t have been. Israel has been humiliating the Citizens of Gaza for a long time. On matters big and small.
Regulating the amount of food they let into Gaza. Using the amount of food they let in as a weapon then rubbing it in on their victims saying, “we’re going to put you on a diet.”
Moving the distance from shore Gaza fishermen were confined to. Reminding the residents of Gaza they were powerless. Fishermen love their independence. The Israelis reminded them they didn’t have any.
Then, some real nasty stuff. Like literally “exploding the knees” of young kids playing soccer too close to the separation fence. The shooter bragged “I remember the knee in the crosshairs bursting open…”
So casually dismissing a little boy’s dream of playing in the biggest venues, being a star and making his parents proud. One shot took that all away and replaced it with bitterness that reeked with a burning need to get even.
Probably the event that forced the hand of Hamas, the event that said we have to fight with all we have, was the attack by Israel on Gaza in 2014. The Israelis named it Operation Protective Edge. It lasted 51 days.
The numbers tell the story in Operation Protective Edge, which started July 8, 2014.
The Israeli side lost 73 dead, 67 of which were lost in a firefight with Hamas fighters. Six Israeli civilians were killed. No responsible commentator has even tried to make a case for reckless barbarity on the Hamas side in Operation Protective Edge.
Hamas did what a combatant is supposed to do. Target the other side’s fighters and take reasonable precautions to avoid harming Non Combatants.
The Hamas-Gaza side lost 2,310 dead plus 1000 children permanently injured. Amongst those killed were hundreds of children under nine years old and over 30 infants under 12 months.
That’s the Israeli way. Don’t get close. Drop some leaflets and let the killing begin. There was widespread outrage at the Israeli “kill ’em from afar” tactics.
A compelling sidebar to Operation Protective Edge was the work of a Jewish man named Hagai El-Ad, born in Haifa, Israel, educated at Harvard. He ran an organization named BTselem which kept a running tally of the name and age of every individual killed in Operation Protective Edge. You can well imagine Netanyahu et al saying the Hebrew equivalent of “we don’t need this shit.”
I consulted the website many times. I was amazed at the number of Muslim kids nine years old and younger…DEAD. And, even more shocking is the number of infants who had not yet attained 12 months…DEAD. I know, from memory, the number of infants was above thirty.
I say “from memory” because the website, BTselem, is NOT ACCESSIBLE and has not been accessible for at least six months.
I’ve watched probably a couple of dozen hours of CNN since the beginning of the present conflict in Gaza. Absolutely nobody, not even Hans Christian Anderson Cooper, or anybody else has mentioned that Israel has been pummeling the jack shit out of the citizens of Gaza and their children for decades. And they just gave them a savage beating less than 10 years ago.
Doesn’t CNN think that’s part of the whole story?
What’s wrong with these people?
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