The reason Hamas is able to use this strategy is the nature of the religious beliefs held by most of the population of Gaza. When a group of people believe that suicidal behavior in the name of fighting their god's enemies means a guaranteed trip to heaven, they are not going to object to being used as human shields.
An enemy that is not afraid to die--an enemy that will not hesitate to put women and children in the path of things that will cause their "glorious martyrdom"--is a very dangerous enemy indeed. It cannot be evaluated in the same way that other enemies are. Nothing known about the rationality shared by most of mankind can predict what such an enemy will do.
Pretending that these are "ordinary people" is a ruse that Hamas is counting on the West falling for. Ordinary people don't send their children to harass soldiers in hopes that the child will be injured or killed. Ordinary people don't refuse to leave buildings they have been warned will be targeted. Ordinary people are afraid of dying.
For many of us who live and work with Muslims, Hamas seems like a cancer. It is part of the religion, but uses the religious culture like a cancer cell which warps what was once healthy and takes over the resources to produce something malignant and fatal. Like cancer, Hamas has and will continue to invade and destroy. Like cancer, Hamas needs to be removed.
But sadly, too few Muslim voices are speaking up to decry Hamas, to say, this is not our way, they don't speak for us. If they aren't willing to consider it a warped form of their religion, then what?
Even Palestinians dislike and fear Hamas, who claims to be fighting their cause, but one could say they are too afraid of local retribution to speak up. But what about all the Muslims around the world? Far too few are disavowing Hamas.
It is disappointing that there is not an outcry from Muslim organizations against the terrorism of Hamas. It is disgusting that the US Congress does not have a moment of silence for those killed by Hamas (Parliament did) nor has there been a moment of silence at any major sporting event in the US (games in the EU have paused). Where is the federal mandate to lower flags to half mast? Thank you to the governors who have mandated it but where is our president?
Our leaders refuse to wholeheartedly condemn the terrorist with their actions because it risk their popularity and careers. While disappointed that Muslim leaders around the world are as silent as many US university administrators it seems unfair to ask them to speak when the cost could be loss of popularity, career, their life, and endanger the lives of loved ones.
I am glad to hear that they did that, thank you for sharing that somewhere there is an organization/people with courage. Although how courageous is it to acknowledge a massacre?
Also a huge bravo to the journalist that left BBC for failing to call Hamas terrorist.
It is also true that there are locals who are not "refusing" to leave; they wish to flee but Hamas has set up roadblocks and confiscated car keys to prevent them from doing so.
I am not incredulous about that but if there’s anything you can share/link about Hamas preventing Gazans from fleeing to safe spaces, that would be helpful. Trying to discern all of this requires a lot of investigation for many/most of us!
lineage versus lineage conflict will get you outcomes like this, even without the promise of Heaven. Something like 25% of south american hunter-gatherer tribes die of violence, there are the Hatfields and McCoys in American history, there are untold numbers of lineage-based conflicts throughout the world that shock us with their pointlessness. The people of Gaza are scared to challenge Hamas, because Hamas runs a police state in Gaza. Fear in the here and now among the survivors may be a more important motivator than the hope in heaven for the dying. But, it's resentment and spite acting through tribal loyalty that is the real engine here.
There is a basic moral tenant that under specific circumstances allows for doing what otherwise would be considered evil: It is called the principle of double effect. A good old fashioned moral concept. If you have a cancerous tumor and the only way to save your life is to cut off part of your body to save you then the doctor will cut off that part of your body. The intent is not to cut off your foot but to save your life. It is unavoidable. But if you decide to do something horrible to bring about what you think is good, say sacrificing your own children and murdering the children of others this is not ever justified. This instead is the most depraved sort of behavior. It is always immoral to use people as if they were merely objects. Israel is not like Hamas in any way at all. Israel wants to save the lives of its own people AND the lives of Palestinians. Israel has made and continues to make every effort to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas on the other hand uses people, any people, all people even its own terrorists, like sand bags and dung heaps to hide behind. Israel targets Hamas terrorists. Hamas targets civilians to protect their terrorists. Only an intentional fool would ignore this difference.
Hamas cleverly hid the master valve to water and the master switch to power for the whole Gaza Strip inside an old folks' home, so that when IDF went to turn it off they had to engage in a fistfight with a couple of grandmas. It didn't end up looking as bad as it sounds though, because one of the grandmas was 36 and the other one 40.
I said Israel has made and continues to make every effort to minimize civilian casualties, duh. That is why they took every precaution to avoid hurting anyone when in the process of turning off all of the water and electricity to the entire civilian population. But in my story, Hamas hid the controls in a place that forced Israel to cause light damage to some civilians while reaching and operating the controls, and turning them off in a way that made every effort to minimize civilian casualties.
The fantasy being that in my story I made it seem possible to be "minimizing civilian casualties" while "turning off all of the water and electricity". I bet no one blinked at all at that! I am quite a storyteller.
The lack of moral clarity on display at present is deeply disturbing. We can, indeed must, lament the deaths of all the innocents being killed in the current conflict. But we cannot, and absolutely must not, regard the manner of their deaths as morally equivalent. To do so would be like judging the British and US airmen who flew the bombing raids over German cities as morally indistinguishable from the SS monsters who ran the death camps.
The sad part is that Hamas does this knowing full well that the world will shower sympathy on the Palestinians. It’s a twisted mentality that allows Hamas to use Palestinians as sacrifices. They value death more than life. They are mentally deranged. They need to be stopped.
Talk to black America, the sacred cow of the left. They use their “moral righteousness” to cower anyone speaking out against Hamas. I’ve gotten into it with many blacks over the last few days in the comments section. They claim Israel is occupying and colonizing Palestine and are enacting genocide on Palestinians- all lies but they are completely fine with their misinformation and comfortable with it bc to them white people and anyone “ajacent” to whites are evil.
I just checked the UNWRA website hoping to find an official statement either condemning or at least expressing regret at the massacre of 10/7. But of course there is none. Not a single word. What there are, are 8 official statements lamenting the appalling conditions now prevailing in Gaza.
Yet this is an organization that we in the West are funding.
Anthony, the civilians in Gaza ARE victims of this conflict...The are hostages, too, of a repressive regime in it only for the power that they can wield over the lives of others (and the comfortable lives that they can live off the backs of their neighbors tax payments/
They voted for a government that explicitly says it prioritizes killing Jews over taking care of its own people, and considers killing their own people to be righteous martyrdom. Civilians aren't victims, they are explicit tools of war. We know this. Hamas said so. They intentionally get their kids killed so they can use the footage as propaganda to instigate war against Israel.
That is their culture, and the government they voted for. They are the most explicitly racist people on the planet, and they blame their misery on Jews instead of the terrorists they voted to rule them.
They have sabotaged every peace effort for generations, explicitly because they will not suffer Jews to exist near them.
They saw what their people did on October 7 and supported it. They see Hamas use their children as human shields, and they protest Jews instead.
I don't believe there is a way to fix that kind of hate.
We all know this author has hit the nail on the head. I am disturbed that there are so many living comfortable western lives who have fallen for the Hamas trick. They applaud the beheading of babies, or claim that it was staged by Israel as an excuse to further their own evil ends. How can people be so gullible? They feel virtuous in doing so, and claim they own the moral high ground, whilst only proving themselves to be the latest incarnation of the 'useful idiots' who assist the wicked. Even the (supposed) best among us opine that Israel must show restraint, must not retaliate or engage in 'collective punishment.' What would they have Israel do? Let themselves be butchered, driven out to wander the face of the earth again? Those who see 'institutional racism' everywhere in our own societies reveal their own 'institutional anti-semitism' in doing this. "Jews Don't Count" as the documentary put it.
Good article. I don't think Hamas is really "on the Palestinians' side". I think the Palestinians are a convenient prop they use to push Iran's antisemitic agenda. The military actions of Palestinians trying to do something like improve access to clean water or ensure a right of passage would look much different than what we see from Hamas. Israel would probably have a much more difficult time politically if those were the kinds of military actions that were being carried out on the Palestinians' behalf.
You didn't highlight hypocrisy. You made an utter fool of yourself and put your racist hate on full display for everyone, while praising your intellectual and rhetorical superiority on almost every thread.
Your comments have been irrational, untrue, juvenile and pompous. You've demonstrated multiple red flags for mental and emotional illness. You throw out non sequiturs like they are brilliant one liners.
Truly as fine a troll as ever has graced our comments section. But a useful one, as you are showing the rest of the commenters just how messed up anti-semites are, and how broken their thinking is.
Also btw, I won't read your reply, I've learned not to get into it with trolls.
You completely missed my point, amygdala hijack will do that. When someone replies like you have, it tells me that I made excellent points.
What I did do is high the bias, hypocrisy, and xenophobia. I am not anti semitic at all, it was tragic and abhorrent what the innocent Israeli civilians had to endure, and now the same is happening in triplicate to the Palestinian civilians.I don't believe in an eye for an eye. Does it make you feel better that almost a thousand Palestinian children have died in a week? Are you vindicated?
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. I am not indifferent to genocide of innocence, irrespective of nationality, race or religion.
Sometimes, a conflict is dual in nature, there must be a winner or a loser. I believe the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is such a case, and the “two state solution”, which has never solved anything, has caused long-term suffering for all people involved. My new hope is that there will soon be a winner and a loser, and we can move on from the aftermath to create something new. I think the thing that has been causing so much suffering is the itch of trying to live in a “gray area”. I don’t believe this is always the case, but I believe that’s what is going on here.
You can’t rationalize crazy. Give every college student protesting in the streets FOR Hamas a one way ticket to Gaza to help out. Let’s see how quickly they change their minds. This isn’t an organization intent on creating a great society, this is a cartel that needs to be eradicated.
Well - this is actually a well-known Maoist strategy particularly embraced by Islamic terrorists. It was widely practices by the KLA in Kosovo. The extremist practice that puts zero values on human lives has two main pillars: hide terrorists/weapons in civilian population/household (which is brainwashed/threatened to value the Cause more than their children), and, the tactic of killing and bombing OWN targets and then blaming the enemy.
Very well written article, thank you. I'd be curious to know the facts on the ground in Gaza - do we know if Hamas is a small percentage of the population holding all the civilians hostage to this strategy, or is some sizable portion of the population on board with it? The left is crying out that Palestinians just want peace, and yet, there's this long history of terrorist attacks originating from Gaza, and clearly Hamas is very woven into the urban fabric there, so it's hard to square these things. I mean there must be some dynamic that allows that kind of behavior to go on. It's incomprehensible to imagine, say, angry American professors that decide to start launching thousands of rockets into Canada, and other Americans not stopping them. I believe I understand the genocidal doctrine of Hamas, but, is Israel killing "innocent" Palestinians in the counter attacks, or, willing participants in the human shield/sacrifice strategy?
Hamas wants Israel to go into Gaza, take many casualties, cause lots of "collateral" damage that Hamas can use to win the propaganda battle. Israel is falling into the trap. When your enemy wants you to do something, you should do something else. What else -- dont know. Maybe send special forces to take out the Hamas leadership living in Qatar?
The reason Hamas is able to use this strategy is the nature of the religious beliefs held by most of the population of Gaza. When a group of people believe that suicidal behavior in the name of fighting their god's enemies means a guaranteed trip to heaven, they are not going to object to being used as human shields.
An enemy that is not afraid to die--an enemy that will not hesitate to put women and children in the path of things that will cause their "glorious martyrdom"--is a very dangerous enemy indeed. It cannot be evaluated in the same way that other enemies are. Nothing known about the rationality shared by most of mankind can predict what such an enemy will do.
Pretending that these are "ordinary people" is a ruse that Hamas is counting on the West falling for. Ordinary people don't send their children to harass soldiers in hopes that the child will be injured or killed. Ordinary people don't refuse to leave buildings they have been warned will be targeted. Ordinary people are afraid of dying.
For many of us who live and work with Muslims, Hamas seems like a cancer. It is part of the religion, but uses the religious culture like a cancer cell which warps what was once healthy and takes over the resources to produce something malignant and fatal. Like cancer, Hamas has and will continue to invade and destroy. Like cancer, Hamas needs to be removed.
But sadly, too few Muslim voices are speaking up to decry Hamas, to say, this is not our way, they don't speak for us. If they aren't willing to consider it a warped form of their religion, then what?
Even Palestinians dislike and fear Hamas, who claims to be fighting their cause, but one could say they are too afraid of local retribution to speak up. But what about all the Muslims around the world? Far too few are disavowing Hamas.
It is disappointing that there is not an outcry from Muslim organizations against the terrorism of Hamas. It is disgusting that the US Congress does not have a moment of silence for those killed by Hamas (Parliament did) nor has there been a moment of silence at any major sporting event in the US (games in the EU have paused). Where is the federal mandate to lower flags to half mast? Thank you to the governors who have mandated it but where is our president?
Our leaders refuse to wholeheartedly condemn the terrorist with their actions because it risk their popularity and careers. While disappointed that Muslim leaders around the world are as silent as many US university administrators it seems unfair to ask them to speak when the cost could be loss of popularity, career, their life, and endanger the lives of loved ones.
There was a moment of silence before the Bills/Jets game on Sunday night. I was quite surprised but pleased. For once, the NFL did the right thing.
I am glad to hear that they did that, thank you for sharing that somewhere there is an organization/people with courage. Although how courageous is it to acknowledge a massacre?
Also a huge bravo to the journalist that left BBC for failing to call Hamas terrorist.
It is also true that there are locals who are not "refusing" to leave; they wish to flee but Hamas has set up roadblocks and confiscated car keys to prevent them from doing so.
I am not incredulous about that but if there’s anything you can share/link about Hamas preventing Gazans from fleeing to safe spaces, that would be helpful. Trying to discern all of this requires a lot of investigation for many/most of us!
Yes, so sinister. And they’re likely telling them they are Shahids (martyrs) who must do their duty. Horrific.
Sadly, there are A LOT of well-educated people who lack the basic concept of morality.
Where they occupy elected positions in our nation, they should be turned out to pasture the old-fashioned way...Vote the bums out.
lineage versus lineage conflict will get you outcomes like this, even without the promise of Heaven. Something like 25% of south american hunter-gatherer tribes die of violence, there are the Hatfields and McCoys in American history, there are untold numbers of lineage-based conflicts throughout the world that shock us with their pointlessness. The people of Gaza are scared to challenge Hamas, because Hamas runs a police state in Gaza. Fear in the here and now among the survivors may be a more important motivator than the hope in heaven for the dying. But, it's resentment and spite acting through tribal loyalty that is the real engine here.
Absolutely on point.
There is a basic moral tenant that under specific circumstances allows for doing what otherwise would be considered evil: It is called the principle of double effect. A good old fashioned moral concept. If you have a cancerous tumor and the only way to save your life is to cut off part of your body to save you then the doctor will cut off that part of your body. The intent is not to cut off your foot but to save your life. It is unavoidable. But if you decide to do something horrible to bring about what you think is good, say sacrificing your own children and murdering the children of others this is not ever justified. This instead is the most depraved sort of behavior. It is always immoral to use people as if they were merely objects. Israel is not like Hamas in any way at all. Israel wants to save the lives of its own people AND the lives of Palestinians. Israel has made and continues to make every effort to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas on the other hand uses people, any people, all people even its own terrorists, like sand bags and dung heaps to hide behind. Israel targets Hamas terrorists. Hamas targets civilians to protect their terrorists. Only an intentional fool would ignore this difference.
Hamas cleverly hid the master valve to water and the master switch to power for the whole Gaza Strip inside an old folks' home, so that when IDF went to turn it off they had to engage in a fistfight with a couple of grandmas. It didn't end up looking as bad as it sounds though, because one of the grandmas was 36 and the other one 40.
...what?
I said Israel has made and continues to make every effort to minimize civilian casualties, duh. That is why they took every precaution to avoid hurting anyone when in the process of turning off all of the water and electricity to the entire civilian population. But in my story, Hamas hid the controls in a place that forced Israel to cause light damage to some civilians while reaching and operating the controls, and turning them off in a way that made every effort to minimize civilian casualties.
The fantasy fog of war
The fantasy being that in my story I made it seem possible to be "minimizing civilian casualties" while "turning off all of the water and electricity". I bet no one blinked at all at that! I am quite a storyteller.
The lack of moral clarity on display at present is deeply disturbing. We can, indeed must, lament the deaths of all the innocents being killed in the current conflict. But we cannot, and absolutely must not, regard the manner of their deaths as morally equivalent. To do so would be like judging the British and US airmen who flew the bombing raids over German cities as morally indistinguishable from the SS monsters who ran the death camps.
The sad part is that Hamas does this knowing full well that the world will shower sympathy on the Palestinians. It’s a twisted mentality that allows Hamas to use Palestinians as sacrifices. They value death more than life. They are mentally deranged. They need to be stopped.
Talk to black America, the sacred cow of the left. They use their “moral righteousness” to cower anyone speaking out against Hamas. I’ve gotten into it with many blacks over the last few days in the comments section. They claim Israel is occupying and colonizing Palestine and are enacting genocide on Palestinians- all lies but they are completely fine with their misinformation and comfortable with it bc to them white people and anyone “ajacent” to whites are evil.
I just checked the UNWRA website hoping to find an official statement either condemning or at least expressing regret at the massacre of 10/7. But of course there is none. Not a single word. What there are, are 8 official statements lamenting the appalling conditions now prevailing in Gaza.
Yet this is an organization that we in the West are funding.
This is why it's so infuriating to see people in the West trying so hard to portray Palestinians as the victims of this conflict.
Anthony, the civilians in Gaza ARE victims of this conflict...The are hostages, too, of a repressive regime in it only for the power that they can wield over the lives of others (and the comfortable lives that they can live off the backs of their neighbors tax payments/
They voted for a government that explicitly says it prioritizes killing Jews over taking care of its own people, and considers killing their own people to be righteous martyrdom. Civilians aren't victims, they are explicit tools of war. We know this. Hamas said so. They intentionally get their kids killed so they can use the footage as propaganda to instigate war against Israel.
That is their culture, and the government they voted for. They are the most explicitly racist people on the planet, and they blame their misery on Jews instead of the terrorists they voted to rule them.
They have sabotaged every peace effort for generations, explicitly because they will not suffer Jews to exist near them.
They saw what their people did on October 7 and supported it. They see Hamas use their children as human shields, and they protest Jews instead.
I don't believe there is a way to fix that kind of hate.
We all know this author has hit the nail on the head. I am disturbed that there are so many living comfortable western lives who have fallen for the Hamas trick. They applaud the beheading of babies, or claim that it was staged by Israel as an excuse to further their own evil ends. How can people be so gullible? They feel virtuous in doing so, and claim they own the moral high ground, whilst only proving themselves to be the latest incarnation of the 'useful idiots' who assist the wicked. Even the (supposed) best among us opine that Israel must show restraint, must not retaliate or engage in 'collective punishment.' What would they have Israel do? Let themselves be butchered, driven out to wander the face of the earth again? Those who see 'institutional racism' everywhere in our own societies reveal their own 'institutional anti-semitism' in doing this. "Jews Don't Count" as the documentary put it.
Good article. I don't think Hamas is really "on the Palestinians' side". I think the Palestinians are a convenient prop they use to push Iran's antisemitic agenda. The military actions of Palestinians trying to do something like improve access to clean water or ensure a right of passage would look much different than what we see from Hamas. Israel would probably have a much more difficult time politically if those were the kinds of military actions that were being carried out on the Palestinians' behalf.
All of a sudden the comments and subsequent insults when I highlighted the hypocrisy have stopped, what happened?
I was expecting higher quality replies from the subscribers here.
You didn't highlight hypocrisy. You made an utter fool of yourself and put your racist hate on full display for everyone, while praising your intellectual and rhetorical superiority on almost every thread.
Your comments have been irrational, untrue, juvenile and pompous. You've demonstrated multiple red flags for mental and emotional illness. You throw out non sequiturs like they are brilliant one liners.
Truly as fine a troll as ever has graced our comments section. But a useful one, as you are showing the rest of the commenters just how messed up anti-semites are, and how broken their thinking is.
Also btw, I won't read your reply, I've learned not to get into it with trolls.
You completely missed my point, amygdala hijack will do that. When someone replies like you have, it tells me that I made excellent points.
What I did do is high the bias, hypocrisy, and xenophobia. I am not anti semitic at all, it was tragic and abhorrent what the innocent Israeli civilians had to endure, and now the same is happening in triplicate to the Palestinian civilians.I don't believe in an eye for an eye. Does it make you feel better that almost a thousand Palestinian children have died in a week? Are you vindicated?
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. I am not indifferent to genocide of innocence, irrespective of nationality, race or religion.
I agree totally with Mr Feith. If only his fine explanation could be broadcast and published widely and nonstop! 🙏🇮🇱🙏
Sometimes, a conflict is dual in nature, there must be a winner or a loser. I believe the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is such a case, and the “two state solution”, which has never solved anything, has caused long-term suffering for all people involved. My new hope is that there will soon be a winner and a loser, and we can move on from the aftermath to create something new. I think the thing that has been causing so much suffering is the itch of trying to live in a “gray area”. I don’t believe this is always the case, but I believe that’s what is going on here.
You can’t rationalize crazy. Give every college student protesting in the streets FOR Hamas a one way ticket to Gaza to help out. Let’s see how quickly they change their minds. This isn’t an organization intent on creating a great society, this is a cartel that needs to be eradicated.
Well - this is actually a well-known Maoist strategy particularly embraced by Islamic terrorists. It was widely practices by the KLA in Kosovo. The extremist practice that puts zero values on human lives has two main pillars: hide terrorists/weapons in civilian population/household (which is brainwashed/threatened to value the Cause more than their children), and, the tactic of killing and bombing OWN targets and then blaming the enemy.
Very well written article, thank you. I'd be curious to know the facts on the ground in Gaza - do we know if Hamas is a small percentage of the population holding all the civilians hostage to this strategy, or is some sizable portion of the population on board with it? The left is crying out that Palestinians just want peace, and yet, there's this long history of terrorist attacks originating from Gaza, and clearly Hamas is very woven into the urban fabric there, so it's hard to square these things. I mean there must be some dynamic that allows that kind of behavior to go on. It's incomprehensible to imagine, say, angry American professors that decide to start launching thousands of rockets into Canada, and other Americans not stopping them. I believe I understand the genocidal doctrine of Hamas, but, is Israel killing "innocent" Palestinians in the counter attacks, or, willing participants in the human shield/sacrifice strategy?
Hamas wants Israel to go into Gaza, take many casualties, cause lots of "collateral" damage that Hamas can use to win the propaganda battle. Israel is falling into the trap. When your enemy wants you to do something, you should do something else. What else -- dont know. Maybe send special forces to take out the Hamas leadership living in Qatar?