Did Hamas Just Give Israel a Dose of its Own Medicine?

In a surprise move Hamas launched a massive rocket attack on 6 October on various Israeli targets in the illegally blockaded Gaza Strip and made incursions through the border wire into nearby Israeli communities such as Sderot.

Warmonger Binyamin Netanyahu’s response, blurting out “we are at war”, would have been faintly amusing if the situation wasn’t so sickening. And once again we’re treated to the spectacle of senior figures here in our midst desperately defending Israel’s illegal occupation and racist terror.

• UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: “Shocked by this morning’s attacks by Hamas terrorists… Israel has an absolute right to defend itself.”
• UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly: “The UK will always support Israel’s right to defend itself.”
• UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer: “No justification for this act of terror… perpetrated by those who seek to undermine any chance for future peace in the region.”
• Head of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen said the attack was “terrorism in its most despicable form… Israel has the right to defend itself against such heinous attacks”.

What lame-brains. They should be supporting Palestine at least as avidly, and for the same reasons, as they (purportedly) support Ukraine!

And excuse me, since when did the aggressor, Israel, which has maintained a murderous and illegal military occupation of the Palestinians’ homeland since 1948 and a cruel blockade on Gaza since 2006 (all condemned by multiple UN resolutions), have a right to defend itself against legitimate Palestinian resistance?

Let’s get this clear: the occupied and mercilessly oppressed Palestinians are not the terrorists. The apartheid Israeli regime, its brutal occupation forces and its squatter/settler stormtroopers are – and they’re regarded as war criminals by international law.

As for Starmer’s remark, the UK government, which created this mess back in 1917, still refuses to this day to recognise the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and statehood – although 138 of the world’s other states have done so. Until the UK and US fall into line and simple justice is established, what makes Starmer think there’s the slightest chance of peace?

Many would be cheering at the news of Hamas’s counterattack if it wasn’t for the innocent lives lost. But someone is bound to ask just how innocent do Israelis think they are, given the anguish, humiliation and evil they’ve heaped upon their Palestinian neighbours for seven decades?

And I’ve just watched Biden making his speech on the subject, laced with unbelievable ignorance and bias and without a care for what his Israeli friends have been doing to Palestinian civilians and families, and the countless ones they’ve abducted, tortured and imprisoned without trial, over the last decades.

Meanwhile, for the sake of balance, what are Hamas saying? They continue to insist that resistance is the only option for ending Israel’s occupation. In a press statement issued on 6 October, the 50th anniversary of the October 1973 war (aka the Yom Kippur war), Hamas called on all states and parties embracing peoples’ rights to freedom to support the Palestinian people in their struggle to defend themselves, restore their rights, and liberate their homeland.

For them the October war remains an inspiration. Hamas reminds us how the Egyptian and Syrian armies unified under one command and scored an historic victory against the Israeli occupation army. Unfortunately, that victory was short lived. When ceasefires were eventually signed Egypt and Syria were able to recover some of the territory lost to Israel in 1948, 1956 and 1967 but it made little or no difference to the Palestinians’ desperate plight.

The commander-in-chief of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif, has also made a statement listing the Israeli occupier’s many ongoing crimes as justification for the attack, pointing out that they had previously warned Israel and appealed to world leaders to work on putting an end to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, their holy sites and homeland, and to put pressure on the Israeli occupation to abide by international law and UN resolutions.

But Israel has instead intensified its crimes, crossing all red lines, particularly in regard to occupied Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque – the Muslims’ third holiest site.

Deif emphasises that the military operation is against the Israeli occupation and in response to Israel’s never-ending crimes against the Palestinian people and their religion.