Approaching the nine-month anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attacks seems surreal. Even before I knew the full extent of Hamas' barbarism that day, I had a weird gut feeling that something seismic was coming soon and I was right. It was not only the major surge of anti-Semitism that was taking place worldwide. It felt like a gigantic shift in morality in the so-called "international community." Here is Gaza, a quasi-state/proto-state (still does not have sovereignty, so I am struggling with the type of label to provide here) with a government run by anti-Semitic terrorists, that rape, kidnap, torture, murder, and decapitate over 1,200 Israeli citizens. Any other country that would have gone through that trauma on a national level would have reacted the same way, if not more aggressively. Look how the United States reacted after 9-11: it sent troops to Afghanistan and started a 20-year war. But when Israel does it to make sure that October 7 never happens again, it is the fault of the so-called "Zionist aggressor" that it does not want to be genocidally annihilated by Hamas.
Then the Gazans have the gall to play victim. Palestinians playing the victim card in spite of being consistently aggressive in its goal to wipe out Jews has been the theme of this blog series. In Part I, I pointed out how the Jew-hatred is not just part of the Hamas regime, but a common feature of Palestinian society. There is no peace-loving majority in either Gaza or the West Bank. Their collective desire to have the Middle East free of any Jewish presence predates the Oslo Accords of 1993, the 1967 Six-Day War in which Israel annexed some land as a result of a defensive war, or even the creation of the modern-day state of Israel in 1948.
In Part II, I addressed the main accusations the pro-Palestinian cohort likes to lob against Israel, including genocide, apartheid, colonization, ethnic cleansing, and occupation. I illustrated how none of those accusations withstand scrutiny. Even if Israel somehow ended up being one or all of those things, I point out how history is replete with war and displaced citizens, yet everyone else in history except the Palestinians has found a solution to resettling and making the best of their new reality. That is because the Palestinians are hell-bent on taking out the Jews, which brings be to the final Part of this blog series...
There were multiple opportunities to move forward and accept a deal which included a de facto Palestinian state: the Peel Commission of 1937, the UN Partition Plan of 1947, UN Resolution 194 (1949), UN Resolution 242 (1967), the Cam David Accords (1978), the Oslo Accords (1993), the Camp David Summit (2000), the Olmert Peace Plan (2008), and John Kerry's Peace Plan (2013). If they wanted a state, they could have had one by now. Apparently, trying to wipe out the Jews has been and continues to be a higher priority than peaceful co-existence. Plus, it is difficult to negotiate when the other side's bargaining position is "you all die and disappear." They wanted all the land in 1947 and still do. Again, what do you think "from the river to the sea" means? It is not a call for a two-state solution, I can tell you that much.
On top of rejecting multiple peace offers over a period of time spanning the better part of a century, those airplane hijackings, attacks on Olympic Games, the intifadas, suicide bombings, and all the times that the Arab side said "no" to a two-state solution unsurprisingly hardened the Israeli people against the Palestinians. October 7, 2023 was the last straw for Israeli society. The obstacle to Palestinian statehood is not "Israeli aggression." It has almost exclusively been driven by [Palestinian] Arab rejectionism and the embrace of terroristic violence. If you hear the pro-Palestine crowd's side, nothing is ever Palestine's fault because Palestine is the embodiment of victimhood that the woke Left loves so much.
If Palestinians launch suicide bombings, a border wall to prevent suicide bombers from entering Israel becomes Israeli oppression. If Hamas gets elected and launches rockets into Israel because it wants to destroy Israel, Israel gets the blame for putting up a blockade, even though it is a legitimate form of self-defense. Israel does not have a military presence in Gaza from 2005 to October 2023, yet it still somehow ends up being an occupying force. What is crazy is that Hamas can break a ceasefire and incite a war by raping, kidnapping, torturing, murdering, and decapitating civilians and be perceived as the victims.
It does not matter that the Palestinians voted in a known terrorist organization, that Hamas uses its citizens as human shields, that Hamas' corruption causes the Gazan economy to crumble, that Palestinians and Arab nations have rejected every single peace treaty with Israel since the beginning of this conflict, or that the Arab side incited every war since 1947 in the hopes of wiping out Israel. This unwarranted support from the so-called "civilized" world exonerates Palestinians while removing their sense of agency. This patronizing, phony call for de-colonization turns the Palestinians into grown children who are never responsible for their actions. Call it a soft bigotry of low expectations on the international scale.
Not accepting responsibility is a key feature of victimhood. This is a problem because having sovereignty entails accepting responsibility. The problem is that the Palestinians have developed a culture of victimhood. Not only has Palestinian identity been built around victimhood for several decades, the United Nations' organization to help Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, merely exists to teach Palestinians to hate and kill Jews while perpetuating Palestinian victim status.
It is easier to garner international sympathy by playing victim than it is to reconcile with Israel or to create a peaceful Palestinian society. It is not a few bad apples in Gaza, but a society in which the majority prefer hating Jews to loving their neighbors. Even if Hamas disappeared today, it would take major reforms in its political institutions and education system to undo the Jew-hatred that has taken a firm hold. When you top that with the reality that taking responsibility for one's life is a hell of a lot more difficult than blaming others, I decidedly remain skeptical about reform in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as enduring peace in the Middle East.
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