Yes. This is yet another sad piece, revolving around the horror Israel has been experiencing since October 7. I'm not an experienced journalist, nor do I have the wisdom or the know-how of Israelis who have lived here during a war. However, as a captain in the reserves, an undergraduate of Middle Eastern history and a citizen of the world, I have a unique perspective about both Israel and the Palestinians.
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I'll start by stating the obvious: the loss of life of the innocent on both sides is a tragedy - starting from the October 7th massacre of Israelis and foreign nationals in the communities around Gaza up until the needless death of thousands of innocent Palestinians as a result of the war which was thrust upon us by the inhumane, jihadist terror organization Hamas.
Basically, Hamas will not rest until it has killed all Jews and Zionists (which explains why they abducted and killed Thai and Nepali migrant workers who lived in Israel). Hamas' principles resemble, in my opinion, the thoughts of any given ISIS operative with quotes like these in its charter, which was published in 1988: "Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement."
This already destroys claims made by pro-Palestinian activists who support Hamas and a two-state solution. Essentially, it's either us or them and we are not going anywhere. Also, we Israelis fully distinguish between the murderous terror organizations in the West Bank and Gaza and the innocent civilians that live there. The problem starts when those civilians begin to celebrate our deaths with candy and dancing. That, understandably, gets under our skin as a nation and why wouldn't it?
Clip from the video released by IDF, blurred due to the nature of the hard-to-watch scenes
Meanwhile, I vaguely remember the rhetoric Americans used against Muslims after the horrible 9/11 terror attack. Relatively speaking in terms of Israel's population and America's population at the time, the aftermath of this recent terror attack in Israel is equal to more than a dozen September 11ths.
The history of Jews and Arabs wasn't always as bloody and dire as we see in the news today. We used to live together in relative peace in the 19th century and even before that as partners as well as subjects of the Ottoman Empire which controlled the Land of Israel until the beginning of the British Mandate for Palestine. The ethnic name "Palestinian" was applied to Jews under the mandate as a historic continuation from the Turks, but actually began with the Roman conquest. The Roman conquest, in which they named this land Palestine, was to spite the Jews who lived here at the time with a name close to the Jews' biblical enemy, the Philistines which resembles the Arabic pronunciation of Palestinians.
The history of Jews and Arabs wasn't always as bloody and dire as we see in the news today
At the end of the 19th century, Jews started to mobilize around the idea of Zionism - our right for self-determination and which is overlooked by antisemites and anti-Zionists when they discuss the rights of Palestinians. But I digress. During a time where Arabs in the Land of Israel were in a deep identity crisis between their Ottoman, Muslim, Syrian (referring to Greater Syria) and Palestinian identities, the rising star was Amin al-Husseini, who later became president of the Arab Higher Committee and Mufti of Jerusalem. Although initially identified as a Syrian, Amin al-Husseini is one of the top Palestinians (back then, Jews were also Palestinians according to the British and the world) who 'ruined it for everyone.' You're welcome to look up the history of the massacres of 1921, 1929 and the Arab Revolt of 1936 for more context.
Ever since the establishment of the State of Israel, we've had our fair share of Palestinian adversaries, including Yasser Arafat, who would eventually sign the Oslo Accords. Arafat is remembered in Israel both as the 'mastermind' of Palestinian unity and as one the deadliest Palestinian leaders this country has known. Even though he was responsible for so many of our deaths in the First Intifada, Israel negotiated for a better future for Jews and Arabs alike in this land.
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Iron Dome intercepts rockets launched from Gaza over Ashkelon
(Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen)
This is who we are. We make peace with our enemies to ensure the future of our people. Hamas, on the other hand, according to its charter, is unable and unwilling to accept the fact that we're not going anywhere.
Our history is very political and controversial to the world and we know that. It doesn't take a genius to notice the biased focus we have received in the United Nations during the Syrian Civil War (more like a genocide), Hamas' oppression of Palestinians in Gaza and Hezbollah's make-over of Lebanon into a poor, dangerous, terror-backed state. However, now that the world has seen that Hamas = ISIS, I hope that you see that Israel equals a liberal democracy that repeatedly chooses the moral high ground to the extent that it treats justly the very same terrorists who just a few days ago set out to kill our people in their homes.