I stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle against the brutal and illegal Israeli occupation.
But there is no way any rational person can celebrate or support Hamas after the obscene butchery they have carried out with this unprecedented violence.
Nelson Mandela was very clear in his autobiography about the nature of the struggle.
He was very clear that only legitimate military targets that directly facilitated the apartheid structure over Black South Africans should be hit with sabotage.
If Hamas had limited their action to the military industrial complex of Israel that generates the occupation, that could be legitimised, but that’s not what Hamas did here.
They committed acts of barbarism so explicit it feels beneath the shame of the moment to list them.
If your ‘resistance’ requires butchering children, civilians, raping women, taking them hostage and murdering people at a dance party, then you are no ‘resistance’, you are the monster you claim to be fighting.
There can be no justification for what Hamas did, but there are many many many many many many many many many manymany many many many many many many many many many many many many manymany many many many many many many many many many many many many manymany reasons why it has happened.
I argued in January that the toxic ingredients were all in place for a 3rd intifada.
The far right Zionist Israeli Government and their cruel settler building program alongside the crack down on Palestinian prisoners rights alongside a normalisation agenda with other Muslim nations that would sideline the Palestinians permanently alongside the attacks on Holy sites alongside Putin and Irans own interests for conflict alongside no political solutions alongside 2.2million Palestinians cramped into what is effectively the largest open air prison on the planet alongside a 17 year blockade have all combined to produce a terrorism of unspeakable horror that can never be justified no matter the provocation.
The fear now is that in their bling rage for revenge, the Israelis are about to compound the atrocities of Hamas with their own.
You can’t drop bombs in a place as densely packed as Gaza and not kill innocent civilians.
So far the Israelis have killed 91 Palestinian children in their bombing campaign on Gaza.
The ability of this to spiral dangerously out of control is still in front of us.
There can be no glorification of Hamas while supporting the Palestinian struggle against occupation.
I stand with the Palestinian and Israeli people.
I can not stand with the Hamas terrorists nor the Zionist extremists.
I fear where we now go with all this hate.
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Egypt need to step up and provide a new zone/home for the 2 million+ occupants of Gaza. Leave Gaza to nature. A zone of peace. A zone without humanity.
How long do you think Gaza would remain empty if the Palestinians are removed? Unless there is peace & reconciliation Hamas will just learn to attack from further away as you will not solve the injustice that feeds Hamas by moving them further away.
Israelis are major criminals moving Palestinians on totally missis the issue. Hammas isn’t a protest group it’s a terrorist group Isreal latterly created good fucken job.
A good idea – where practical ideas are few and far between.
Oh yes kick them out, then there will be no possibility of ever getting their land back. You know that Israel won’t leave it empty.
THIS!
Hamas’s attacks on civillans for political or religious reason are by definition terrorism and must be condemned, but don’t let Zionists gaslight you into thinking the justifies Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians that made this inevitable.
Everyone should watch Abby Martin’s doccumentry Gaza Fights For Freedom
Well said Martyn.
It makes no sense at all what Hamas did given that the shyt that the Palestinians had been experiencing isn’t much different than the usual crap they have been enduring for far too long now. There has to be a reason for this radical change in behavior…time will tell.
Any country that watches their soldiers snipe children searching through the rumble of their house those soldiers exploded – and then goes on to elect a MORE extreme govt – kinda deserves what they get.
Is it good PR? No. But do the Israelis deserve better?
A very fair summation of what’s happened and is happening. Israelis and Palestinians would have found a solution if not for the extreme Israeli government and the extreme Hamas and others. The moderate people caught in the middle just want to get on with their lives but are used as pawns by the extremists on both sides in their perceived struggle for justice.
I’m sure Mr Minto will disagree with you Martyn
Israel/US (insert any western country here…NZ too!) made them do it doncha know?
This should have been posted here on Day 1 of this humanitarian nightmare… which leads me to think someone from “higher up” sent a “friendly reminder” that freedom of speech in NZ comes with a lot of caveats.
Shorter version is that thanks to a lack of “moderation” (i.e. censorship) on various social media channels we got to see exactly what Hamas and many Gazans think of these actions.
Had it been left to our MSM the videos and photos gleefully being distributed by Hamas themselves would have been buried while the work proceeded of focusing on Israeli atrocities – with all the attached demands for cease fires and “rules of war” and such.
But Hamas blew up this standard Palestinian propaganda narrative that has been used for years. We got to see them as they see themselves: victorious killers of Jews who want to destroy the Jewish state, not live beside it. Two state solution my butt.
And of course the real problem now for the Western Far Left is that we’ve got to see them also in this true light; that when push-comes-to-shove there are many of them (see the Minto threads for examples) who couldn’t care less if every Jew there died. What’s that phrase, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free”
I don’t think this is a needle you can thread anymore.
Correct…. the truth is no longer in the shadows. The liberal muppets (MINTO) enabled this.
Marama won’t say anything until after the election— code for she’s knows it’ll cost her votes to say what she wants to say before the election. Sonny Bill ffs- confirms what I always thought of him.
If you have time .. watch on ALJAZEERA TV .. ‘ Israel Palestine conflict and Gaza War / Inside Story.
Martyn – Encouraging Peace Talks yet…or do more people need to die?
We have seen this week how astray the moral compass of some of those who support the national rights of Palestinians has gone.
The British Socialist Workers Party had a headline in its online newspaper “Rejoice as Palestinian resistance humiliates racist Israel”. Rejoice in the mass slaughter of Israeli civilians? At present any action in “solidarity” with the Palestinian struggle cannot but be a celebration of Hamas’s atrocities. Even the yuppie socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recognised this when she condemned such an action in New York for its “bigotry and callousness”. And a commentator to one of the posts on this blog said that the 250 young people murdered at the music festival “would have known that they were literally dancing on the graves of Palestinians.” Only got themselves to blame, apparently.
One glimmer of hope. An AP report in today’s NZH said that in the midst of Hamas’s pogrom at the weekend, “a ute full of Palestinian citizens of Israel pulled up. The men from the Bedouin city of Rahat were scouring the area to help rescue Israeli survivors”.
well the palestinians have pissed in their chips
” I can not stand with the Hamas terrorists nor the Zionist extremists ”
But as it stands these are the only groups in control here.
And the West and all its democracy , money and fire power has picked only one side… Israel and nothing the Israeli state has done is to promote peace and respect in fact the complete opposite in their relentless subjugation and tyranny of the Palestinian people by governments and leaders like Netanyahu who were voted in by the Israeli people themselves to take a harsh and murderous campaign against their enemies all in the name of pretend security and stealing land that does not belong to them.
meh, power to the freedom fighters (as always)
Yes you’re right they should call them Zionist settlers. Israel is a fascist apartheid occupation. It has established an open air prison/concentration camp where they’ve forced Palestinians to live with little food, water & health needs. They consider them “human animals”. They want to “kill them all,” in their own words. Hope that’s enough nuance.
How can we all put boring deluded Tane on ignore?
Maybe not? Stinker. Psychopaths attract other psychopaths and so they’re blinded by their delusion that a European colony put in place in the Middle East was always going to work!! That is a delusion.
Ooh err, really? Too late yes.
What has happened here is beyond our concept of reality, in practice.
Zero idea of how Hammas could do what they did to kids at a rave and families, and knowing the consequences for their own people who are prisoners. No where to escape the inevitable bombs and carnage of right wing Israeli revenge.
Hammas are clearly not the same as the ordinary Paistinian people trying to live their life under extreme circumstances.
But brutality begets brutalizing fanatics. This is not la quid pro quo situation, it needs diplomacy and understanding, not bombs or support of this kind of bombing, pulverizing resolution. Hammas=Netyenyahoo, violent and both totally fucked in the head.
Lets not forget it was a majority of the Israeli people who elected far right govt who have perpetrated this Palestinian nightmare for 75 years.
They supported it and Therefore the settler program.
Lets also not forget the Palestinians are not allowed to have a legitimate army to defend themselves.
As awful as the Hamas invasion was it is long past time the Israeli general public got a taste of what the Palestinian population put up with on a daily basis they choose to ignore.
So Israel’s crocodile tears dont mean shit to me.
If Israel wants peace then the Israeli people better start taking to the streets and remove their far right parties or this wont be the last time their genera`l population gets targeted.
Jesus wept – So in your eyes, a democratically elected Right Wing government is sufficient justification for murdering 260 innocent young people at a dance party?
It didn’t happen. Just like the beheading of babies. Western MSM propaganda media getting carried away again.
It was the IDF firing into the crowds as witnessed by an Israeli woman on camera in an interview. Hamas were offering them shelter from the bullets!!
Neither glorification nor demonization of Hamas is helpful in this situation. To glorify Hamas would be irresponsible. To demonize them is, in the context of a Five Eyes state, an act of cowardice. The New Zealand government and its supporters on the left are demonizing Hamas because that is what the United States requires of them, and because they are desperate not to dispassionately examine the causes of the conflict. Virtually the only people doing that are Jewish individuals and groups who hold true to the values of the Jewish faith and Jewish civilization. Unfortunately their influence within the Five Eyes and the State of Israel itself have been insufficient to avert a catastrophe for Jews and Arabs.
“An act of cowardice to demonise Hamas.” Really? You want to minimise a pogrom? It’s not hyperbole to describe Hamas’s action that way. When was the last time armed gangs went from house to house seeking out men, women and children of all ages and shooting them down for the offence of being Jewish? When the Nazi Einsatzgruppen followed the Wehrmacht into Eastern Europe in World War Two, that’s when.
The reports of rape and beheading children have not been substantiated or verified and reputable news outlets have withdrawn such accounts. 240+ children Palestinian children now among the dead in Gaza – verifiable fact. Egypt gave Netanyahu 3 days warning of the imminent Hamas attack. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but this stinks
If that is the case Netanyahu let it happen as did roosevelt let Pearl harbour happen after the Brits warned him a few days before which let him bring the USA into WW2.
No one, repeat NO ONE who calls themselves human can ever justify this as ‘resistance’. The so-called Palestinian ’cause’ is finished, over, done with.
https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/at-least-40-babies-killed-beheaded-in-israeli-kibbutz-outside-gaza-reports-say-israel-palestine-hamas-terrorists-terrorism-invasion-middle-east-conflict-attack
at least they looked them in the eyes when they butchered them and weren’t hiding in a bunker 100 km away dropping bombs on women babies and children.
Gaby spreads lies/war propaganda about Israeli children being slaughter ,,,, to try and gain support for his cause,,, that being the real slaughter that Israel is now conducting against Palestinian children.
Gaby wants us to support evil … https://youtu.be/7ZO80e3O6tc?t=693
The Grayzone has identified Ben Zion as a fanatical settler leader who incited riots by demanding a Palestinian town be “wiped out.”
Source of dubious ‘beheaded babies’ claim is Israeli settler leader who incited riots to ‘wipe out’ Palestinian village
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/11/beheaded-israeli-babies-settler-wipe-out-palestinian/
After an Israeli reserve soldier named David Ben Zion told a reporter Palestinian militants “cut [off] heads of babies,” Biden, Netanyahu, and the international media amplified the dubious claim.
The Grayzone has identified Ben Zion as a fanatical settler leader who incited riots by demanding a Palestinian town be “wiped out.”
Its a sad day for the world. One wonders where the school of terrorism begins . When do children begin to see injustice and in turn become the terrorist ,wreaking havoc on the perpetrators that they see as having wrecked their lives. One wonders at the psyche of Israel when they have already suffered so much. They are now both killing civilians where does that get anyone anywhere. At the present time Israel has the good will of the western world however Palestinian’s are people too and they too have women and children living on the Gaza strip. The western world needs to find a solution before its too late and there will be no turning back .
Don’t forget Israel is a colony of Europe, started by Britain, & backed by Europe & its other colonies.
The “Middle East” is only “unstable” because Israel was never meant to be what it is today. A remnant of history of what Europe was like in the 1920s Germany, Israel is now.
The escape route out of Southern Gaza bombed by Israel
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kiaHeQLG4FY
Palestinians fleeing to South on roads the Israeli told them were safe have been bombed from the air.
Khan Younis, the only built up area in Southern Gaza where the refugees could find shelter is being constantly struck by Israeli missiles.
The Southern Rafah border crossing is closed preventing any escape.
The Zionists openly and in full view of the whole world are completing the expulsion and extermination of the Palestinian people they began in 1948
Our government is a silent witness to this genocide. And with their silence make us complicit in it.
A Textbook Case of Genocide
Israel has been explicit about what it’s carrying out in Gaza. Why isn’t the world listening?
Raz Segal
October 13, 2023
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide?fbclid=IwAR2y5uGX2m9PZixzPpFZWYketich6BQZMdG6QMGmd3fwA2vfftIBcCj8mtY
Prime Minister Hipkins is still the incumbent until Christopher Luxon officially takes the position.
Prime Minister Hipkins has made a statement condemning Hamas violence and brutality against Israelis.
Will Prime Minister Hipkins make a statement condemning the genocide being conducted by Israel in Gaza against Palestinians?
Israel and the weaponisation of empathy
Selective empathy is not empathetic at all.
Belén Fernández, Al Jazeera columnist 15 Oct 2023
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/15/israel-and-the-weaponisation-of-empathy?fbclid=IwAR3F_lmJ0cdSvW8G5m94EMDyIg1uw6tecWRcXkme_5XaZ6HMLWHM1Aj3xsI
….Recall that the foundational episode of the whole “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” consisted of Israel’s violent self-invention on Palestinian land in 1948, which entailed the destruction of some 530 Palestinian villages, the killing of 15,000 Palestinians, and the expulsion of three-quarters of a million more.
And the bloody pattern has only continued since, with Palestinians consistently dying in disproportionate numbers even while being cast as the aggressors and victimisers. Take Operation Protective Edge in 2014, when the Israeli army killed 2,251 people in the Gaza Strip in 50 days, including 299 women and 551 children. Six Israeli civilians were killed and 67 soldiers….