Monday, June 17, 2024

Fighting Injustices with an Injustice

Evil incarnate - Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar
In case anyone had any doubt about who benefits the most from civilian casualties in Gaza, consider the following excerpt from The Jewish chronicle: 

According to messages sent to mediators by Yahya Sinwar and reported by The Wall Street Journal, the terror chief leader sees such civilian deaths deaths in Gaza as working “to his advantage”.

The Journal reviewed “dozens of messages” Sinwar sent to ceasefire negotiators and others in which “he’s shown a cold disregard for human life and made clear he believes Israel has more to lose from the war than Hamas.

“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” said Sinwar in a message sent recently to Hamas officials looking to make an agreement via Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

In one message to Hamas leaders in Doha, the Hamas leader, citing civilian deaths in national-liberation conflicts in Algeria, said, “these are necessary sacrifices”. 

There is nothing surprising here. It has long been known that Hamas uses their own civilians as human shields. And they probably prefer those civilian casualties to be women and children – because it ‘works to their advantage’.

It is also rather well known that the any humanitarian aid that gets though into Gaza is commandeered by Hamas for their consumption with any overflow  sold at exorbitant prices to starving Gazans.  

Unfortunately the media, UNRWA officials, and some anti Israel US congress people (who pretend not to be - like Chris Van Hollen) love to blame the Jews exclusively for all this. Using the Hamas narrative and their casualty figures to make their case for who is to blame.  

It should also be well known by now that Palestinians as a rule generally support Hamas – and even support what they did on October 7th.

 Hard to have mercy on a people like this. And yet...

Humanitarian aid dumped by settlers near Chevron (JTA)
And yet when a group of vigilante settlers types decide to sabotage trucks carrying humanitarian aid for starving human beings under siege, it is nothing short of a Chilul HaShem. The idea of denying any chance of food getting through to starving people because it might get into the wrong hands is an exercise in inhumanity uncharacteristic of the Jewish soul. Even if the majority of Israelis think it should be denied for that reason, that does not make it right.

First of all there actually are innocent Palestinians that do not deserve to be starving. Such as the very young who are not old enough yet to be indoctrinated to hate us. Even if some - or even most of that food ends up in Hamas hands some of it will get to those that need it and who may at the same time actually be innocent. 

The image of religious Jews destroying food meant for humanitarian purposes works to the advantage of Hamas, too. Why should we give that advantage to them?! Why must religious Jews be seen as starving innocent people?! That has resulted in the following as reported by JTA:

The Biden administration imposed sanctions Friday on an Israeli group for attacking humanitarian aid convoys destined for Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in the latest round of penalties against far-right Israelis accused by Washington of undermining efforts toward peace and stability. 

The group added to the U.S. sanctions list is Tsav 9, which says aid should be stopped because it ends up in the hands of Hamas — a view shared by a majority of Israelis

I only wish that Israeli government had dealt with these people themselves. It would have made a bad situation look a little better.