I’m not sure how I feel about this one. I’m horrified by the violence of Hamas that triggered the violence of Netanyahu’s government. But as the days have played out, watching people die and social media swap insults in a very familiar cycle of belligerent destruction and rhetoric, I became increasingly nauseated and despondent. I don’t and can’t ever treat the people of a nation or ethnic community as interchangeable with their governments, I view them as mostly victims of institutions teaming with self-serving, often deluded or incompetent (or both) opportunists who resort to the worst possible reflexive behaviors when confronted with a crisis. Israel and the Palestinian Territories are no different from the US or Iran in that regard. Yet mostly what I see in the media, news or social, are people justifying atrocities with more atrocities. A good example is today when they’re arguing over who’s responsible for the bombing of a hospital that killed 500 people. Was it an errant Hamas rocket, as the IDF claims? Orr was it the IDF itself? Either one is plausible, and it doesn’t really matter, because the cycle of violence is in full gear and the excuses for the slaughter will keep the war machine going.
The Times of Israel recently commented that Netanyahu’s government had pursued a policy of propping up Hamas to discredit the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, and the peace process, including the two state solution. I don’t know how credible that theory is, but didn’t seem like a wild accusation, given how well the extremist behavior of Hamas suits the Likud’s ends. And vice versa. The theory that Hamas attacked Israel so brutally on October 7 to provoke an excessive Israeli response sounds both absurd yet frankly plausible, if the calculation is that in expelling Palestinian civilians from the Gaza Strip and bombing the city into rubble Israel alienates support from Saudi Arabia and reunites other Arab or Muslim countries against it. I am not saying this is a wise gamble or a good strategy; it’s immoral and reprehensible and irresponsible. But why would anyone place their trust in the good sense of the Hamas leadership? They don’t appear to know what they are doing.
So this cartoon can only offer mockery of Netanyahu and Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who recently called for jihad from his cozy exile in Qatar. Fuck those guys.
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