The 7 October 2023 surprise attack of Hamas on the South of Israel with thousands of rockets codenamed ”Al-Aqsa Flood”, surprised me, like doubtless many others, but I was not completely taken aback.
It was a bloody attack in which a great number of Israeli civilians were killed [according to Israeli authorities at least 1200] or abducted and at least 260 people were killed by the Hamas attack on a Festival near kibbutz Re”im.
Of course this deserves strong condemnation, since targeting civilians is not only inhumane, but prohibited by International Humanitarian Law, declaring clear distinction between combatants [soldiers and fighters, who are legitimate targets] and non-combatants [civilians, who must be protected]
So I understand the common [especially Western] sympathy with the Israeli
victims, because I share the feeling.
But there my understanding stops.
Because the almost hysterical ”we stand with Israel” reactions, especially from
the Western World [USA,EU], completely with Israeli flags hanging from their
official buildings [luckily not in Scotland!] is not only hypocrite.
It is disgusting!
Disgusting, because it implies support to Israel as a State and that is, to say
it mildly, controversial.
Because the bloody 7 october Hamas attack and subsequent abduction-operation divert the attention of the important fact, that since 1967 Israel
is the occupying power in the West Bank, Eastern Jerusalem and Gaza [still
occupied according to International Law since Israel controls the Gaza borders, airspace and territorial waters]
Not only Israel refuses to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories
despite UN Security Resolution 242 [1967], there is a decennialong brutal
oppression, Israel is guilty of torture of prisoners, administrative detention,
bloody military attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, with as macabre result thousands and thousands civilian victims, the building [since end of the sixties]
of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory [land theft!], extrajudicial
execution, apartheid, etc., etc.
En despite this brutal occupation the EU never took any sanction against
the State of Israel, which made them complicit in the Israeli occupation
and oppression.
According to International Law every people has the right to rise up against
an occupation, which includes armed resistance.
So Hamas, as any other Palestinian organisation, is in his right in this regard, but of course according International Humanitarian Law
Hamas must refrain from attacks on civilians.
By the way, I wonder whether the EU will also condemn Israel, which right
now launches a bloody attack in Gaza by bombing
Gaza for a whole week, with more than 2200 deaths, as denying the Gazan population water, medicines, fuel and food supplies, in the same strong terms as it condemned Hamas.
Writer : Astrid Essed
