I am a believer in peace. I have fought in a war and see no good in them. Fighting wars in the name of religion is anti-religious. Not a single GOD of any of the religions in the world advocates war. Only the extreme elements of religions are such advocates.
Wars in the Middle East has been a fact of life for centuries, all in the name of religion. They are fought by the extreme elements from two or more religions who believe in the same GOD. Seems a little crazy, but these wars are about imposing one set of values on another group of people, and that's wrong.
This brings me to the current war between Israel and Hamas.
There is no argument that the acts of October 7, 2023 against Israel by Hamas were horrendous and barbaric, but then Hamas is a barbaric and extreme right wing element that seeks to impose it's will against Israel. It's important to note that this isn't a war between Islam and Jews, it's a war between a radical wing of Hamas against the government of Israel.
While the vile acts of murder and hostage taking should not be condoned by any country, the overwhelming response by Israel against the people of Gaza should also not be condoned. The Palestinian people have no dog in this fight and want to live in peace in the tiny areas within Israel where they are forced to live by the Israel government.
HAMAS, which means Islamic Resistance Movement, is the de facto government of Gaza with a militant force of about 40,000. The Arab population of Gaza is about 2 million with another 3 million Arabs living in the West Bank.
Support of Hamas among Palestinians is very low, only 23%. Most of the Palestinians want nothing to do with Hamas, who took over in a coup in 2007. Life is bad enough already, living in a walled area controlled by Israel. The Palestinians don't want this war.
So here's my quandary.
Hamas was wrong, but did that give the Israel the right to completely destroy Gaza and the homes and lives of more than 2 million Palestinians? Israel's right to protect itself is understood, but when you bomb the 141 sq miles of Gaza to pulp and kill 32,000 innocent civilians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, that is overkill on an enormous scale. That's a 26 to 1 kill ratio.
And the killing goes on.
Israel has a right to exist, but Israel exists because Britain established "a national home for the Jewish people" in 1917. That Balfour Declaration also was supposed to protect the rights of the Arab majority. Of what was Palestine before the 1917 Mandate, 75% is controlled by the Kingdom of Jordan, 23% by the State of Israel, and about 2% by the Palestinian Authority (the West Bank), and 0.3% by Hamas, which is Gaza.
The British Mandate in fact pushed the Arabs out of their own country, with Israel further pushing them into the West Bank and Gaza. Over the years, Israel has continued to put Jewish settlements in the Arab areas, which is much of the strain driving this and previous Arab-Israeli conflicts.
The only solution is for Israel to establish a Palestinian state, which they refuse to do; and for Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to stop denying Israel's right to exist. Will that ever happen? Not anytime soon!
In the meantime, people die, and starve, and cry over lost families, and try to make sense of why all of this has to happen.
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