**For my regular readers, this is not my normal content. Feel free to skip this post, as it does not contain any family news. I am following the crisis between the Israelies and the Hamas/Palestinian people, and I want to organize some information in a place where it won't get lost. Thanks!!**
The events of October 7th, 2023, have thrown not only Israel and Palestine into the worst conflict since the Holocaust, it has shocked and horrified the entire world. Protests have been happening all over the globe, and there is a huge outcry for the people of Palestine. Cities have been filled with protests on both sides of the issue, and clashes have ramped up all over the world.
It seems as if every publication or network has a slanted opinion, and they masterfully push their agenda through their reporting. Before I was married, I was a journalist, so I absolutely understand the necessity of unbiased reporting. What I will attempt to do in this post, is lay out some of the context that has been missing for a lot of people. I am not going to give my opinions...I will only be discussing the facts and then provide links to different media organizations who have reported on what I discuss, to provide a better, more complete stance.
The fact is that I am a stranger to most people who will come across this blog. I have wanted to gather some resources and have a comprehensive list that I can come back to and keep updating over time. I had thought about a separate website, but this blog has kept track of everything my family and I have experienced for the last 15 years or so, and given the magnitude of this crisis and how it has touched my life, I want to have this record here. We all know how the internet works...you can have a deeply convicted belief about something and do such intensive combing through the web and gather sources to back your beliefs. Anyone can do this about any subject. Scholars do it to drive a point home, religions do the same with the Bible to justify their beliefs. I am a stranger to most of you, so you will either read this and listen with an open mind, or you will sort through these sources solely to try to catch me out on something to discredit me. I genuinely love intelligent discussions with people who hold different beliefs, and I feel that it is so important to have conversations with people who disagree with us...so that we can learn empathy and study our beliefs in light of new information. By doing this, we will be able to find out if we still believe the same things we once did, after we hear additional information. If we aren't checking ourselves and continuously looking to understand situations in light of additional information, then we will only be deceiving ourselves, thereby becoming an untrustworthy source. It is true that there are three sides...his side, her side, and the truth, that lies somewhere in the midst of that. All I ask is that you respect this blog and understand that a lot of work and research was put into this.
I will be continually adding to this, and if you have any particular questions, disagreements, opinions, I am happy to kindly and civilly discuss these things in the comments and search out more information. I will not reply to anyone who is mean, aggressive, or rude. I understand this is a very charged topic, but we must remain civil.
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I may end up moving the order of things around, but for now, I am going to start where this truly began...at least for the world outside of the Middle East. People have come out saying that it wasn't true that Hamas went door to door...that they didn't search out women and children, and that the beheading of babies was a hoax. The videos below are interviews with members of Hamas, with them discussing what their mission was on October 7th, and what they personally did.
Accounts from 6 activists
Source - Times of India
Accounts from Hamas, who say their instructions on 10/7 were to kill, torture, rape, and behead Israelies.
More interrogations. This Hamas operative explained how his orders from Hamas differ from Muslim religious beliefs. This highlights the mindset of extremists.
It's important to understand the mindset of the Hamas leadership, & hear from them what they expect from their own people. Ismail Haniyeh, a leader of Hamas
explains why Gaza needs the blood and sacrifice of the Palestinian people, specifically women and children.
Something that has been an enormous source for outrage, is the claim that the Israelies (IDF) attack, bomb, and/or kill indiscriminately. What people must understand is that Hamas imbeds its members within the civilian population of Palestine. Instead of trying to protect the Palestinian people, they store their weapons and make their staging grounds in civilian areas, such as schools, churches, hospitals, etc. The clip below is of a member explaining that they use ambulances to move around in the area, to set up ambushes, and to transport any materials they may need, for the sole reason that Israel will not fire on ambulances. They use the conscience of the IDF against them, taking advantage of the fact that Israel purposely will not fire on an ambulance out of a desire to not target civilians. This clearly goes to show how if the world didn't know that, and intelligence informed IDF that Hamas would be moving into place in an ambulance, and if Israel acted on that and struck the ambulance, all Hamas would scream out to the world that the Israelies are targeting the civilian medical population. Context is critical in understanding all the details.
The next videos are focused on the extensive tunnel system underneath Gaza, and the purpose and importance of them. Two of these clips include interviews from sons of Hamas leaders and one is the son of a co-founder of Hamas. Source - Deep Journal Globe.
Another thing that is reported, but then discounted, then reported on and discounted again is the reports of Hamas storing weapons, contraband, uniforms, go bags, intelligence via laptops, communication equipment, and medical supplies (which the Palestinian people say they are out of, but Hamas actually has because it stole it from the civilian population).
Another disturbing thing, is that schools are used to not only store weapons, but they use classrooms as a staging ground. I am only attaching 1 video dedicated to this, but I highly encourage you to research this for yourself.
Even when other nations provide materials to the Gaza Strip and West Bank to help ease the burdens on the Palestinian people, Hamas spits in the face of such kindness. In the clip below, Hamas brags it will use the gift of water pipelines provided by EU to build bombs for the sole purpose of attacking Israel.
There are I think three more points I would like to include below, because it is honestly imperative to not just Americans, but other countries as well. I am including this for context, because not only do we need to understand their history, we need to understand the ideology they hold tightly to. A big movement that we have seen, that has touched many people around the globe, are the Pro-Palistenian protests by the LGBTQ+ community. It only makes sense that this group would feel a kinship and solidarity with a group of people who are seemingly being attacked, persecuted, and killed. The issue that we have got to understand is that this particular group of people have extreme religious convictions that are in direct contradiction with the LGBTQ+ community. It is common knowledge that people who are a part of this community are not just outcasts to them...they have a deep hatred and an inability to agree to disagree. It is not an exaggeration when you hear people talk about Palestinian people being murdered by being thrown off tall buildings, an being dragged behind vehicles until they are dead and dismembered, simply for wanting to live authentically. In some of the interviews I watched, Palestinian people, when asked how they feel about having the support of the LGBTQ+ groups, actually laugh, call them infidels, and express that they don't want their support. There are some people who are happy to have the support, but the vast majority of people not only explain that they don't want any support from that group, but they call those individuals all kinds of names and exclaim how stupid they are. This is the religion who justifies honor killings of their own children. It is of no consequence to them to kill a stranger. The irony is that they believe so strongly in their faith, that if a person from the LGBTQ+ community visited Palestine, there is a very real possibility that they would be murdered because of that belief. What Americans get wrong is believing that there is a mutual respect and support for each other, because of the shared feelings of oppression. But you cannot ascribe those feelings of kinship to a people who do not see any similarity when they look at you.
I also believe it is important for younger American citizens to have a glimpse of how Palestine reacted when we were attacked on 9/11. There are conspiracies galore about the cause of the attacks, but we need to take a real look at who mourned with us and who celebrated in that terrible loss of life. I was a senior at university when 9/11 happened, and I will not waste your time with information you don't care about, but 9/11 set the course of my life on a trajectory I wasn't prepared for, and everything has been shaped by those attacks ever since. We have to look at this with clear eyes, and know who our allies are and who they are not. The entire world watched Palestine celebrate the attacks. There was dancing in the streets, and the joy and jubilation they expressed toward the loss of life in the U.S. is still something those of us who lived through it will always remember. While Americans are gathering in protest for the Palestinian people they feel so much sorrow for, the Palestinian people look at us in absolute amazement that we are so dumb. Do some searching...they think Americans are fools, and they laugh at our ignorance. While we are raising their flag and our hearts are breaking for them, they have nothing but contempt for the American infidels and the members of the LGBTQ+ community, that they would kill without a single care or concern. That is not my impression...my opinion...it is based on the hours of footage and hours of written materials the Palestinian people have taped and written. These clips show a tiny bit of that belief.
Another part of this difficult topic, perhaps maybe even more controversial than the subject of how Palestinians view the LGBTQ+ community, is not just the ideology, but just how young they start teaching these beliefs to children. Coming from a culture where we shelter and protect our kids, it seems almost impossible that this is happening. But it is, and although it is so difficult to see, we need to understand that these beliefs are what they believe in completely.
Most of the children we know, are not singing children's songs, with Mickey Mouse, that includes the subject of AK-47, death, and war. While the U.S. continues to struggle with differing beliefs regarding gun legislation, in the Middle East, children are attending summer camp to learn how to wage Jihad. This first clip is an interview by a mother who gives great insight on how they view this loss of life in relation to their faith.
The cartoon below is especially unnerving.
And I will wind up this first round of videos with the interview of a Palestinian peace activist: This is a pretty good overall summary of the Palestinian authority and Hamas conflict. (Forbes)
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