As the war in Gaza continues, we need to remember what started the war and what was celebrated in Gaza when the war began. On Friday, The American Thinker posted an article that provides some perspective.
The article reports:
Among the heart-breaking scenes from the Middle-East are video reports showing civilian casualties of the current war. In the West, we cringe at those images, especially the ones showing small children — dead, grievously wounded, or orphaned.
In Gaza, there seems to be little reciprocity of sympathy. Newsmax reports that more than seventy percent of Gazans approve of the October 7 attack on Israel, in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed, many by unspeakable torture. More than eighty percent deny that the atrocities were committed, even after watching the videos sadistically, and boastfully, recorded by the terrorists themselves. This reminds us of the self-contradiction that might be stated as “We did not commit the crimes, and we are glad that we did.”
This is a case of not cognitive dissonance, but rather moral depravity. It is lethal hypocrisy. In seeking to justify acts of evil, the evildoers soon discover that neither have they justification for them, nor do they need it.
Antisemites declare that every Jew should be killed. The rest of us do not have that same genocidal fervor toward Palestinians. While antisemites insist that there are no innocent Jews, sane people recognize that some Palestinians are indeed innocent of terrorism. I recall a news item from years ago in which a Palestinian immigrant to the U.S. explained his reason for leaving his homeland: the people there are crazy, he said, and worse, they demand that all Palestinians join with them in their insanity. We do not want that for our children. We want them to live.
It should also be noted that the money given to create a self-sustaining economy in Gaza was instead spent on tunnels and weapons. Somehow the focus in Gaza has always been on killing Jews–even the kindergarten classes are involved (article here). As long as Arab children in Gaza are taught that martyrdom and killing Jews are a goal, there is no point in even considering a two-state solution. Gaza must be tightly controlled until that point (if it ever comes) when generational hatred is no longer the dominant way of thinking.