Hamas: We Love Death Like You Israelis Love Life
Hamas leader Muhammad Deif: "Today you [Israelis] are fighting divine soldiers, who love death for Allah like you love life, and who compete among themselves for Martyrdom like you flee from death." (Sound starts a bit late in the video.)
Thane Rosenbaum writes in the WSJ of Hamas's civilian death strategy:
Let's state the obvious: No one likes to see dead children. Well, that's not completely true: Hamas does. They would prefer those children to be Jewish, but there is greater value to them if they are Palestinian. Outmatched by Israel's military, handicapped by rocket launchers with the steady hands of Barney Fife, Hamas is playing the long game of moral revulsion.With this conflict about to enter its third week, winning the PR war is the best Hamas can hope to achieve. Their weapon of choice, however, seems to be the cannon fodder of their own people, performing double duty in also sounding the drumbeat of Israeli condemnation. If you can't beat Iron Dome, then deploy sacrificial children as human shields.
...The people of Gaza overwhelmingly elected Hamas, a terrorist outfit dedicated to the destruction of Israel, as their designated representatives. Almost instantly Hamas began stockpiling weapons and using them against a more powerful foe with a solid track record of retaliation.
What did Gazans think was going to happen? Surely they must have understood on election night that their lives would now be suspended in a state of utter chaos. Life expectancy would be miserably low; children would be without a future. Staying alive would be a challenge, if staying alive even mattered anymore.
To make matters worse, Gazans sheltered terrorists and their weapons in their homes, right beside ottoman sofas and dirty diapers. When Israel warned them of impending attacks, the inhabitants defiantly refused to leave.
On some basic level, you forfeit your right to be called civilians when you freely elect members of a terrorist organization as statesmen, invite them to dinner with blood on their hands and allow them to set up shop in your living room as their base of operations. At that point you begin to look a lot more like conscripted soldiers than innocent civilians. And you have wittingly made yourself targets.
It also calls your parenting skills into serious question. In the U.S. if a parent is found to have locked his or her child in a parked car on a summer day with the windows closed, a social worker takes the children away from the demonstrably unfit parent. In Gaza, parents who place their children in the direct line of fire are rewarded with an interview on MSNBC where they can call Israel a genocidal murderer.








If Israel was bent on genocide, they're doing it wrong.
Carpet bomb Gaza from Egypt to Israel and from the sea to the border. Leave no building intact. It would look an awful lot like this.
But that's in Syria, and committed by Arabs against Arabs so no one says boo about it. Well, there's grumbling, but that's about it.
I R A Darth Aggie at August 1, 2014 8:07 AM
It also calls your parenting skills into serious question. In the U.S. if a parent is found to have locked his or her child in a parked car on a summer day with the windows closed, a social worker takes the children away from the demonstrably unfit parent.
No, what happens is you're called a "good parent" who made a "horrible mistake" (because parents are all exhausted from all that parenting they do), the authorities call it a "tragic accident," and absolutely nothing happens after that.
Kevin at August 1, 2014 9:36 AM
I haven’t seen stories about Gazans rushing into bomb shelters with only minutes to spare. Do they have bomb shelters?
Is it possible that they have suffered repeated, indiscriminate attacks from Israel (their view), yet have no bomb shelters?
Tunnels Yes, bomb shelters No?
Andrew_M_Garland at August 1, 2014 10:53 AM
Leave a comment