Monday musings: Hamas, false equivalence, and the gaslighting of an atrocity

Just when you think that the state of reason cannot possibly sink lower, you discover a new nadir. And it's no accident.

AP photo

On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian Sunni Islamist terrorist group, Hamas, brutally attacked civilian targets in Israel from the Gaza Strip. This was a barbaric action with no justification, notable more for its cruelty than the achievement of any military or political victory. It seemed designed specifically to cause indiscriminate suffering for political purposes. In that, at least, it has succeeded.

I am not a die-hard, security-at-all-costs supporter of Israel. I think that there are many legitimate grievances in the Middle East involving many parties spanning at least two millennia. It’s a complex situation. But the correct response to a political grievance isn’t to murder teens at a music concert, rape women, and kidnap or kill infants.

What happened in Israel on October 7 is a reminder that evil does, in fact, exist. Deliberately killing, maiming, and kidnapping innocent civilians for the offense of merely existing is unambiguously evil and wrong. I’m pretty much against all of that in every conceivable circumstance. I think that most decent people are.

When I first wrote about this conflict a few months ago, I revealed the philosophical struggle I’ve had with the concept of good vs. evil throughout my life.

As I have grown older, I’ve given a lot of thought to good vs. evil. Earlier in life, I lacked confidence that I could clearly discern which was which in many situations. I have far fewer reservations now. Some people are just asshats. It’s not as terribly complicated as I used to think.

In the case of Hamas vs. Israel on October 7, 2023, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

There is little that’s particularly difficult to discern about the facts at hand here. There was nothing in the political situation between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza that warranted such savagery. This attack was designed to create a narrative that Hamas knew they could eventually control, given the current worldwide fascination with the oppressor vs. victim paradigm.

Hamas knew that Israel would respond with an overwhelming show of force to their attack. In fact, they were counting on it. Their reckoning was that they’d suffer an initial hit in terms of both publicity and tactical standing in the Gaza Strip, but that the long game would benefit them thanks to the status of victimhood granted to them by much of the media, the UN, and their supporters who’ve gained sway in liberal democracies around the world.

Hamas understood that memories are short, that news cycles have a never-ending appetite for new controversy, and that their supporters would be vociferous, if not particularly well-informed (see the protests on many college campuses). By upping the ante with the original strike and then using civilians and civilian infrastructure as shields for military targets, they knew that they’d be able to create outrage over the collateral damage that was bound to occur when Israel attacked.

The last thing that one hears about any controversy is often the most persuasive. Hamas was counting on the fact that long after the headlines about the initial attack had faded, they’d be able to exploit daily images of suffering and death among ordinary Palestinians in Gaza to bolster their cause. This despite the fact that they and they alone were responsible for the current suffering in Gaza through their own actions.

Hamas cynically (and cruelly) judged that martyring their own innocent civilians was a reasonable price to pay for sticking it to Israel. When you place military infrastructure directly beneath a hospital, you do so precisely with the intent of forcing your opponent to send a lot of innocent people to the seven heavens when they respond.

You want to know the worst part about all of this? It appears to be working. News cycles in this country are increasingly filled with coverage that in some way berates and chastises Israel for their “indiscriminate” attacks on Hamas in Gaza—exactly what Hamas was counting on.

Nothing seems likely to blunt this swing in public opinion among the ignorant and easily persuadable. Not the recent revelations that dozens of employees of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) were working with HAMAS on the 10/7 attack, a few even participating directly in it. Not the fact that HAMAS had military infrastructure in tunnels beneath the UNWRA headquarters in Gaza. Not the revelation that an alleged Israeli attack on a hospital early in the conflict, something that the mainstream media uncritically accepted as true, was completely false.

If you want to be a chump for Hamas, knock yourself out. Something may be gleaned from the fact that no other Islamic nation in the Middle East seems eager (or even willing) to accept Palestinian refugees. That says a lot. I wonder if the fact that the Palestinian people elected Hamas to represent them has anything to do with their unpopularity elsewhere in the region.

In a way, this all reminds me of another ill-considered concept popular with the left: the sanctuary city movement. The virtue-signaling sounds great in the abstract. Not so much when the migrants seeking sanctuary actually show up.

Are there two sides to every story? Maybe. It depends on the facts. Sometimes there may be even more than two sides to a story. But you know what? Sometimes there’s really only one. Though the situation between Israel and the Palestinians is complex, Hamas brought the the hurt they are suffering right now on themselves. They did it willfully and with full knowledge of the consequences, as part of a campaign to paint Israel as the aggressor in the conflict by martyring their own people.

But to hear it from the majority of the media, elements of academia, and increasingly from the White House press room, Israel needs to stop the fighting to give Gaza some relief and allow observers to determine the extent of atrocities alleged to have been perpetrated by the Israelis.

There is perhaps no better example of false equivalence than using the decades-long tit-for-tat conflict in Gaza as justification for 10/7. And the gaslighting by supporters of Hamas over Israel’s response to it is stunning in it’s brazenness. Worse, it appears that there really are a number of people out there falling for Hamas’s propaganda. Ignorance doesn’t nearly explain this. It's a willful misunderstanding.

Having said all of that, this is America, where you have the right to be wrong. But hear this: If you are a cheerleader for Hamas and willing to excuse away the evil of 10/7 over some misguided and historically inaccurate sense of Palestinian victimhood, just don’t count on me to feel sorry the day evil arrives at your doorstep.

Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com.