As a Palestinian, I urge my fellow brothers and sisters and anyone who supports our people to be cautious of Hamas’s actions. Hamas has been the main cause of our suffering, not Israel. Despite its claims, Hamas is not a social justice movement and does not care about the Palestinian people. It is a criminal gang that only seeks to increase its power.
The Gaza Wars of 2021, 2014, 2012, and 2008 have been disastrous for us, costing us dearly in lives and treasure. Hamas has led us into chaos, and its actions have only made things worse. The water isn’t safe to drink, the power goes out for hours at a time, and raw sewage washes up on our beaches. These failures are not the fault of Israel but rather Hamas.
Hamas steals imported cement meant to build homes for us and uses it instead to build a massive network of tunnels from which it hopes to terrorize Israelis. It diverts humanitarian aid meant for us to its favored elites who sell it for a profit on the black market. It uses us as human shields, stationing rocket launchers and missile arsenals in our apartments, office buildings, schools, and even hospitals.
Israel uses rockets to defend its people, while Hamas uses people to defend its rockets. Hamas doesn’t have a war strategy; it fires missiles at the most highly populated regions of Israel with no specific target. As much as 25 percent of all rockets launched by Hamas in May 2021 crashed within Gaza, killing 50 civilians whose deaths were falsely blamed on Israel. Some of the Hamas missiles that Israeli Defense Forces failed to intercept ended up exploding in places like Jaffa, Abu Ghosh, and Lod, where Arab Israelis live. Palestinians living in Israel are as likely to be killed as Israelis themselves.
Despite all this, what was gained from these conflicts? Palestinians living in those four buildings in Sheikh Jarrah will still eventually be evicted, a fact that has been known to those families since they sold away the title to those buildings. Think about the even greater number of Palestinians who are now homeless in Gaza because Hamas chose to hide weapons in residential buildings. And when naïve American and European NGOs offer millions to “rebuild Gaza,” who do you think will get that money? It won’t be you – the people who really deserve it and need it – it will be the leaders of the Hamas gang and their friends who will add new rooms to their fancy villas rather than rebuild homes, purchase coronavirus vaccines, or provide social services for their people.
The peace we so deserve, the peace that could have been possible when Israel withdrew entirely from the Gaza Strip in 2005, will be even further out of reach. Hamas robbed us of that chance when it set up its military gang then. It’s robbing us of the same chance now. No matter how many Jews it manages to kill, Hamas will never be satisfied. It will never stop lying. But you can stop believing its lies.
In conclusion, Hamas is not the solution to our problems, and it is not the ally we need. We must work towards peace and reconciliation with Israel, not violence and destruction. We must hold Hamas accountable for its actions and demand that they stop using us as human shields and stop terrorizing innocent people. We must work towards building a better future for ourselves and our children, one that is based on peace, prosperity, and equality.
