Hamas’ War Crimes: An Inexcusable Response To The Ongoing Israeli Crime Against Humanity

Why do Palestinians attack Israel? When people are forced to live in grinding poverty — and the Gaza Strip has one of the highest poverty rates in the world — it is all too easy for hate and extremism to take hold, especially against a nation whose policies perpetuate such poverty among one’s people. (IMEMC News)

By now we’ve all seen the reports of Hamas’ surprise attack against Israel (which they may have been warned about), seen the wanton slaughter of up to a thousand Israelis (most of whom were innocent civilians), and read about the kidnapping of at least one hundred women and children to be used as hostages, and who are to be killed one-by-one for every further Israeli attack on civilians in the Gaza Strip.

These are war crimes, inexcusable by any measure, and its perpetrators must be prosecuted for those crimes before the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

But while the murders and kidnappings (and any other crimes committed against the hostages) cannot and must not be excused, anyone with an objective eye on history can see how in many ways, Israel has brought this upon its own people.

That last phrase is outrageous — it’s “blaming the victim”, right? Not really, not if the victim isn’t a victim at all. Few Americans seem to grasp just how egregious Israel’s behavior has been towards the Palestinians, a good description of which can be found in this report by Amnesty International which describes how

massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement…