Why the Palestinian Perspective Resonates

Father and daughter reunion - a moment of true joy

It was very brief. My elation over the rescue of 4 hostages was quickly tempered by the fact that there are still 120 hostages (by most estimates) remaining in Hamas captivity. 

The rescued hostages were housed in an apartment building in the  middle of a densely populated section of Gaza.  I doubt that ‘innocent’ Palestinians knew nothing about it. I’m sure there were at least some that were quite aware and said nothing – thus acting in complicity with Hamas. Apparently one hostage (Noa Argamani) was held in the apartment of Palestinian journalist, Abdallah al-Jamal!

As would be expected, the mainstream media reporting was initially very positive in this regard. Focusing on the relief and joy friends and relatives were experiencing at the reunion with loved ones and the genuine celebratory moment the nation was feeling when this was announced. 4 hostages are now safe and sound after nearly 8 months of torturous captivity. The media mentioned only briefly at the end that there were Palestinian casualties during the rescue.

That was last night and didn’t last long. This morning on the same network, a news anchor on an early nationally broadcast radio news segment, said something along the following lines: 

Yesterday, Israel’s military killed 200 Palestienian civilians and wounded over400 in a raid in Gaza. Doctors without Borders are saying that as a result of actions like this since the war started, injured Palestinians will ,need medical attention for months and perhaps years to come  - even after any cease fire. That attack retrieved 4 hostages.

To be fair, later this morning  another reporter from that same network continued presenting the story along the same positive lines they did last night adding that the raid used intelligence provided by the US.  

This once again demonstrates that journalistic bias is alive and well and still disguised as objective reporting. The extremely damning report I heard early this morning was obviously made by someone who sees the Israeli government as little more than Jewish Nazis who are committing genocide against an indigenous population.  I’m pretty sure she does not consider herself an antisemite either. 

The strange thing is I get it. I completely understand why Palestinians and their sympathizers hate Israel so much. Palestinian’s have an entirely different perspective on the little piece of land we call Israel. Let me play devil’s advocate. Here goes.

From its very inception over 100 years ago, the goal of Zionism was to colonize Palestine with European Jews. Which quickly turned that land into the Apartheid state that it is today.  

What right did a bunch of European Jews have to come into our land and start colonizing it? What moral right did these European  Jews have to purchase land from wealthy absentee Arab landowners and kick out our parents and grandparents whose ancestors had been living on that land for decades if not centuries? 

And these renegade Jews had the nerve to declare themselves a Jewish state? By what right? The UN? Who gave the UN the right to give our land away? 

The Holocaust, you say?! Why is that our fault? Why do we have to pay the price for what Europe did to the Jews? Let the Jews go back to Europe and make them to pay for what they did! If its even true! Why do we have to suffer for what someone else did?

What about the Zionist historical claim to this land? 

Really? You’re really making a claim that your supposed rule in a land over 2000 years ago has any bearing on the present? Please! 

Your religious claims are just as meaningless to us as your version of the bible. Our ‘bible’ (the Quran) gives no such ownership of Palestine to the Jews. It gives it to us! 

What about all those claims about Israel’s contribution to the world?

Please! Any contributions Israeli Jews may have made to the world was at our expense. Why is that different from what Mengele contributed to the world of medicine at the expense of the Jews? It is only a matter of degree. Both came while people living under their thumb were/are considered an underclass, subjugated and humiliated.   

For 76  years now Jews have built themselves a nice little country on our backs. Forcing us to live in squalor. We do not recognize this Apartheid Zionist state - taken from us by force. 

We want back what is ours. We support the armed struggle by Hamas and Islamic Jihad  to get it back. By any and all means necessary.  Justice for Palestine is long overdue. It’s  time for the Apartheid Zionist state to end. Anything towards that end is both necessary and ethical. If it takes an October 7^th to do it. so be it. This is why we cheered when it happened. It’s about time Israel had a taste of their own medicine. It’s about time that we get back the heroic freedom fighters rotting in Israeli prisons.

We appreciate all the brave young people on college campuses all over the world who understand our plight and seek justice for us. They know what this fight is really about. The war with Hamas is just a distraction. But it has nevertheless woken up in idealistic young people the sense of injustice that is the Zionist state of Israel. 

76 years of Palestinian suffering is long enough These young Palestinian protestors mean it when they say ‘Free Palestine from the river to the sea’. They understand that our land was stolen from us and we want it back. Justice demands it. It is a holy cause. This is what God wants. Alahu Akbar!

 End of rant. 

This is where Palestinians are coming from and why they cheered the October 7^th debauchery of their ‘heroes’. This is what Palestinian professors and leftist social justice warriors all believe. This is what they preach to every student they can get their hands on. 

All of which is reflected by ongoing (albeit diminishing) protests against Israel and against American support for them. This is what ultimate justice looks like to them. They do not simply want a cease fire, they want to see the end of the Jewish sate - which is to be replaced by a Palestinian state. 

This is the PR mountain Israel has to climb. And it’s a pretty steep one. It helps to know the mentality of the people we are fighting. And why we are losing the PR battle in a world that seems to be steadily moving leftward. 

Civilian casualties?  If Hamas wants to save innocent Palestinian lives, they know what to do. 

Thank God that (except for a few House members) this is not the narrative that the vast majority of either of the 2 political parties in the US buys into. And thank God these 4 hostages were rescued. Now let’s get them all home!