(Here are examples: whats-the-problem-with-hasbara-the-balfour-declaration.html & the-mitzvah-regarding-amalek-and-how-it-means-something-other-than-what-many-assume.html.)
Yet even very good and intelligent people seem trapped in another not-completely-correct narrative: the idea that Hamas lies at the root of everything wrong in Gaza.
All the debates center around how much the Gazans support Hamas, and that Gaza would be just dandy if only Hamas didn't exist...hamashamashamashamashamas, ad naseam.
They also get caught up in arguing over numbers of civilians killed as in: "The IDF killed 35,000 civilians! It's genocide!" "No way! How can you believe those numbers? How dare you rely on Hamas to provide you with statistics! The number of civilians killed is actually lower! And anyway, those are great stats compared to other instances of urban warfare."
All that completely ignores the fact that hardly any civilians exist in Gaza.
Many people consider the elderly, women, teens, and children in Gaza as innocent civilians when they AREN'T, as will be shown throughout this post.
Many people conjure up the image of a Gazan Arab family man yearning to live a normal life in a Western-style democracy, a man who hates war and wishes we could all just get along so he can go back to work.
(Such a man almost doesn't exist in Gaza, as you'll see below.)
It also gives the impression that Gazan Arabs remain under the thumb of an unwanted dictatorship.
It's true that in some countries, the citizens don't support the terrorism of their government.
For example, many Lebanese Muslims (particular those close to the Israeli border) resent Hezbullah's attacks on Israel — not because they feel bad for the Jews in Israel, but because they get caught in the crossfire and they simply do not hate enough to want to sacrifice their quality of life in order to destroy Israel.
Similarly, many Iranians do not hate Jews, non-Muslims, or Western culture. Yes, they hold on to their millennia-old ethnocentrism that they as Persians (descended from Yafet) stand superior to Arabs (descended from Shem). As shown by their rebellion during the Obama years, many disagree with their government's policies.
However, Gazan Arabs DO support terror and obsessively fan the flames of Jew-hatred via their media, math books, and every other way possible.
This narrative, this assumption of Hamas as the root of all evil, is absolutely NOT TRUE.
Don't feel bad about getting caught up in that narrative because I did too.
When all sides — including your own — obsessively discuss just Hamas all the time, it's hard to take a step back and say, "Wait a minute...Gaza cultivates a lot more terror than just Hamas!"
It's Not about Hamas – It's about Terror & Hatred
- the Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City — the Dachduch clan hosts a branch of the Islamic Jihad terror organization
- the Shuja'iyeh neighborhood of Gaza City — the Hilas clan hosts a branch of Fatah terror organization
- the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City — the Dughmush clan founded Jaysh al Islam (the Army of Islam, who kidnapped Gilad Shalit)
- the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza city — the Abu Sharia clan founded Khatib Al-Mujahidin (often translated as "Holy Warriors Battalion" or "Al Mujahideen Brigades," who abducted and still hold hostage Shiri Bibas along with her young son Ariel and her baby Kefir)
You can also find photos and videos online of WOMEN — including young women — in hijab and robes on stage at rallies wearing the colors and sporting the flag of their clan's terrorist organization.
Likewise, videos appeared of old Arab men looting the still-warm bodies of murdered Jews. So they're definitely not innocent civilians either.
Artist Batia Holin was duped by a Gazan pretending to be her loving friend and artistic partner — when he was actually part of the terrorist network. (the vile young man lived in Shuja'iyeh, which as you can see above, is occupied by the Hilas clan, which is connected to the Fatah terror organization and NOT Hamas.
Too bad Batia thought it was all about Hamas and didn't realize she needed to be wary of the Hilas-occupied neighborhood of her "friend."
In a nutshell, this all means that if Mrs. Abu Sharia declares her opposition to Hamas, this does NOT make her a good gal or an innocent civilian.
Mrs. Abu Sharia OPPOSES HAMAS BECAUSE SHE SUPPORTS THE KHATIB AL-MUJAHIDIN TERROR ORGANIZATION, which wholeheartedly participated in the horrors of October 7th, and also sees nothing immoral about abducting 10-month-olds — because that's how old Kefir Bibas was when Khatib Al-Mujahidin snatched him, along with his mother Shiri and his 4-year-old brother Ariel.
(Just to drive the point home, please note the root of "jihad — j-h-d" in the term Al-Mujahidin.)
Therefore, Mrs. Abu Sharia is NOT an INNOCENT civilian — or any kind of civilian at all.
She is a terrorist.
Either she actively participated in looting and tormenting Jews during the Great Horror from Gaza (some women did) or she participates in rallies to whip up support for her clan's terror organization or she raises her children to carry out gory acts against Jews and to hate, hate, and hate.
Any way you slice it, she functions as an active participant in this terrorist organization.
If she's old or passive, she supports the terror in her heart and encourages her family and neighbors to support it too.
Therefore:
We DON'T need to feel bad if a bomb drops on Mrs. Abu Sharia's head.
We DON'T need to feel bad if she gets hit by an RPG, a tank shell, or a bullet.
We DON'T need to feel bad if she's a refugee.
We DON'T need to feel bad if she needed to walk on foot to southern Gaza while the Israelis bombed Gaza City, then back again when the Israelis went to deal with southern Gaza.
We DON'T need to feel bad about Hamas snatching up all her humanitarian aid.
We DON'T need to feel concerned that perhaps her death signifies genocide.
Again, she is an enthusiastic member of a terrorist organization that adores death, gore, destruction, and hatred.
Mrs. Abu Sharia is a vile, wicked person (along with the rest of the Abu Sharias and their clingers-on).
So it's perfectly okay if she bites the dust.
My Clan über Alles
So it's one or more of the following:
(A) They support Hamas.
(B) They lack an official organization, but they still hate Jews and are fine with terror.
(C) They still hate Jews and are fine with terror; they just wish they had a bigger piece of the pie (i.e., more dominance to strong-arm advantages to their clan)
Facing an Uncomfortable Reality with Compassion & Common Sense
Part of the whole "innocent civilians" propaganda that Jew-haters like to scream about includes children.
It's true that nothing exists in the Gazan environment to combat the brainwashing of children to hate Jews.
If we'd take them out of that terror-obsessed environment and put them in a secular Western environment, they'd change.
Or maybe not, judging by the secular Western masses around the world who accuse Israel of genocide and seek to justify atrocities committed by Gazan Arabs.
The thorny and admittedly uncomfortable problem is that the same 10-year-olds Israel had mercy on in 2004 and DIDN'T bomb them into oblivion grew up to be the same 19-year-olds who slaughtered Jews in 2023.
Likewise, 10-year-olds participated in the looting and torment of Jews.
You can see this on videos of that horrific day.
Additionally, Gazan children swarmed around the incoming Jewish hostages to whack them — including the Jewish children their age and younger.
It's hard to make a strong case for keep Jewish children in danger from terror and rockets just so these terror-infused Gazan children won't be inadvertently harmed in war.
As explained in a prior post, the Yishmaelite terrorist organizations have created an untenable situation in which children must die, but force the Jews to decide which children — theirs or ours:
roger-smith-vs-the-haters-a-parable-for-our-times.html
So the blame and responsibility of Gazan children facing harm in war lies solely on the Gazans.
All the protesters around the world are basically saying, "We only care about Gazan children. Jewish children must die so Gazan children can live to grow up and slaughter more Jews."
The Crime Families of the South
- Sha'ar
- Kashatah
Conveniently located near the Egyptian border, these clans function as crime families.
They excel in the trafficking of drugs, weapons, and human beings.
I don't know which terrorist organization they support (though they definitely support terror against Jews), but due to their location near the border of the easily bribed Egyptian culture, they tend to focus on the above-mentioned crimes.
Obviously, the weapons and drugs they smuggle are used to hurt innocent people.
Their human trafficking is downright vile. I don't know the details, but human trafficking tends to create horribly traumatic situations, so why should theirs be any different?
Knowing their commitment to trafficking, it was no surprise that the Israelis discovered tunnels between southern Gaza and Egypt, however I admit to being surprised to hear about so many — 50 tunnels in all.
It also made me wonder whether some of the hostages are in Egypt — a chilling thought.
In addition to their crimes, they also inflame Jew-hatred the same way the rest of Gaza does.
So as with the examples above, the Arabs in Rafah are also not innocent civilians.
Modern Gaza isn't Nazi Germany – It's Worse
Yet what many don't seem to realize is how in that sense, the present Gazan population is much worse than the German population under the Nazis.
The Nazis lied about their atrocities. Certainly, history shows us many Germans knew the truth and even actively participated in the violence. Others knew, but chose to pretend not to know.
Yet some really didn't know. They hated Jews and were fine with them disappearing, but didn't know the extent of the atrocities.
Though Nazism found a solid foothold in a culture full of latent Amalekites and church theology which demonizes Jews, those who read even a poor translation of our Tanach and their gospels realized that wanton massacres are not holy in the Eyes of God.
That sounds odd as Jewish history brims with blood spilled by church-influenced Europe in crusades, massacres, and pogroms.
But for most of that history, nearly everyone was illiterate.
So it was easy for priests, popes, and princes to rile up the masses against Jews in the name of their god.
If you look at Western history, you'll notice that as the average citizen developed literacy, their violent Jew-hatred lessened. (You'll also notice that's not always true. After all, the priests were perfectly literate — and literate in multiple languages — yet they were the ones who incited the blood-lust of the masses against the Jews.)
Nonetheless, there is a correlation between those who read stuff like "Thou shalt not murder" and "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and a lessening of the violent expression of Jew-hatred.
For example, in the book The Sun and the Shield, the rabbinical Paneth family often found compassion in the barefoot gentile peasant women, who either hid Jews, fed Jews who showed up at their door, or brought food to Jews trapped in the forest ghetto.
When they mentioned the reason for their compassion and courage (the Nazis threatened to torture to death anyone who helped Jews), they attributed it to their belief in God.
Of course, these good and courage gentiles represented the minority of their co-religionists, as was true throughout Europe at that time.
But many, if not most, of those who saved Jews did so out of religious conviction.
Even the secular socialist groups in Belgium and France could not have saved the Jews without the willingness of nuns and priests to both liaison (as some priests did in the confessional when a parishioner requested advice regarding the Jews he or she hid) and conceal Jewish (mostly Jewish children) in their churches, monasteries, and convents.
Having acknowledged that good, it also must be said that many of them also resisted returning their Jewish charges back to the Jewish people, choosing instead to lie to surviving Jews who sought out the surviving Jewish children (though they usually — but not always — agreed to return a child to a surviving parent) and keeping the children within the church framework, resulting in who-knows-how-many Jewish children grew up never knowing their roots and wholly assimilating into gentile society.
The point is that even an church-going adult living in Germany during the rise of Nazism had exposure to an opposing ideology ("Thou shalt not murder," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not stand idly by," etc.).
In Gaza, even this does not exist.
There is absolutely nothing in Gazan Arab culture that exposes them to anything but Jew-hatred and the glorification of violent Jihad.
Remember, most of them know Arabic only, so even if they have access to the Internet, they will not come across anything that tells them their ideology is wrong.
The amount of Arabic-language material sympathetic to Jews and Israel is miniscule, so it's unlikely they'd come across it. If they did, it's not enough to change their mind.
We see this in how Israeli soldiers who patrolled Gaza often handed out candies to the Arab children, played with them, and treated them with kindness, yet years of these kindnesses made no positive impression on these children (save for one who eventually left Gaza and converted to Judaism).
Furthermore, Gazan culture glorifies gore and the slaughter of Jews. There is no "prettifying" or obfuscation of the atrocities. From birth, everyone is exposed to the glorification of barbarism and Jew-hatred.
Many have been videotaped, recorded, and written about how they wish to die and wish their children to die, how they love death.
So comparing the bombing of Gaza to the bombing of Nazi Germany is ironically not a completely accurate comparison because the mentality in Gaza is so much worse and all-consuming.
Summary of Main Points
- Hardly any "innocent civilians" live in Gaza. They've undergone at least 2 generations of obsessive multi-level programming to embrace death, gore, terrorism, and Jew-hatred.
- When given the opportunity, Gazan Arabs of either gender and all ages act out their Jew-hatred with tremendous animalism and cruelty — this includes Gazan Arab children.
- Hardly any Arab in Gaza has a problem with Hamas terrorism. Anyone who opposes Hamas does so out of envy of Hamas's dominance and power — and that's it.
- If Hamas disappeared tomorrow, Gazan Arabs would simply embrace another terrorist group with the same goals and methods as Hamas.
- Gazan Arabs remain mostly unable to receive exposure to any other ideology other than a terrorist ideology.
As repeated many times here, I'm not saying we should all go out and argue with people. What you do with the above information depends on your situation and abilities.
But at least know for yourself that the accepted narrative is very flawed, and that even those on our side need to reject the set narrative and present the situation as it really is.
Don't allow other people who aren't interested in truth or justice to set the narrative.
Note: Some try to portray Fatah as "moderate."
It absolutely is not (just maybe quieter or weaker than other terrorist organizations).
Please read these excerpts from the Fatah Charter (emphases mine):
Article 9. Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine and is therefore a strategy and not a tactic. . .
Article 15. The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national duty… to purge the Zionist presence from Palestine…
Article 21. The Arab Palestinian people, in expressing itself through the armed Palestinian revolution, rejects all solutions which are substitutes for a complete liberation of Palestine, and rejects all plans that aim at the liquidation of the Palestinian problem or its internationalization.
Article 22. .. .Israel is a constant source of threat to peace in the Middle East and the entire world. Since the liberation of Palestine will liquidate the Zionist and imperialist presence and bring about the stabilization of peace in the Middle East.
It is blatantly terrorist.