The Hamas Perspective on the 7 October attack on Israel

10 November 2023

Terrorism is a word that is often ill-defined.  To call someone a terrorist is to assume that they are sub-human, cannot be negotiated with and must be destroyed at all costs or by all methods.

It is forgotten that the US is credited with inventing guerilla warfare during their war of independence aka revolution against Britain. It is also forgotten that when large numbers of Jews wanted to return to Palestine after WW2 the Irgun, their militant group, placed a terrorist bomb in the King David Hotel, the military and civil headquarters of the British Mandate in Jerusalem in 1946.  The war-weary British allowed increasing numbers of Jewish refugees into Palestine, and Ben Gurion declared the State of Israel  in 1948.

Terrorism is the use of violent action to achieve a political result.  It is a tactic usually deployed by the weaker side, as they cannot win a military or political struggle.  It naturally strikes fear into the civilian population as they recognise that any one of them could be a random victim; hence the emotive force of the word ‘terrorist’.

But those who use terrorism usually do so in a calculated way, and if progress is to be made in resolving the issue, there must be rational calculation in the response to it and dialogue if possible.  An emotive or irrational response is likely to worsen the situation, and Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza would have to be in this category.  Unless all Palestinians can be removed from Israel, there is likely to be strife  in Israel as long as the Palestinains survive, and if they are removed from Israel, there will be a nidus of hate outside Israel.

Here is the Hamas perspective which needs a response:

https://fb.watch/odoTimrgOg/