The Fallacy of the Assertion that Hamas’ Rockets are at the Root of the Current Conflict in Gaza

The corporate media blame Hamas and Netanyahu as equally responsible for the air strikes in Gaza. (The Biden administration blames Hamas as solely responsible.) The implication is that the inhabitants of Gaza elected Hamas as their representatives and Hamas is a terrorist organization whose central aim is the destruction of Israel. Thus (reading between the lines) the Gaza Palestinians are to blame for their grim fate.

The fallacy of this line of thinking is obvious. The Palestinians living on the West Bank have consistently elected the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which since 1993 has recognized Israel’s right to exist and rejected “violence and terrorism,” and it was subsequently recognized by Israel as the representative of the Palestinian people. Fatah, which is the dominant faction within the PLO, adheres to a social democratic (read: moderate) ideology. However, this has not spared Palestinian inhabitants on the West Bank (and East Jerusalem) of state-sponsored land grabbing by Jewish settlers and the Apartheid policies of the Israeli government. The real issue, then, is Israeli expansionism and its refusal to seriously accept the creation of an independent Palestinian nation.