By James Hinden
I, James Hinden, am a writer you don’t know behind a screen, telling you how to think. You, the reader, are new to this page - you have to be, because so am I. The majority of what will be written here going forward will have a fair amount of humor built in to make otherwise heavy (or ADHD-unfriendly) topics more palatable. This piece isn’t one of them - there's nothing to laugh at in genocide. On that positive note, let’s begin.
You already know this: on October 7th 2023, Hamas fighters crossed the most secure national border in the entire world (it’s not even close) and attacked a festival on the other side. The IDF took 5 whole hours to respond, in a country so small that it’s a 6 hour drive top to bottom - the math isn’t mathing, but I digress. Reports of mass rape and beheaded babies, while still widely believed by the general public, have been dismissed even by the Israeli government themselves.
Opposing reports, which alleged that the Israeli military gunned down its own people, thereby artificially increasing the death toll, were immediately flagged and dismissed as anti-semitic conspiracy theories. This claim of course has now been openly admitted as true by Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant as an action taken in line with the Hannibal Directive: Israeli military doctrine aimed at preventing the capture of its own people by absolutely any means available. As a brief aside, your author is currently accepting apologies for previous accusations of conspiracy theorism regarding this point. Moving on. We all know none of this ended here; everyone talks about October 7th, but what about the 8th? October 9th? October 10th?
It would be impossible to list here every excruciating milestone of a year and a half of genocide, but I can sure try. If you find this next bit unsavory, good - it’s supposed to be. Let’s start from the start: without delay, “targeted airstrikes” leveled entire city blocks in residential Gazan neighborhoods. This striking contradiction of the narrative put forward by legacy news outlets was made immediately apparent by unedited videos circulating on social media, which have been easily one of the most useful tools in debunking billionaire-funded misinformation media. None of this exposure stopped the Israeli government from shooing Palestinian families south under the guise of sanctuary in Rafa.
The aforementioned cellphone videos on social media provided us all with a grisly look at the reality on the ground. It’s one thing to read a headline, it’s another to watch a teenager slowly burn to death on a futon, an IV still in his arm. That’s an image that will never leave my head - I’ve now seen so many similar examples that I’m almost desensitized to watching human beings burn alive.
This of course is not the only appalling footage coming to us from Gazan hospital tents, as we were also treated to the nightmarish sights and sounds of an Israeli bulldozer crushing trapped, wounded Palestinians as they plead to deaf ears. For those already familiar with the history of this struggle, you can’t help but be reminded of the gruesome death of Rachel Corrie: a 23 year old American human rights activist, crushed to death by another Israeli bulldozer in Rafa 22 years ago. It’s true: “history didn’t begin on October 7th”.
Jumping forward to the present, past an election cycle where two competing war criminals fought over who would bomb kids harder, we reach our current state of broken ceasefire. This arrangement (again) was always a complete joke; the IDF repeatedly bombed, sniped, kidnapped, tortured, raped, and generally made life hell for Palestinian civilians, especially in the West Bank. The violation of this ceasefire was explained away by Hamas’ refusal to release additional hostages prior to negotiating an end to the conflict - which was never part of the agreement. The first day of Israel’s return to full-scale assault marked the highest civilian death toll since 2023, including more than 170 children.
To make matters worse, the Israeli government has (for 23 consecutive days) cut off all food, water and electricity to the besieged Palestinians, violating the Rome Statute of the Geneva Convention by way of starvation as a method of warfare. Largely due to this blockade, seven injured children just had limbs amputated without anesthesia - take a moment and imagine it. In Netanyahu’s own words, this is “only the beginning”.
As if all that wasn’t enough, president Donald Trump now loudly boasts of his plan to take over the Gaza Strip, bulldoze and redevelop it, forcibly displacing the 1.8 million Palestinians he says live there. This figure is significant: it is 400,000 less than the 2.2 million Palestinians living in Gaza before October 7th. Do some quick math, and that’s nearly 20% of the population killed, nearly one out of five. This of course does nothing to account for the exponentially greater number of Palestinians who have been injured throughout this genocidal campaign, or an entire population given PTSD.
If you find it mentally draining to dwell on such things, imagine what life must be like for those on the ground. I’m not even finished, we could go on: rape of prisoners by trained dogs, systemic torture programs, IDF foot soldiers smiling for pictures with Gazan womens’ underwear, yesterday’s beating and subsiquent disappearance of “No Other Land” co-director Hamdan Ballal - you get it. The real question is how any American could still support all this, given the overwhelming evidence of hell on earth, pure evil on the taxpayer’s dime? For that, let’s examine what the Palestinian people, as well as the international anti-war community have said for decades: Israel hides behind the catch-all excuse of “self-defense” to gain immunity for genocide and crimes against humanity in the occupied territories. As it’s the most common zionist defense, let’s debunk this one immediately:
What constitutes self-defense? If I slap you in the face and you slap me back, that's self defense. Agreed? Good. Alternatively: I slap you in the face, you call in a drone strike on my family before torturing me to death…a reasonable person would question whether you've crossed a line. Proportionality matters - as a general rule, and under international law (repeatedly violated by the IDF). In any other context this wouldn't be controversial.
One down, more to go: “Hamas is using the Palestinians as human shields, it is what it is. Tragic, but it's war.” Again, it becomes important to reframe arguments in a way that portrays reality as it truly is. We respond: your mother is held hostage in a bank robbery. The police arrive, indiscriminately gun down both the robbers and her, then proceed to excuse their actions with the human shield defense - are you accepting that answer? Would anybody?
You know what, let’s just do this. Here’s the real sticking point: “Hamas bad”. To be incredibly clear, no - I’m not going to defend Hamas’s methods. Yes, I will absolutely point out how obviously inevitable this outcome was. Anyone remember Red Dawn? The Patriot? When your land is invaded, your people oppressed and your family killed, that’s what you do. The rights of occupied people to armed resistance are enshrined under international law - cable news neglected to mention that. Methods aside (no endorsement here), I can definitively tell you that if my home was invaded and my family murdered, I would join up with some very bad people if that’s what it took to bite back. Disapprove from your armchair all you want, that’s just the natural human response. I cannot stress this point enough: I don’t defend the methods, I simply tell you to stop acting so surprised.
Frankly, we've barely scratched the surface with this one. I hope for many responses to this piece including numerous other relevant examples of atrocities committed in Gaza, as well as additional rebuttals to zionist propaganda. I look forward to these for the further education of anyone reading this. Now, we reach the conclusion - the true point of this article.
This last bit is addressed to those still in support of the state of Israel (or generally indifferent to the suffering in Gaza), who would do well to reflect on the following: in order to morally support something, you have to know what you morally condemn. In order to consider something good, you must know what is bad. To know what criteria gains your approval, you must also know your deal breakers. All I really ask is this: with everything we've seen, every red line crossed, every Geneva Convention violation, broken truce, every video of a child on fire watched…
Where the ---- is your line?
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