The recent killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar gives us the perfect example of understanding all that is wrong with Western policies in the region. Every leader the Israelis kill reminds the world of past transgressions on freedom.
For the Palestinians, the only chance of peace and a future is through a much broader conflict in the Middle East. The Western media will never acknowledge the true causes of the chaos in the region. The U.S./Israeli/EU strategies currently being carried out can only lead to a much more violent and catastrophic conflict.
To Be American
People ask me all the time whether or not I hate my own country because my views do not agree with the blanket propaganda that blots out the truth about our role in world conflicts. It saddens me that very few of my countrymen even question, “Why?” To most Americans, the death of Sinwar is just another victory for the poor Israelis surrounded by countless enemies with evil and malice in their barbarian hearts against Jews. To most Westerners, anyone classified as a terrorist or even an enemy of the current liberal order is just that, a lunatic with a similar killing indiscriminately and without cause—end of story, and BRAVO for Bibi Netanyahu and Co.
But, if we ask what led Yahya Sinwar or dozens of others to take up arms against the Israelis, eventually, we are labelled Anti-Semites or Jew haters. Perhaps this is why most Americans don’t bother to think about the people of Gaza being exterminated. Western PR astroturf simply covers the more profound thought and investigation to discover who people like Yahya Sinwar are and what motivates them. It seems appropriate here to take a closer look at the man Israel says their child soldiers stumbled on and killed the other day. This Wikipedia citation offers insight by giving the busy American or British online scribe the “simple” answer:
“By launching the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, Sinwar triggered a war with Israel that resulted in widespread destruction, casualties, and destabilization of the Middle East.”
In the America I grew up in, we studied free speech and open discussion of every subject. We were taught to question. Somehow, we no longer try to discover the opposing view or moderate the “truths” set before us. True Americans wonder when a sea of blood flows from one people when another group receives a flesh wound.
The Wikipedia for Which It Stands…
Readers will note that I have left the Wikipedia link to the online, alleged open-source reference library’s “facts” about the current conflict. But first, it’s important to assume that this whole mess, which now threatens to drag the world into the last world war, was the fault of Yahya Sinwar.
And now he’s dead. Assassinated. Eliminated. Clean, crisp, quick, and finally – next IDF victory, please! After all, if Wikipedia says you are a terrorist and inhuman murderer, you should be blown to bits, shot to pieces, or drone killed, right?
Well, the truth is the British, the world community at the time, and then the Zionists who led to the occupation of Palestine created enemies of countless individuals, families, tribes, and nations. Zionism, the ethnocultural nationalist movement spun up in Europe during the late 19th century, planned all along to “colonise” the land beneath the Palestinians’ feet. We know this. It is an unadulterated fact. More importantly, we must understand that these fascist Jews always intended to usurp one group of people or another. In the early years of the movement, Palestine, under Ottoman rule at the time, was not the only “holy land” the chosen people planned on settling. Few readers will know that Kenya, Cyprus, Mozambique, and many other places were under consideration to become the Israeli homeland. Look it up, and then imagine how these Zionist planners intended to take over other peoples’ lands.
Hamas – Off the Reservation
I don’t want to delve too deeply into subjects like the 1917 Balfour Declaration by the United Kingdom, which laid the groundwork for the Zionist conquest of Palestine. I only insert these historical notes to show that people like Yahya Sinwar did not just escape some Islamic insane asylum. For generations, their forebears were shoved aside, exiled, and imprisoned in the open-air institution that is Gaza as they watched their homeland being systematically stolen. And during it all, the collective suffering of Yahya Sinwar’s people, neighbors, loved ones, and forebears served to create a fighter. A fighter, however unjust or cruel, he appeared to stop the eradication of Palestinians.
I do not applaud or condone the cruel or criminal acts this Hamas leader may have perpetrated. I only want to show that he and his comrades are, in essence, no different from our own Native Americans or any victims of imperialism. Let’s, for a moment, consider Yahya Sinwar as a Palestinian Geronimo, the famous Apache chief who fought to save his people from the desecration of the United States Indian reservations. I know the parallel hits you. The Apache shaman and warlord was eventually captured, exiled to Florida, and even put on display by U.S. leaders at fairs, exhibitions, and even at Theodore Roosevelt’s inauguration. Earlier in Geronimo’s life, his wife, children and mother were murdered in what was called the Massacre at Janos.
Perhaps Yahya Sinwar was no Geronimo. Maybe his being born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp when Egypt ruled Gaza in 1962 after the Israelis forced 700,000 Palestinians to flee their homelands after the 1948 Palestine War. When Sinwar was only 27, he was sentenced to four life sentences in Israel for allegedly orchestrating the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians who he thought were collaborators. An inmate who knew Sinwar in those prison years said Sinwar was deeply affected by the communal living conditions and food distribution in the refugee camp during his youth. Again, the parallels with American Indian reservations or perhaps South African apartheid.
Interestingly, perhaps fatefully, video in social media today appears to show footage shot by IDF soldiers during Yahya Sinwar’s last moments alive. In the footage, the Hamas leader seems to be dying, holding a long sword, which he finally flings at his killers.
War or Genocide?
The Western media and even Wikipedia are calling the genocide in Gaza (and now Lebanon) the Israel–Hamas war attached to the events of 7 October 2023 when Hamas rockets and other attacks killed 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals.
As I write this, the Israelis are trying to use Yahya Sinwar’s corpse as a bargaining chip in dealings with Hamas (talk about dehumanization). Nowhere in the Western media does anyone comment on the almost 50,000 Palestinians killed, or the 100,000 wounded, and at least a million who became refugees because of the Israeli attempts to kill people like Sinwar. Unbiased experts say targets like the Hamas leader are just headline news to cover up the fact Bibi Netanyahu’s government is moving to rid Israel of all Palestinians for good. Like the United States, Great Britain, or any of the European imperialistic powers, Israel is murdering for land and expansion.
As for the Palestinians, Hamas, Hezbollah, and many other concerned parties, I expect they are hoping for a kind of Custer’s Last Stand for Netanyahu. And if Sinwar becomes the martyr who makes the world of Islam one tribe, they may just get their wish.
