@MiriShuli @mapto Hamas won an election with 44.5% of the vote 17 years ago, before around half of the population of Gaza were born, and then seized complete power in a bloody civil war with Fatah. And it was a weird hybrid-model, with half the seats allocated proportionally and half winner-take -all. If it had been a normal proportional election, Fatah would have formed a coalition with smaller parties and Hamas would have ended up an opposition party.

@JoshuaHolland @mapto Right. But that’s 17 years ago. No coalition of adults have tried anything since that point? What am I missing where 1.45 million adults have absolutely no agency at all? I realize the Hamas millionaires and billionaires actually live in Qatar. But billions have been poured into the strip and all they’ve managed to do it build and underground fighting force?

Why didn’t you turn Gaza into a Singapore AND and underground fighting force?

@MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland because this is not what the agreement with Netanyahu was about
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4268794-the-symbiotic-relationship-between-netanyahu-and-hamas/

@mapto @JoshuaHolland I’m not talking about Netanyahu or Israel or anyone else. I’m asking why the 1.45 million adult Gazans (leaving out the children), plus all the rich Palestinians, and Hamas does have a few billionaires amoung them, didn’t do something, anything, other than building a terrorist group intend on destroying Israel?

Is every single adult Gazan a victim of Hamas?

@MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland would it be whataboutism if I ask you why you allowed Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca, Kissinger, Cheney, Trump? I am not talking of Saddam, Osama, Putin or anyone else. Why didn't you do anything else, but create ISIS?

Forgive me, but this attempt to make you reflect on how absurd your claims are, is the last response you are going to see from me.

@mapto @JoshuaHolland I can ask all kinds of questions about those other world events also.
And I know every government, every security apparatus has their own set of lies they want to the public to swallow.

If America re-elects Trump we will deserve what we get.

But none of that excuses 1.46 million people from any responsibility for the world they have chosen to live in. They are not devoid of _all_ agency.

@MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland @mapto possibly something to do with the fact that no trade is possible through the blockade. 🧐

@peterbrown @JoshuaHolland @mapto and why is there a blockade? Suicide bombers anyone? Remember those buses exploding across Israel?

@MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland @mapto yes well let’s not get bogged down in exploding hospitals, exploding schools, exploding apartment, blocks, ambulances and exploding refugee camps. Your point was why did Gazza not become Singapore?
And the answer is quite simple - as you confirmed, there is a land sea and air blockade around Gaza

@MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland @mapto You are uninformed about the situation in Gaza. Instead of attacking a couple million people you’ve never met, try doing at least a basic level of research. Demonizing all Palestinians because of Hamas is no different than people demonizing all Jews because of Netanyahu. https://apnews.com/article/gaza-hamas-demonstration-israel-blockade-palestinians-306b19228f9dd21f1036386ce3709672

@mls14 @JoshuaHolland @mapto Where did I demonize all Palestinians? Remember Jordanians are also Palestinians. As are many Lebanese. As are all that live in Israel, Jew and Arab. Palestine has had fluid borders for centuries. The people living in Gaza are both at the mercy of Hamas and adults with agency. I refuse to treat the adults as victims only. The children are a different matter. Acknowledging the adult situation is not the same as demonizing them.

@MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland @mapto Well, I posted an article showing you that Palestinian adults have been resisting Hamas. They are victims of Hamas and Netanyahu. I’m sorry you can’t grasp that and instead blame them for the terrible situation they are trapped in.

@mls14 It’s not that, Matt. It’s that this is the first time they’ve done it, in all the time they’ve been “trapped” in this situation. @MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland @mapto

@AlliFlowers @MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland @mapto July 2023 was NOT the first Palestinian protest against Hamas. There have been others, despite the harsh repercussions for those trying to stand up to them. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-47616809

@mls14 The only reason he world doesn’t blame Americans for Trump is that we have protested him since he came to power. Where have these protestors been since 2007? They were good with Hamas until recently? @MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland @mapto

@MiriShuli @mapto @JoshuaHolland and as we all know, Hamas not only permitted, but almost encouraged protests against their regime. 🤔

@peterbrown @mapto @JoshuaHolland Peter, as an American I have spent a lifetime honoring the rebels who dumped the Tea in Boston Harbor. The Vietnam Protests were my pablum. Those killed at Kent State happened on my TV. The stand on the EuroMaidan is the first stance of modern Ukraine. The Orange Revolution. I could name many others. Pretending that 1.4 million Palestinian adults have absolutely no agency doesn’t work with me.

@MiriShuli @mapto @JoshuaHolland well in that case, that’s fair enough. Stick a 30 foot fence round them and put them in jail if they object.

After all, the 16 years of blockade is really all their fault.

@peterbrown @mapto @JoshuaHolland it looks like they should have had armed soldiers on every inch of that border wall, doesn’t it?

Or did the 1400 dead Jews never matter in the first place?

@MiriShuli @mapto @JoshuaHolland if you’re going to count the numbers dead, I think you’re on pretty thin ice.

@peterbrown @mapto @JoshuaHolland. So, the first 1400 Jews really don’t matter to you.

Which is exactly what Hamas counted on, assuming everyone would force Israel to continue to live with Terrorists who can strike at any time, any place. As one person put it, “as long as Arafat was killing a few Jews every so often, no one cared how much money he stole”.

What the world cannot grasp is that on Oct 7th something broke. Hamas will be destroyed.

@peterbrown @mapto @JoshuaHolland I would do many, many things differently then Netanyahu. And I don’t understand why he is PM, nor why he isn’t in prison. But the goal of the complete destruction of Hamas is the correct one.

Hamas could end this today. Release all hostages and surrender. I’m

@MiriShuli @peterbrown @JoshuaHolland only sinister politicians and short-sighted military service people could sustain that a popularly-supported terrorist organisation could be destroyed without removing the valid causes for its existence.

Settlers in the West Bank are committing crimes for decades with the illegal support of the state, the occupation of Gaza is illegal.

Historical evidence is clear for those who don't close their eyes, be it Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka or South Africa.

@mapto @MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland absolutely correct 👍🏼

@mapto @peterbrown @JoshuaHolland just what us a valid cause for existence of a terror group like Hamas?

How about Bader-Meinhoff?
Al Queen?
ISIS?
Book Haram. Is it legit for them to kidnap teenage girls for their cause?

Thanks for showning your true antiSemtic colors. Blocked.

@MiriShuli @mapto @JoshuaHolland I can’t see anything at all anti-Semitic in his post. So maybe you should be blocking me as well.

There has been no mention of religion, no mention of Judaism - only the behaviour of two corrupt governments.

@MiriShuli @mapto @JoshuaHolland Miriam, I think you need to put yourself in the position of those living in Gaza. They have two enemies; one on the other side of the fence, stopping them leaving, harassing them periodically, shooting them and putting them in jail. And they have another enemy in an undemocratic government which oppresses them. I don’t think it’s surprising that most of their attention has been against the enemy on the barricades.
However, they do protest. https://www.timesofisrael.com/thousands-take-to-streets-in-gaza-in-rare-public-protests-against-hamas/

@MiriShuli @mapto @JoshuaHolland and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-60173481

@peterbrown @mapto@qoto.org @JoshuaHolland

You might be interested in listening to Ezra Klein’s last two podcasts, dated 17 November and 21 November. As I have said before, I absolutely would have made different choices than Netanyahu and his government, both years ago and immediately after the terrorists killed 1400 people. But I cannot infantilize 1.4 million adults into complete victims, because if that’s true there can be no leaders to emerge ever.

@peterbrown @mapto @JoshuaHolland It’s funny to me that you think I haven’t considered what life in Gaza ia like. If only for that I would see that the people who have spent decades sending suicide bombers, rockets (you realize rockets fly DAILY into Israel, right?), who let tunnels be built under their school, homes and never call the UN, never expose those tunnels, as victims. I should see them as only victims with no agency over their lives or choices.

@MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland interesting. Do you have a telephone number for the UN?

@peterbrown @JoshuaHolland

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1211781246/unrwa-aid-gaza-palestinians-israel

@peterbrown @JoshuaHolland

What is UNRWA and why was it started?
UNRWA was formally established in 1949 by U.N. resolution and tasked with carrying out direct relief to 700,000 Palestinians who were displaced by the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.

@MiriShuli @JoshuaHolland you suggested they should complain to the United Nations. First, that organisation is not the United Nations. Second, the United Nations only deals with nations; Gaza is not a nation. The nation is Israel. If they were a nation, like Ukraine, with an army, navy, and an Air Force, they would have other options and diplomatic channels to pursue. They have none of those things; just a 30 foot high wall.

@peterbrown @JoshuaHolland Do you know how silly you sound? Did you listen to Bill Clinton last week when he spoke about the Camp David Accords?

Thanks for showing me just how far adults will go to keep other adults from being treated as such. It’s been enlightening. Bye now.

@MiriShuli @mapto @JoshuaHolland Reducing everything to personal "responsibility" & "choice" in Palestine willfully ignores externalities.
1) People under duress & oppressed (for decades) turn to strong men to punch back. They'll take "the enemy of my enemy" as their gladiator even if they wouldn't invite them to dinner.
2) Your argument is no better than saying that poor single mothers had a "choice", should get a degree, etc. Ideally & technically true but ignores drag & crushing gravity.