Many Arab social media users had a different take on what the Western media and politicians described as a well-organized “surprise terror attack” by Hamas last week, and referred to it instead as a “prison break.”

The Financial Times reported that these posts, some of which included the Palestinian flag with a fist breaking out of shackles, seemed to be a shift from how “many in the Arab world have been ambivalent or openly supportive of the Hamas attack, seizing the moment to express solidarity with the Palestinian cause.”

TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has long reported that there is a double standard in the U.S. when it comes to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. (See “BLINKEN IS SHINING EXAMPLE OF HYPOCRISY, PALESTINIAN LIVES AND LAND DON’T MATTER” and “EU’S BORREL ADMITS KILLING PALESTINIANS DON’T COUNT.”)

Israeli forces have also conducted violent raids in the region that have drawn the ire of humanitarian groups. (See “ISRAEL KILLS 4 PALESTINIAN TEENS,” “4 KILLED, DOZENS WOUNDED IN ISRAELI WEST BANK RAID” and “ISRAEL RAIDS AND RANSACKS HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS AND CHURCH.”)

We have noted that the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice, and the High Contracting Parties to the Convention have all affirmed that this is occupied territory, and Israeli settlements there are illegal.

Completely ignored by the “mainstream” are the comments made by Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, when she told the General Assembly that the Israeli military is guilty of pursuing the ‘de-Palestinianisation’ of the occupied territory.

Her report stated that Israeli occupation violates Palestinian territorial sovereignty by “seizing, annexing, fragmenting, and transferring its civilian population to the occupied territory.”

But, as we have long noted, hating Palestinians is as American as apple pie. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida Republican, told reporters that the U.S. should not take in any Palestinian refugees because they are all “antisemitic.”

He also endorsed Israel’s move to starve out innocent Palestinians as long as Hamas is holding Israeli hostages.

“You have Israelis being held hostage, as well as Americans being held hostage, but I don’t think they are under an obligation to be providing water and these utilities while those hostages are being held. Hamas should return those hostages before any discussions are had,” DeSantis told CBS’s “Face The Nation,” according to the Associated Press.

Protests

Besides the social media commentary, hundreds of thousands joined protests across the Middle East and Europe. 

“All the Muslim world needs to be one against Israel,” Mikail Bakan, a protester in Turkey, said, according to Reuters. On Friday, tens of thousands protested in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and waved Palestinian flags while burning American and Israeli flags. 

The FT’s report said the immediate reaction is reflective of how Arabs and Israelis have dehumanized each other, which dates back to the Nakba in 1948. Israelis have called Palestinians “human animals.”

Arab governments have voiced their support of the Palestinians and have condemned all forms of violence in the region. They also note the horrid conditions that many Gazans and Palestinians face at the hands of Israel’s hardline government. 

One Arab official told the FT that the situation was “simply untenable in the Palestinian territories and no one was paying attention.”

Marwan Muasher, the former Jordanian foreign minister, told the paper that there is a “radical and racist Israeli government,” and the Palestinian Authority [in the West Bank] has “very little credibility among its people, and there’s an international community that has basically ignored the Palestinian issue, particularly the U.S.”

He continued, “So we were waiting for this…what do you expect, people to stay caged forever?”

TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has reported extensively on Netanyahu’s hardline government that is seen as a threat to the Palestinian people and the tenuous peace in the region. (See “UN TAKES TO RULE ON ISRAEL SETTLEMENTS OF PALESTINIANS TERRITORIES” 10 Jan 2023, “LARGE-SCALE PROTESTS BREAK OUT IN ISRAEL OVER NETANYAHU’S ‘REFORM’ PLANS” 17 Jan 2023, and “NETANYAHU’S COALITION MAKES DEAL WITH CONVICTED RACIST TO STAMP DOWN PALESTINIANS” (29 Nov 2022.)

The Intercept wrote how the Western media has presented the Hamas attack on 10/7 as the Israeli equivalent to 9/11, but said it should, instead be likened to a prison riot.

James Risen, the former New York Times reporter, linked the Gaza crisis to George W. Bush’s disastrous administration, and wrote: “For two decades, a succession of American presidents has largely ignored the Palestinians and, in effect, gone along with Israeli efforts to abandon the idea of a Palestinian state.”

“One reason the United States has been so unwilling to challenge Israel’s lurch to the right has been the simultaneous rise of right-wing Christian evangelicals in U.S. politics. Evangelicals have become so powerful within the Republican Party that they have changed the domestic American political calculus about Israel,” Risen wrote.

He wrote, “Evangelicals believe the Bible compels them to support Israel; they believe that the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was the fulfillment of the biblically foretold ‘regathering’ of the Jews. They also believe that the Bible says that the Jews will continue to rule Israel until the return of Jesus, so Israel must continue to exist until the “Rapture,” which will occur after the second coming of Christ.”

TRENDPOST: Again, as we note, the foundation upon which the new Israel has been built is religion. And all those who have another religion are compelled to only believe in someone else’s religion such as the one being sold that God gave this land to the Jews. 

Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land under the name of “settlements” is stolen land from Palestinians which is in violation of the Geneva Convention. (See “DOES ISRAEL SEEK A ‘FINAL SOLUTION’ FOR PALESTINIANS?” 28 Feb 2023, “ISRAEL KEEPS KILLING PALESTINIANS” 7 Feb 2023, and “UN RESOLUTION: ISRAEL FACES INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION FOR PUNISHING PALESTINIANS” 24 Jan 2023.)