Three days ago, I had flipped the television channel from where my nine year old son was watching cartoon to Al Jazeera to know the recent accusation they had for Israel. Of course they did not disappoint as their news headline and anchor was screaming of deaths of “innocent women and children!” from Israel’s airstrike in Gaza.
My son blurted out, “Why don’t these people in Gaza go somewhere else?” Well, I didn’t answer him nor did anyone around act like they heard what he asked. I think that like me, he must have had enough of Al Jazeera’s complaints and wished that I should get the channel back to his cartoons.
So I asked myself how my boy can understand that the “innocent women and children” of Gaza should have gone somewhere else, but the UN, the press, Sleepy Joe, EU, Russia, China, the Arabic nations and the rest of them screaming at Israel do not get it.
In conflict situations all over the world, non-combatants and children usually move out from the conflict areas and become refugees that are either taken care of by the UNHCR or other organizations till the conflict ends and the combatants sort themselves out. The moving away or displacement could be within or outside the nation or territory but they usually go to where the conflict will not reach them and they will be relatively safe.
When Ukraine entered the Kursk region of Russia in recent times, about 120,000 non-combatant Russians fled from the area and moved into other parts of Russia. Even many Russians fled from the nation at the start of the war for they were “innocent people including women and children” and do not want to be part of Putin’s game.
According to the International Rescue Committee, over 2 million people mostly women and children have fled Sudan to neighboring countries, including 600,000 that have arrived in Chad in the last year and nearly 100,000 that arrived in Libya. The UN and other agencies are taking care of these people till the RSF and the army have sorted themselves out in Sudan.
According to UNHCR, Nearly 2.32 million South Sudanese have fled to neighboring countries due to violent conflict throughout the country and are living in neighboring countries such as Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The UNHCR are taking care of these innocents till the internal civil war in South Sudan ends or they get resettled.
In 2023 according to UNHCR, about 760,000 refugees from the DRC were taking shelter in 22 African countries which includes Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania, etc. let the M23 rebels and other insurgent groups in DRC sort themselves out with the government forces and other combatants. Since these refugees were innocent women and children, they took refuge in other nations till the combatants settle the conflict. Meanwhile, the UN takes care of them till then.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, from 2011 when the Syrian conflict started till 2016, about five million Syrians have crossed into other countries seeking asylum or placed in Syrian refugee camps worldwide. These people are “innocent women and children”. Let Assad and the rebel combatants sort it out amongst themselves in Syria. Meanwhile, the UN and other organizations take care of these Syrian innocents who left the country.
According to UNHCR, More than 1 million Rohingya refugees have fled violence in Myanmar in successive waves of displacement since the 1990s. Now, more than 960,000 Rohingya refugees are living in Bangladesh with a majority settled in and around Kutupalong and Nayapara refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar region. These Rohingya “innocent women and children” are not combatants so they moved or were moved to those areas and the UN and other organizations take care of them there. Let the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and other groups fighting against the Myanmar military sort themselves out but the innocents are not becoming a part of it.
And so we come to the story of Gaza’s combatants and the IDF and I want to paraphrase my son’s question, “Why don’t those “innocent women and children” of Gaza go somewhere else as refugees till Hamas and the IDF sorts themselves out in Gaza as obtained in every other conflict?”
And the answer is of course that the UN, the Arabic nations, the EU, the OIC, Sleepy Joe, Egypt and the whole lot of them piling pressure against Israel want the Gazans to stay so they can be used as political tool and human sacrifice to continue the vilification of Israel since Israel tends to allow that to happen to it.
These guys want the Gazans to be there so they can have a willing scapegoat called Israel they can easily target and pressure to end the conflict since Hamas does not give a hoot about them and won’t listen to their rants or calls to surrender. They can be able to scream at Israel for that missile that killed or hurt that “innocent man’ near the Hamas commander. They won’t have to do that screaming against Hamas who does not care or the Sudanese army’s missiles against the RSF for they ensured that the way was open for the innocents of Sudan to leave the conflict zone.
Israel has to be measured with a different standard and a new paradigm in its war with the Gazan combatants. So they locked the whole “innocents” in Gaza, refused to have Egypt open its borders for them to move to Sinai. They will also not bring ships to take those innocents out and house them in Madrid, Oslo, Qatar or Dublin till Israel sorts out Hamas.
Let us forget about the already bought and paid for UN and the Arabic nations and others of the non-aligned movement who always scream all kinds of terrible accusations against Israel and concentrate on what its own acclaimed “supporters” will then do.
Joe Biden and his group, the EU and those “pro” Israel nations and diplomats who “love” the nation and also those “unbiased” interviewers will then set the narrative and premise by telling the advocates of Israel, “See, we despise Hamas, we believe that they must pay for their actions, we condemn what they did on October 7th and we call for them to bring back the hostages but your actions killed 40,000 innocent women and children of Gaza. You have to stop or you will be committing genocide.”
“What options are left for the innocent Gazans?” They will continue, “Hamas uses them for human shield and does not represent the wishes of those innocent women and kids. Hamas is a terror organization, you cannot be acting like Hamas. These are innocent women and kids that you are killing with your bombs just to get at one Hamas operative, it is immoral, you have to stop and let us have a ceasefire.”
And of course Israel defenders usually do not disappoint with Hasbara. Hasbara will do its thing and accept the premise they set for it. As they beat the drum, Hasbara will start dancing. Hasbara will then start enumerating all those wonderful things the IDF has been doing to avoid civilian casualties.
“We send them text messages to move out from areas we want to attack”
“We designated safe zones for them”
“Hamas hides behind them and fire rockets at us”
“We do surgical strikes and we feed them”
“We allow fuel to come in and we have restored electricity”
Of course the interviewer and EU, Kamala Harris and the “humanity minded” democrats will see loopholes in those stories and excuses by the Israel advocates. They will state how what Israel has been doing to ensure that those innocents did not die was not enough with examples of so many innocents that kept dying. Israel and Bibi Netanyahu will then be looking like one bad guy intent on slaughtering tens or even hundreds of thousands of Gazan babies and innocents just to get at Hamas.
Why in the name of God do those defenders and spokespeople of Israel never correct the narrative and premise from the beginning and ask those “lovers’ of the nation asking it to stop the war the question my son asked “Why don’t these people in Gaza go somewhere else?” Why should they accept the premise that the only way to end the deaths of the innocents there is when Israel stops trying to get at Hamas? Why should it be that what they will concentrate on saying is how Israel has been doing wonderful things to limit civilian casualties?
Fact is that stopping the war or having a ceasefire is not the only way to stop civilian casualties in Gaza. In other climes as stated earlier, non-combatants and innocents become refugees. That unbiased interviewer, Democrat or EU diplomat who do not want innocent Gazans to keep dying ought to be told that they should stop pressuring Israel. If they want the innocents to stop dying, then they should either make Hamas to surrender or do what is obtained all over the world in conflict situations by allowing the innocent Gazans to leave the place as refugees and have the UN take care of them till Israel sorts out Hamas. If they are not ready to do what is done in every other conflict situation, they have no right to virtue signal against Israel or ask of it what they are not asking other people in conflict to do.
Now, that’s the answer that will make sense and I think that when my son sees such answer, it will make sense to him too. Even if the interviewer or EU diplomat or whoever does not do anything to move the Gazans out, at least that stance will bring him down from his moral high horse and have him know that he also can do something to help the Gazans he loves so much and it does not have to do with Israel stopping the war.