#FreeMaine: Perspective on Gaza and Israel

Let us suppose, for a moment, that the state of Maine (much larger than Gaza, but as a relatively small region of North America, it will work), were to elect a radical extremist political party as its ruling government.

This government openly declares that its goal is the complete destruction of its neighboring states and the extermination of all its people — that they commit to the complete eradication of every American in the neighboring states.

Now suppose Maine forms a strong relationship with Russia, which begins sending money and supplying the state with missiles. Maine immediately begins firing these missiles into the neighboring states of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts, indiscriminately slaughtering people. Let’s say that due to proximity, they target your neighborhood most of all. Hundreds of innocent people die.

Oh, also, the duly elected extremist government removes its political opponents, taking all members of the Republican and Democratic parties out of consideration, and cancels all further elections in Maine.

So if the PEOPLE of Maine decide they don’t like being governed by this party after all — well, too bad, they can’t do anything to get rid of them.

What might the neighboring states, and the United States as a whole, do in this situation?

They might blockade the state so Russian money and weapons can’t keep getting through. Maybe Canada, which has the other border with Maine, agrees to do the same.

Maybe they send in humanitarian funds to help the people of Maine, but the new government intercepts them, uses them to buy more missiles, and keeps firing them into Boston and Baltimore.

So they stop sending in funds. And when Maine launches missile attacks, they answer with air strikes.

Without any doubt, this situation would cause suffering to the people of Maine. Good-hearted Americans everywhere would empathize.

But would our cry become “Free Maine”?

Remember what happens if we “Free Maine” … Russian money and weapons flood in, the corrupt government in Maine is enriched, and rockets and suicide bombers target our neighborhoods again, while Mainians publicly call for the deaths of all Americans and indeed, murder them as often as possible.

Is “Free Maine” the responsible cry in this situation? Is it right? Is it even possible, frankly?

And do the people of the neighboring states have no right to defend themselves or even to fight back?

Are they required to continue supplying, funding, and assisting their neighbors as their neighbors attempt to kill them?

Now suppose that on one horrible, awful morning, Maine — with Russian backing and the help of some mercenary troops who snuck into the state — sends thousands of armed individuals into the neighboring states. They go door-to-door through your neighborhood and many others, murdering your neighbors, kidnapping your child, burning your elderly mother alive in her home, raping your sister, beheading your infant nephew.

Is our response, “Yes, well, you need to be aware of the context. American actions have brought great suffering to the people of Maine.”

Is our response, “Well, if you would just give Maine their freedom back, open their borders, and stop attacking them, this wouldn’t have happened. You had it coming.”

It wouldn’t be, would it?

So why is this our response when it happens to Jewish people?

I have seen multiple comments online from people calling the Israeli response to Palestine “a holocaust” and stating that Israel has been doing the “exact same thing” to Palestine that Hitler did to the Jews.

This is nonsense.

Let’s just talk numbers for a second. According to the UN, 5,365 Palestinians have died in Gaza since 2008, when Hamas took control and Israelis (who do not *occupy* Gaza, remember; Gaza is not the West Bank) began to blockade the territory. This number includes both civilians and Hamas terrorists, it includes people who died in active military conflicts, and it includes people whose deaths came from an unknown source — meaning that some of these deaths were friendly fire. It even includes suicide bombers.

We should weep for more than 5000 people dead. That is a tragedy.

However, is it “the exact same thing Hitler did to the Jews”?

Five thousand people have died in Gaza in fifteen years, nearly all in military actions Israel took as a response to actions taken by Hamas.

They have taken these actions because Hamas has repeatedly fired missiles into Israel, attacking random civilian targets as often as possible.

In the Holocaust, six million people died in four years. All six million people were civilians. They were not armed. They did not strike first. They did not die in military engagements. They did not accidentally kill each other. They did not blow themselves up in attempts to murder other people. They were rounded up and killed in death camps — men, women, and children.

(NEVER AGAIN.)

This happened because Hitler’s stated objective was the same as the stated objective of Hamas — to annihilate all Jewish people.

Israel’s objective is not and never has been to annihilate the people of Gaza. If it was, and if they were doing “the exact same thing as Hitler,” there would no people in Gaza. The population of Gaza is only 2 million. They would all have been killed long ago.

There is no genocide here. There is a long history of attacks and counterattacks between a terrorist organization and the nation it repeatedly targets.

Can you honestly not see the difference?

The total annihilation of their enemies is not Israel’s goal. It is Hamas’s goal.

There is no equivalence between what Hitler did in the Holocaust and what Israel has done in Gaza. NONE.

This “Maine” analogy is not perfect. But I hope it helps you understand why Israeli response is not and cannot be as simple as “Free Palestine.”

Gaza is controlled by a group whose stated purpose is the complete destruction of the Israeli state and the total annihilation of the Jewish people.

This group (Hamas) is funded and supplied with weapons by Iran.

Gaza is blockaded to keep Iran out and to keep terrorists in. It doesn’t entirely work — where do you think Hamas has been getting missiles to fire into Israel for the last fifteen years? Not a few missiles, either — tens of thousands of them.

Israel takes military action in Gaza in response to continued, lethal missile attacks on Israelis. Yes, this means civilian casualties. Yes, this is terrible. But what exactly is the other option?

Hamas violently put down the opposition party after it was elected in 2007. There has not been another election since. Ordinary Palestinian people do not get a choice about who is in charge.

Hamas deliberately stations its military bases in civilian locations so that Israel CANNOT strike back without hitting civilian casualties.

Hamas launches rockets from mosques, hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings. Israel issues warnings to civilians when it is going to attack a target so they can leave. It does this even though they know it means many important military targets will escape.

Nevertheless, the effect of Hamas’s policy is that whenever Israel strikes, we will see images of dead women and children. Israel does not target civilians. It goes above and beyond to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas does the opposite. It deliberately maximizes the deaths of its own people so that Israel will look like a villain on the world stage.

It has been said, “Israel uses rockets to shield its people. Hamas uses people to shield its rockets.”

Hamas has not governed its territory as it was elected to do; instead, it has put its money into funding attacks on Israel, and it has blamed Israel for all the woes its people face.

It has also done a very good job of convincing large parts of the world that its version of the story — that Israel is to blame — is true.

After all, we see dead women and children. We hear large numbers of casualties. We learn that Gaza is blockaded; that it is, as the Washington Post put it, “the largest open-air prison in the world.”

And we hear that all of this is Israel’s fault. They are the ones dropping bombs on Gaza. They are the ones patrolling the borders. They are the ones choosing not to allow free travel in and out of the Gaza Strip.

All of this sounds terrible until we remember the stated objectives and consistent actions of the government being penalized. Their goal is to annihilate the Jewish people and obliterate the Jewish state.

Going back to our “Free Maine” analogy: we can care deeply that our neighbors in Maine have become trapped in a terrible situation. But can we call for the full opening of their borders, and the assisting of their government, and the free flow of money in and out, and the total freedom of their people to come and go, when we KNOW this means that tomorrow, the newly “freed” government of Maine will begin the systematic destruction of American neighborhoods again?

Does Gaza need to be freed? Yes. But not from Israel. From Hamas.

Could Israel be responding in a different, better way to the attacks on their people? I honestly don’t know how. I hate war. But non-response is not an option. And war cannot be waged without civilian casualties. I hope this helps to clarify why.