Pro-Hamas Protesters Are Just As Guilty – OpEd
By Osita Ebiem
In late afternoon of Friday the 13th of October 2023 offices were just closing, Times Square as usual was full of both tourists and New Yorkers rushing in every direction. And there were some pro-Hamas protesters on 42nd Street around Times Square in New York City. They were said to be protesting the on-going Israel Defense Forces action in Gaza against the Islamic terrorist group, Hamas. These pro-Hamas demonstrators and what they stood for was a show of shame. It was like the display of murder and barbarism on the grandest stage of all. The American society which allowed such shameful display is just as blameworthy. There are things that any decent and civilized society should not tolerate. All societies should have standards – their ways.
If condoning murder and barbarism as practiced by all Islamic terrorist groups across the world has become a part of American ways, then the country has lost its spirit and essence. It has gone in the wrong direction and must urgently retrace its steps.
In this late afternoon there were a few hundred of people with Palestinian flags and placards chanting war songs and expletives. On the previous Saturday October 7, 2023, Hamas killer groups had infiltrated and invaded Israeli Kibbutzim or village communities and killed whole families, burnt some alive, beheaded and decapitated children and adults as they tortured them. They took some hostages. Amongst those captured included Israelis and Americans. The same group of murderers had also invaded a concert venue where young Israelis and other nationals had gathered to campaign for peace. After raping and torturing them, they killed over 260 of these youths who a few minutes before danced, sang and canvased for peace between the Jews and their neighbors. The message these killers clearly passed on here is that they are not interested in peace or anything else but to murder the Jews. The attacks were as unprovoked as ever.
Some either genuinely or are mischievously pretending ignorance have argued that the Islamic killers are killing their neighbors because their land was stolen from them. But nothing can be farther away from the truth than that. Anyone with a smattering knowledge of history knows that this is not true as the land under contention has always belonged to the Jews since the past thousands of years. Lately some have also started contending that the Israelis though have the right to defend themselves but that there should be a cease fire because they are using a disproportionate force to counter the Islamists’ killings of Israeli citizens. Those arguing for cease fire on that basis forget that the just measure for the Islamists killings would have been for the Israelis to carry out sneak and unannounced attacks on Hamas bases and their supporters’ dwellings. But Israel Defense Forces out of humanitarian reasons have never carried out any such attacks on their enemies.
Kfar Aza and Be’eri are among the kibbutzim that the Islamic terrorists attacked on that fateful October 7. Most of the kibbutzim in Israel lie at the borderlands between Israel and the Gaza strip. Some lie as close as one and half miles away from Gaza. Kibbutz demography is communal in their social setting and are not heavily armed or guarded because in their simplemindedness they always thought that their Gazan neighbors were friends and genuine neighbors. They had always related towards them with friendly dispositions. Some Gazan children attended schools in nearby kibbutzim Israeli schools and were treated just like Israeli children. Some Israeli kibbutzim made regular donations of food and money to their Gazan neighbors as collectives and as individuals. So, with these and many other kindly gestures the kibbutz dwellers in their naivety believed as the Igbo that no one bites the hand that feed them. They were wrong. Primitive cultures that are armed with deadly indoctrination do not understand such haute culture and civility.
We use Igbo parallels here to show why the Islamic terrorist group Hamas’ coldblooded murder of their Israeli neighbors is atrocious and barbaric and their supporters are just as guilty.
The Igbo frown at any culture which has lost its capacity to feel guilt for wrongdoing. They liken such incapacity to feel guilt to the murderer who on being confronted takes up arm to threaten the person confronting them. Being quick to fight ferociously in defense of one’s evil action does not right the wrongness of their act.
A war does not consume the cripple because the Igbo believe that no one should invade their enemies or “neighbors” unannounced. Therefore, invading a people without prior warnings is considered as one of the worst kind of atrocities. Hence the saying that any grasshopper killed by the noisy okpoko is presumed to be either hardheaded or deaf. It is the worst kind of barbaric act to invade and kill without warning one’s neighbors who had lived with them so trustfully.
After the 42nd Street protest by pro-Islamic terrorist group Hamas there have been many others across many United States cities and other Western societies. It’s sad. Any society condoning such absurdity is not being liberal but suicidal. Theirs (the protestors’) is a culture of intolerance, hate and death. The sad reality is that the Islamist murderers, due to the culture of death and primitive murderous indoctrination do not understand the concept of how inappropriate it is to bite a hand that feed or fed them.
