People talk about “wiping out” Hamas as if that would solve everything. But history shows us that when a people are oppressed, something always rises in resistance. After the Great Famine in Ireland when over a million died and many more were forced to emigration groups like the Fenian Brotherhood emerged. They weren’t born in a vacuum. They were born of starvation, grief, humiliation, and injustice under British rule.
It’s not so different in Palestine. Since the Nakba in 1948, millions of Palestinians have lived as refugees, or under military occupation, or trapped behind blockades. Generations have grown up stateless, with no rights and no hope. Of course people resist. Sometimes violently, sometimes peacefully but always from a place of deep pain.
Unless Israel truly reckons with the original injustice of the Nakba the mass displacement of Palestinians it will never understand why so many feel they have nothing left to lose. Lip service to peace won’t fix it. You can’t bomb away the anger and grief of entire generations. That only makes it worse.
This isn’t about justifying violence. It’s about recognising that crushing people into poverty and despair doesn’t make them compliant it makes them desperate. Just like in Ireland, you can’t eliminate the resistance without addressing what gave rise to it.
Until there’s justice and dignity for Palestinians, the rubble of Gaza will keep producing something new and probably something more desperate.
As Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote:
“Israelis believe, with terrifying sincerity, that if they only bomb Gaza harder, if they only kill a few more Hamas commanders, if they only show even less mercy then maybe finally the Palestinians will give up. But the opposite is true. You can kill the people, but you can’t kill the idea. You can flatten Gaza, but you can’t destroy the rage. When you trap people for generations and deny them basic human rights, don’t ask why they fight back. Ask what kind of peace you expected from people you’ve kept caged for decades.”