Siege of Gaza

When I think about Gaza, there is one story that comes to my mind. The main city of Gaza was surrounded and put to siege.

It was 332 B.C. and Alexander the Great wanted a clear path to Egypt. The City-state of Gaza stood in the way and refused to surrender. Alexander allowed kings that surrendered to avoid bloodshed, save their people and just pay him taxes. Those that didn't surrender, he made into examples. Knowing what would happen if Alexander conquered them, the Gazans still refused to surrender, and Alexander's army surrounded the city and eventually took it, killed every man and sold the women and children into slavery. That was the end of ancient Gaza. Did the people of Gaza have a choice or was it just arrogant politics and those who suffer from it?

460 years later, after Rome annihilated a few more rebellious cities, the term Palestine was first used by Rome (136 CE) to describe the region that contained pagan Philistines (worshipers of  Baal, Astarte, and Dagon), monotheist Jews and the pagans of what is now Syria. The faith and genetics of the people of that land has changed much over the centuries. Before the creation of Israel, it included Jews, Christians and Muslims. Its amazing what people promote in propaganda without knowing the history of the Palestine or the history of Palestinian Christians, Palestinian Jews, or Palestinian Arabs.

During the recent Israeli operation in Palestine, as propaganda exploded online, wars are happening all over the globe. 60,000 Central American children are being detained in internment camps in the US. And the US is killing thousands of people with drones. Where is the media attention though and why?

When Israel first took land in 1948, 700,000 Muslims were displaced (less than the 14.5 million in the partition of India at that same time). Presently, at this same moment, 1.5 million people are being killed or displaced by ISIS in Iraq. But that is Sunni Muslims displacing Christians and Shia Muslims, so it is normal in the Muslim world. Where is the media and outrage over these 1.5 million people, and all those murdered and orphaned children? There is no fundamentalist social media propaganda funding for them.

There have been over 6,000 missile attacks on Israel. Hamas hides their launch sights and ammo in children's schools and hospitals. Israel bombs the missile and ammo locations. Hamas knowing they will get bombed, continue to put them there. Can you call either one good or bad. No, killing is bad.

The bombs that are dropped on Hamas civilians and the rockets fired into Israel are built with whose tax dollars?

Hamas is evil. The military industrial complex that controls the actions of the US government and the Israeli government is evil. To jump onto a side is to really be in a place of ignorance which only supports what the problems is.

The problem is greed, ignorance and hatred: Greed of the military industrial complex. Greed for land. Greed for political control. Ignorance of educational solutions instead of military confrontation and terrorism. Hatred between religions, cultures and the color of skin anywhere. Hatred that is being taught and instilled into children.

How does choosing a side help solve the problem? How does hate speech of one side or another help the problem? How does picketing for Palestinian Muslims or rioting against them help anything? What are you doing to prevent greed, remove ignorance and heal hatred?