Hamas Week was an initiative by South African Union of Jewish Students to educate students about the detrimental effects, to both Palestinians and Israelis of Hamas. The event consisted of an audiovisual exhibition, and took place on the library lawns at Wits University, from the 11th - 14th of August 2009. We also had Professor Hussein Solomon (12 August) who spoke about the inner workings of Hamas and Advocate Madasa (14 August), an ANC MP who showed how HamasÆ actions differed to the ANC during the struggle against apartheid. The ultimate goal of the project was to show students what Israel was fighting in the recent operation Cast Lead. The exhibition emphasized the hatred preached by this group, their goals and their indoctrination of children.
Hamas is an organization which has perpetrated crimes against both the Palestinians and Israelis, according to Human Rights Watch this group is guilty of war crimes against both Israelis and Palestinians.* According to the Hamas Charter, the constitution of Hamas, this group is unwilling to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict and as such forms a major obstacle to a peaceful solution. The event ultimately served to debunk the myth of the æGaza MassacreÆ by showing how Hamas has held the Palestinian population hostage and forced Israel to go to war,* by firing hundreds of rockets into Sderot daily. It is interesting to note that the number of civilian casualties, which according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is estimated at 925 in a 22 day period*, is lower than conflicts dubbed wars as appose to massacres. This includes the US Iraq War, in which 24,825 civilians were killed in 2 years, 1038 civilians a month. In the US invasion of Afghanistan, in two months 3800 civilians were killed by US aerial strikes*, an average 1393 per 22 days. Furthermore, this fact is exasperated when taking into account when taking into consideration the fact that Hamas used civilians as human shields* , the densely populated nature of the Gaza Strip and the fact that this estimate is also one of the highest and other sources list the civilian (according to the IDF 295 civilians out of 1166 total deaths*) losses as far less. This is in sharp contrast to Hamas who intentionally targeted civilians.* Even the ratio of civilian to military casualties (about 2 civilians for every combatant) is low for a military action.
Therefore, while individual wrongful acts may have taken place during the war in Gaza, attaching the label of massacre is completely unfounded based on casualty figures. Hamas Week had a profound impact on students who were shocked to see such a xenophobic group is occupying the Gaza Strip.
* http://www.reuters.com/
* http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
* http://www.washingtontimes.
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
* http://www.jpost.com/servlet/
* http://www.jpost.com/servlet/
Do you agree with these observations about Hamas? Did you attend the lectures or/ and see the display and, if so, what did you think? Should there be more initiatives like this at Wits? Comment away!
1 comment:
I attended the whole of Hamas week and the talks and I found it gave an incredibly nuanced insight into the terrorist organization and also spoke broadly about the impact of palestinian terror as a reason for the increasing conflict in the region!
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