The short video clip shows Mia Schem lying on a bed, her right arm being bandaged by someone out of the frame. A long, fresh scar is clearly visible.
Schem, a 21-year-old French-Israeli woman, is being held hostage by the militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The video released by Hamas on Monday is the first footage of any of the dozens of people held in the enclave.
Speaking into the camera, Schem, who looks pale, but is sitting up straight with her head held high, says she was injured and taken to Gaza, then pleads to be returned to her family.
As she speaks, loud rumbling can be heard in the background.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday in Tel Aviv, Schem’s mother urged the government and world leaders to bring her daughter back home.
Sure. The point is it is not exactly an insurmountable challenge to imagine a Palestinian government that is strictly better than Hamas (unless your measurement of quality is murdering Jews).
It’s not as if Hamas has been making the life of everyday Gazans very pleasant. Life isn’t a paradise in the West Bank by any means, but it’s certainly much better, and a huge part of that comes from the fact that the West Bank isn’t lobbing rockets at Israel all the time.
I mean, that’s true, but what can that government do when Israel has refused peace basically continuously for almost thirty years? “Just do nothing” isn’t an answer, and Palestinians have gradually had all non-violent answers taken from them.
Until you’re the one whose village is getting emptied by Israeli settlers. Or until you’re the one who’s getting shot down by Israeli raids.
I’m gonna take a wild guess that we apparently disagree on whether deliberately murdering babies can ever be justified, regardless of how justifiable one’s anger and resentment are, and given that, I don’t have much more to say.
They could have, you know, not murdered 1000 Israelis that has since led to thousands of dead Gazans. That would probably have been an improvement. The quality of life of the average Gazan today is noticeably worse than it was three weeks ago, and this would not be the case if Hamas had not have done what it did.
I’m done here.
Nope, we don’t. I’m not defending the stuff Hamas did during their attack. That’s just inexcusable. I was talking more about the big picture of the conflict.