Myth #4: The atrocities committed by Hamas (and over one thousand Palestinian civilians) on October 7th were a legitimate response to oppression.
Israel left Gaza in 2005—forcibly removing thousands of its own citizens—and billions of dollars in international aid have since been spent there. So the “oppression” of the Palestinians in Gaza—by Israel—is at least debatable. While Israel has sought to maintain a secure border with Gaza all those years, so has Egypt—and yet no one blames Egypt for making Gaza an “open-air prison.” However, even if we accept the charge of “oppression,” it must be said that not all oppressed people respond by raping, and torturing, and murdering noncombatants.
The Tibetans have been truly oppressed by the Chinese for many decades, and yet they have never committed atrocities against Chinese civilians. When the Jews of Germany were herded into ghettos by the Nazis, those who escaped didn’t rape and mutilate German teenagers or burn German babies alive in reprisal. There are countless historical examples of real oppression, and yet very few cultures have produced a bottomless supply of suicidal terrorists. There might be many societal factors that explain these differences, but one is surely the Islamic doctrines around martyrdom and jihad. People’s religious beliefs really are motivating. We can see this with fundamentalist Christianity in the West. The fundamentals of religion matter when you’re a fundamentalist. And it matters that the fundamentals of our various religions are different. Mere religious tribalism is always a potential source of intolerance and violence—it is much worse when there are specific doctrines that advocate intolerance and violence. Again, we need the world’s 2 billion Muslims to honestly acknowledge this problem and find some way of moderating their faith, specifically around the doctrines of martyrdom, jihad, apostasy, and blasphemy–which put their faith in perpetual conflict with the modern world.
