Sadly, the Weekend Hamas Attack Should Not Have Been a Surprise

As the violence between Israel and Hamas rages on, groups and experts familiar with the Israeli government’s decades-long oppression of Palestinians stress that it is inaccurate for officials and media to call the attacks unexpected.

The Israeli military battled Palestinian fighters for a second day on Sunday after Hamas broke through Israel’s security barrier ― with the help of thousands of rockets ― and attacked nearby settlements. At least 700 people have been reportedly killed in Israel, and dozens of Israelis are being held hostage in Gaza. Israeli soldiers have now launched powerful retaliatory strikes in the Gaza Strip, where the Hamas militant movement governs over two million Palestinian civilians. The U.S. and European Union have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization due to its armed resistance against Israel’s occupation.

The terrorist attack against innocent Israeli citizens (including babies) was despicably celebrated by Hamas-- and  has resulted in strongly worded support for Israel from many western nations, including the U.S., who along with the media are describing the violence as unexpected and unprecedented. But experts on the region’s history, as well as groups supporting Palestinian liberation, say that description is false.

IfNotNow, a progressive American Jewish group that opposes Israeli apartheid, said that while “we watch the unfolding horrors with heartbreak and dread for our loved ones ― Israelis and Palestinians alike” ― the attack by Palestinian fighters was a predictable reaction to decades of oppression.

“We cannot and will not say today’s actions by Palestinian militants are unprovoked,” the group said in a statement on Saturday. “Every day under Israel’s system of apartheid is a provocation. The strangling siege on Gaza is a provocation. Settlers terrorizing entire Palestinian villages, soldiers raiding and demolishing Palestinian homes, murdering Palestinians in the streets, Israeli ministers calling for genocide and expulsion. These are the provocations of the most extreme right wing government in Israel’s history and an emboldened fascist movement escalating this crisis across the land.”

Palestinians are no stranger to Israeli violence. The Arab-Israeli war of 1948 resulted in what is known as the Nakba, which refers to the mass murder of Palestinians and permanent displacement from their land. Since then, multiple human rights groups have released reports on why Israel’s efforts to remove Palestinian families from their land, jail Palestinian dissidents and kill civilians ― including children ― amount to a form of apartheid. “This war did not start this morning. It has been going on for decades,” Nathan Thrall, a writer and expert on Israel-Palestine said.  “Today’s bloodshed is the tip of an iceberg: an iceberg of state violence. Blood will continue to be spilled so long as we ignore the root causes.”

Israel has long had the financial and weapons support of the U.S. to create a military system with capabilities that far exceed its Palestinian neighbors. IfNotNow, as well as the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, have called on the U.S. to reflect on its role in funding years-long violence against Palestinians despite publicly supporting a two-state solution.