The Dog That Still Isn’t Barking
2nd November 2023
Several days ago, in a post I called “Distinctions Without a Difference,” I expressed several questions that were floating around the back of my mind regarding whether there are really meaningful distinctions of intent between “Palestinians” and “Hamas.” I raised those questions because everywhere we turn, both explicitly and implied, we’re being asked to believe that Hamas is one thing but Palestinians are another. I said in that post that I can imagine that such distinctions are meaningful, but that I always seemed to lack actual evidence.
One of the arguments I often hear for the lack of evidence for the existence of non-genocidal Palestinians is the fact that peaceful Palestinians are oppressed by Hamas and, if they were to openly push-back on acts of terror, then they would themselves be targeted. It isn’t hard to imagine that possibility, but there’s something about it that feels a wee bit too convenient for my comfort. We’re just supposed to take their word for it. Such an explanation is crafted in a way that forecloses the possibility of ever having any empirical evidence. We are expected to take it completely on faith.
The narrative for the existence of peaceful Palestinians goes something like this: “By golly, those meany people in Hamas are terrible, but Palestinians aren’t like Hamas. All those secret peace-loving Palestinians would really tell it like it is if they weren’t afraid of those meanies in Hamas. Otherwise, boy, they’d really let loose with their anti-genocidal views.”