How Hamas Blew Gaza’s Golden Opportunity
17th March 2024
Whatever else the arguments concerning the Gaza War, none is more wrong-headed than the suggestion that Gazans were living in such straitened circumstances that they had no choice but to “break out” on October 7. Palestinian solidarity protesters routinely describe Gaza as a “prison camp.” Even the British foreign secretary David Cameron has previously used that term to talk about Gaza. In the wake of the Hamas massacre, the UN chief António Guterres insisted that the events of October 7 “did not happen in a vacuum.” Although he later denied that this was a “justification” of the murders, rapes and kidnappings of Israelis by Gazans, Guterres’s comments tied in with a general view among Israel’s critics that conditions in Gaza were so dreadful that we can hardly be surprised at the inhabitants fighting back.