Putin’s atavistic war of imperialist aggression against the sovereign Nation of Ukraine, and Hamas’s brutal and bloody invasion of Israel remain contemporary matters of great concern to the United States and its international partners. However, we have discerned, regarding the two events a fundamentally significant difference in their respective perception by the public. Initially, a brief recounting of the scenarios of both calamities would seem to be contextually, useful.
RUSSIA v. UKRAINE:
Putin’s wrongful, imperialistic aggression, seeking the elimination of the National independence of Ukraine and its incorporation into the Russian State, directed the Russian military to invade that Nation, absent provocation, with an arrogant and erroneous assumption that his war of aggression would have victorious results in a matter of days. Putin’s irrational assumption was resoundingly disproven by the unpredictably capable patriotic resistance by Ukraine. Tens of thousands of deaths were, and continue to be being suffered on both sides of the conflict. Russia is also guilty of the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children for the inculcation of anti-Ukrainian propaganda. It is also proximately responsible for the initiation of Europe’s greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War and, in addition, is responsible for extensive shortages in the World food supply; Ukraine, historically, a significant agricultural producer of grain.
Such optimistic assumption that Russia would have a victory within days, was soundly disproven, by Ukraine’s formidable and dedicatedly patriotic, military resistance, under its young and charismatic (democratically, elected) President, Volodmr Zelensky. The stiff resistance by the attacked Nation and the high level of its military prowess resulted in many victorious gains against the aggressor and earned the universally expressed admiration of the free world. Such successes, however, tragically induced the ambitious and psychopathic Putin to initiate a program of inhumane war crimes, including bombing hospitals, churches, and highly populated residential areas.
Notably, until very recently, the television media was entirely awash with harsh commentary amply supported by photographic demonstrations of the inhumane practice of Russia’s heartless bombing and shelling of non-military, civilian targets, such as apartment buildings, hospitals, institutions, houses of worship, and the like. The viewing public demonstrated appropriate outrage at the inhumane targeting of the Ukrainian civilian population, through appropriate media editorializing, loud and numerous public demonstrations, and privately expressed outrage. Ukraine’s young and popular President, often seen in military fatigues, became a popularly admired and courageous hero deservedly celebrated on television and in public appearances for his cool-headed defense of Democracy against the ravages of totalitarian plunder.
HAMAS v. ISRAEL:
In the morning of October 7, 2023, Hamas, a militant Palestinian group, launched a surprise attack against southern Israel, initiated by a huge barrage of explosive rockets, followed by a military assault. It performed a great many horrific massacres, including the beheading of babies and young children, rape, burning people alive while in their homes, massacring many young people at a concert, and taking 200 Israeli hostages, and internationals, including some Americans.
As noted in a previous essay, # 974, “HAMAS’ WAR AGAINST PALESTINE,” the militant group, fully aware that it lacks the capacity to defeat tiny Israel’s proficient military capability, which predictably would respond to their wrongful attack and medieval-level acts of cruelty, tactically retreated with its hostages to its vast network of well-supplied underground tunnels (strategically, constructed under civilian hospitals and residential centers) and as planned, causing the ravaged Nation’s justified and predictable military response to be visited upon (their own) innocent fellow Palestinians, inhabiting the surface. Its successful plan was intended to have World opinion turn sharply against the Jewish State and its universal acceptability as a democratic and moral partner.
It is contextually and thematically, vital to compare the sharply contrasting motivation underlying both attacks. Putin’s malevolent, aspiration was to seize more land and increase the reach of his autocratic rule. Hamas’ intention has eternally been, the obliteration of the Jewish State and destruction of its inhabitants, a motive shared by many other Islamic and European peoples.
The strategic chess move, made by Hamas, was successful; Israel’s expected retaliation was by Hamas’ premeditation, necessarily diverted to the civilian Gaza population residing on the surface, precariously above their safe place of defensive retreat in their enormous, well-provisioned labyrinth of tunnels, constructed underground, and tactically and psychopathically, located under civilian hospitals and residential venues.
As strategically devised, a predictable tsunami of universal outraged criticism instantly ensued, decrying the retaliate acts by Israel, directed against civilian Gaza, as criminal acts of inhumanity while the wily forces of Hamas, remained ensconced and cynically, shielded below the surface.
On a virtually immediate basis, copious daily televised reports, appeared, regularly accompanied by heartrending pictures of innocent Gazan citizens of all ages, killed and grievously wounded. Large public demonstrations against the Hamas-savaged Israel took place (our present theme) remarkably, in place of the continuing tragedy of the horrific punishment of Ukraine. The Russian genocidal acts bent on the erasure of Ukrainian National identity appeared notably, and summarily, to be relegated to a back seat to the strategically engineered, Hamas plot and a renewal of the unrelated issue of “anti-colonialism.” Acts of anti-Semitism reportedly, increased by 400%, including on University campuses. Far less attention is currently devoted to Putin’s imperialistic attempts to destroy Ukrainian Nationality than the widespread castigation of Israel’s (in truth, Hamas’) visible cruelty against innocent Palestinians.
Dare we choose to attribute such a universal and virtually spontaneous shift in the object of censure to humanity’s past empirical history?
-p.
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