I thought this started on 7 October?
A Re: News headline:
"Israeli hostages arrive in Israel as ceasefire passes first hurdle ... Palestinian prisoners are also expected to be released today."
The language Re: uses here is very deliberate.
They use “hostage” to describe Israelis taken by Hamas on 7 October, while using “prisoner” to describe Palestinians being released as an after-thought.
It's a Euro-centric, Israeli-focused headline.
The word ‘hostage’ suggests that the Israelis taken by Hamas were normal, like us, while the term ‘prisoner’ makes us believe the captured Palestinians are evil and deserving of their punishment.
That they’re different.
Such language ignores the conditions this ‘conflict’, in reality genocide, arose.
"Because of sensationalism and ideological hysteria, I would say that sort of prejiduce against Muslims has been perpetuated by the western media."
We spoke to a Palestinian Kiwi in early January 2024, who said the media have a role to play in justifying genocide.
"This is not a conflict, this is an oppressor and an oppressed, this is a coloniser and the colonised. It's apartheid."
He said because of the western media's coverage of the slaughter campaign in Gaza, anti-Muslim rhetoric has been able to spread a lot easier.
Not even Re: is immune.
Since 1967, between 750,000 and 1 million Palestinians have been arrested by Israel.
Before 7 October 2024, Israel had 5,200 Palestinian hostages. 170 of these were children.
Within a month, this had increased to 10,000. As of July 2024, 2,070 Palestinians from the West Bank were held without charge or trial. Israel’s National Security Minister announced a state-sanctioned torture and execution of Palestinian prisoners, including those without charge or trial.
“Prisoners should be shot in the head instead of being given more food,” said Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Israel had been attacking Palestinian villages through settler expansion, and attacking mosques during Ramadan — when they know Palestinians wouldn’t fight back.
As early as 1929, there were Palestinian uprisings due to threats against the Al–Aqsa Mosque.
In 2015, Israeli forces stormed the mosque again and assaulted worshippers. This led to the "Knife Intifada" in which individual Palestinians made lone–wolf attacks on Israeli forces. Tensions escalated from the first day of Ramadan that year with the occupying forces provoking worshippers throughout that entire month.
There were also a number of illegal Israeli settlements around this time that our Key government took no steps to reverse, only condemning future ones.
In 1994, a right–wing settler from New York entered the most populated mosque of 800 people, and murdered 29 worshippers. He injured 125 worshippers and was beaten to death by the survivors.
US lawmakers called for a ceasefire during Ramadan in 2024, demonstrating that the US government directly connects what’s happening in Gaza now to Al-Aqsa Mosque and, more specifically, to Israeli attacks on Palestinians during Ramadan.
The US understands what Hamas and the other Palestinian resistance groups have been saying since October 7: This is a war for the future of Al-Aqsa and not a random outburst of violence that has no context.
The Palestinian resistance is being met with disproportionate force — an excuse from Israel to completely wipe out Gaza and move their settlers in.
We see their ‘Greater Israel’ being taught in schools and Israeli circles talking about real estate opportunities in Gaza as they watch the genocide of an entire population be carried out by a Western-backed government.
If people are occupied, is resistance justified?