The radical anti-Israel brigades in the United States always want to talk about purported war crimes the country is committing against Palestinians, but they never seem to want to talk about what the Palestinians do to their own. In the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas is more than happy to brutally oppress Palestinians and let the Israelis take the blame. However, Amnesty International has done some courageous research and reporting on the issue and is now bringing to light the horrific treatment of Gazans by the terrorist group. From Fox News :

The report, the last of four released by the human rights group detailing events during the fighting, said that at least 23 Palestinians were shot and killed by Hamas, which rules Gaza, while dozens more were arrested and tortured. Amnesty said those targeted were either political rivals of Hamas, including members of the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, or people the militant group had accused of cooperating with Israel.

The report detailed one particularly brutal spate of violence, which took place this past Aug. 22.

“In one of the most shocking incidents, six men were publicly executed by Hamas forces outside al-Omari mosque … in front of hundreds of spectators, including children,” the report said. Hamas had announced the men were suspected “collaborators” who had been sentenced to death in “revolutionary courts,” the rights group added.

“The hooded men were dragged along the floor to kneel by a wall facing the crowd, then each man was shot in the head individually before being sprayed with bullets fired from an AK-47,” the report said of the August incident.

In one section of the report, testimony from the brother of Atta Najjar, an ex-Palestinian Authority policeman imprisoned since 2009 and killed by Hamas last August, described the violence done to him in captivity.

“His arms and legs were broken … his body was as if you’d put it in a bag and smashed it … His body was riddled with about 30 bullets,” the brother was quoted as saying. “He had slaughter marks around his neck, marks of knives … And from behind the head – there was no brain. Empty … It was difficult for us to carry him … He was heavy, like when you put meat in a bag; no bones. His bones were smashed. They broke him in the prison.”

The report also revealed that Hamas used abandoned areas of a hospital in Gaza City to detain, question, and torture captives, even as other parts of the facility “continued to function as a medical centre [sic]”.

The article elaborates some more on the subject, but this particular section stood out to me as embodying exactly the kind of terrorism Hamas commits against its fellow Palestinians. What’s so amazing about a revelation like this is that, in the past, groups like Amnesty International have typically been associated with criticizing Israel far more than they would the Palestinian territories, particularly when you think about how American media would report on the issue. The organization is still critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, and in truth, the country’s hands are not totally clean even discounting legitimate responses to terror attacks on Israeli soil. However, war, as history teaches us, is not a clean business, and Israel makes an effort to insure accountability for its mistakes. Hamas does not.

Regardless of this, all the international Left (and anti-Semitic groups among the Right) want to talk about is the evils committed by the Israelis. They never want to talk about the travesties Hamas commits against its own people who are deemed insufficiently committed to radical Islam, unless they can blame Israel for it. However, nothing merits the kind of actions Hamas is taking against its own people. This is totalitarianism at its very worst, but we shouldn’t expect this to get much reporting in American media outside of Fox News. They’re just a bunch of radical rightwingers, though, right?

If our President can put aside his lukewarm (at best) feelings for Israel, this is an instance where the bully pulpit can be used to bring some light to Hamas’ atrocities. I’m not getting my hopes up for him doing much of anything, but that’s one way our government can help out: shine some light on this horrific oppression when few others will because they’re too busy blaming Israel for every bad thing that happens in the region. Unfortunately, it seems like our government tends toward that end of the spectrum these days.