Here in the United States, there are certain rights we take for granted. The right to speak freely, to support the political candidates and parties of our choice, and the right, when accused of a crime, to a trial by a jury of our peers. In that expectation of rights, there are always those who seek to infringe upon them, but today, now, we are still guaranteed those natural rights by our Constitution.
People in much of the world may not have such an expectation. In Gaza, Hamas is executing people, without even the pretense of a kangaroo-court trial, on a horrific basis. We're all far too aware of what Hamas wrought on Israeli civilians on October 7th, 2023, but too many people in the Western world don't have anywhere near as keen an awareness of what Hamas does, in Gaza, to other "Palestinians." However, a recent piece in The Telegraph has some disturbing details.
Hamas has executed three Palestinians accused of “collaborating” with Israel on the streets of Gaza.
Footage posted on Hamas-affiliated Telegram accounts showed armed and masked members of the group lining up three blindfolded Palestinians in a public square in Gaza.
Chants of “Allahu Akbar” were heard among the crowd as they gathered to watch and film the public execution.
Shouts through the crowd, shouts of "Allahu Akbar." Now, it's not at all implausible to think that Hamas members may have assembled a crowd, not of the main run of Gaza residents, but of known Hamas supporters. But the fact that they can assemble any crowd at all shows that Hamas is not without support in Gaza.
That's troubling in and of itself. We should note that Gaza's education system literally feeds children antisemitism, jihad, Islamic extremism, and hate from the very start. They have produced generations of monsters, and even if Hamas is destroyed, some way will have to be found to deprogram many thousands of people, perhaps millions. Gaza's population, even now, is estimated at around two million.
How many of them support this kind of savagery?
One of the Hamas members was heard saying: “Pursuant to the content of Palestinian revolutionary law and based on the Palestinian revolutionary court, a death sentence was decided against those who betrayed the homeland, betrayed their people and betrayed their cause, and put [themselves] hand-in-hand with the occupation in order to kill their own people.”
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis provided The Telegraph with an English translation of the execution video.
The three men were ordered to kneel before three executioners shot them in their heads and upper bodies with rifles.
As recently as last May, at least six more "Palestinians" were executed, and several more maimed, in another extra-judicial action by Hamas.
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The elephant in the room? Iran. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has been the wellspring of all manner of savagery, and these kinds of extrajudicial executions are among them. A recent Amnesty International report has some shocking figures.
Responding to the arbitrary executions of tortured political dissidents, Behrouz Ehsani, 69, and Mehdi Hassani, 48, in secret in Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj, Alborz province, on 27 July, Kristine Beckerle, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said:
“Behrouz Ehsani and Mehdi Hassani were executed arbitrarily amid Iran’s horrific execution crisis, which has resulted in nearly 700 people hanged this year. They were executed in secret without notice to them or their families after a grossly unfair trial by a Revolutionary Court. They were denied access to their lawyers for nearly two years before a trial that lasted only five minutes and during which they were not allowed to speak in their own defense. Forced ‘confessions’ extracted through beatings, prolonged solitary confinement and threats to further harm them and their families were used as evidence to convict them.”
Note that Iran makes a pretense of a trial and legal counsel, which everyone knows is a sham. Hamas does not even make the pretense of any manner of due process.
This is not any manner of civilization. Civilization can only begin with the acceptance of some basic human rights, among them the rights to life, liberty, property, and justice. The Western world is not perfect in this respect; no system of government run by humans will ever be perfect. Even the American justice system can be perverted for political ends. We saw that as recently as 2020, with the Biden administration's treatment of the J6 defendants. But we do not do political murders after a sham of a show trial, and we don't shoot people in the streets.
The useful idiots here in the United States try to blame Israel for the problems in Gaza and in the Middle East, but there can be no moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas or Iran. There just is not. There never will be. Iran's and Hamas's behavior in this regard are acts of savagery and barbarity, and must be acknowledged and dealt with accordingly.
This conflict is not going to end with the destruction of Hamas. It will not end with whatever becomes of a post-Hamas Gaza. This is not a clash of civilizations. This, the civilized world vs. Islamic fundamentalists, is the great defining conflict of our time. It is a clash of civilization vs. barbarity, and there can only be one acceptable outcome.
Editor's Note: This article was updated post-publication for clarity.
