Palestinian children carry water bottles near their house on the outskirts of the West Bank village of Yatta, south of Hebron, August 17, 2016. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma
Comments on the Trouble in Israel and Gaza and for the Palestinian People
by Imam Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed
10 October 2023
تِلْكَ حُدُودُ ٱللَّهِ فَلَا تَعْتَدُوهَا ۚ وَمَن يَتَعَدَّ حُدُودَ ٱللَّهِ فَأُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلظَّٰلِمُونَ
“These are the limits established by Allah, so do not transgress them. If any transgress the limits established by Allah such persons become the wrongdoers - wronging themselves and others.”
We are not a community whose legitimate leadership is invited into the secret trust of governments and their strategic planning and intelligence gathering. We cannot speak with any advanced degree of certainty to the rationale of military and political strategists and their goals concerning the existing Palestinian and Israeli conflagration, nor related matters in the Middle East.
We are of the common people of this earth and our knowledge is of what the intelligent, well-meaning, and decent peoples of the earth with common eyes and knowledge see and discern of what is just and unjust, humane and inhumane. We are a Muslim-American People with good common senses and pure intentions seeking G-d’s Acceptance and asking for G-d’s Help and Guidance.
We know with our eyes and our souls that the Palestinian People have not been respected humanly by their oppressors. We know it from our own experiences in America. We know their natural aspirations for human recognition remains a daily heart-wrenching struggle. We know with our common sense that their existence in Gaza and the West Bank is that of a weary, occupied People, aggressed upon and intimidated by a menacing war machine. We know with our hearts that they have in so many countless tangible and intangible ways been coerced and cornered into desperation. With or without the acquaintance of Divine Guidance, decent people’s know the difference between decency and indecency, right and wrong, goodness and corruption.
The world is often insensitive to human suffering, but the righteous, G-d-fearing peoples of the earth do not, cannot, give up the moral leverage and high ground of the right, for wrong and wrongdoing. Authoritarian bodies can offer rationalizations like ‘the ends justify the means’ and ‘by any means necessary’ to govern and direct the passions of vulnerable, oppressed populations. Neither of these satisfy the human soul’s moral hopes.
No matter the rationalizations in consideration of the ongoing desperate predicament of the Palestinian People, Hamas’s actions targeting the innocent cannot be supported in any measure. It is conduct absolutely condemned. It is transgression against decency of the worsening type, provoking a devastating retaliatory display from one of the world’s most historically brutal and oppressive regimes. We can anticipate the response of Israel, in their view of justifications and in the universal moral view of unjustifications.
There can be no doubt that in addition to missiles and mortars, tactics of collective punishment like mass starvation and denial of basic dignities, will rain down on an undeserving, innocent Gaza population in further extreme insult to an already injurious condition and existence. An already horribly oppressive condition will be made exponentially worse for a suffering population.
Hamas’s actions barters the sacred lives of innocent Palestinian children and parents, for the self-serving and short-sighted objective of shock and spectacle status to an international audience. It is the plotting of immoral minds. In reality, it will earn nothing with the righteous but categorical condemnation, and nothing with G-d but severe punishment. Hamas’s calculations yield nothing in return for the Palestinian People from their best friends, allies, and supporters. Our support remains strong and resilient for the Palestinian Determination, but it is in no way strengthened by these acts. These acts are moral transgressions, and that of a despicable, corrupt leadership shaming the dignity of a proud but weakened, long-suffering People.
We pray for Allah’s Mercy on innocent lives lost. We pray His Mercy in innocent lives surviving. We pray for His Mercy on grieving families. We pray that He strengthen the Good to inspired acts of increased goodness in spite of great pain and great difficulty. We pray to Allah that He also inspire in world leaders clarity, restraint, and just parity in determining and acting in support of the truly innocent and acting against the truly guilty.