Quantifying the Values of Gazans

People typically use the term “values” to describe things that are important to them and what drives their behavior, in an expression like “core values.” It is strange to use the word “value” for something that is almost impossibe to quantify. How do you put a number on freedom? Time with family? What about honesty, transparency or kindness?

What is important to people may be better explained by quantifying how they spend their finite resources like time, money or space. Core values can be extrapolated by examining what people say is important to them (say time with family) and then quantifying how they utilize such time (comparing time spent with family to time in the gym or watching TV).

Consider the 600 rockets fired by the Palestinian Arab terrorists in Gaza into the civilian areas of Israel over the weekend of May 5, 2019 and want can be learned.

More rockets than bullets. The roughly 600 rockets launched from Gaza is more than the total rounds of bullets used to shoot Muslim worshipers in a New Zealand mosque, the Jewish congregants in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA and at the Jewish worshipers at a Chabad House in Poway, California.

Bullets are cheap relative to rockets. Bullets are purchased by the caseload. They are one of the cheapest armaments used to kill people. While the media often portrays the “protesters” in Gaza as throwing rocks because of their “impoverished” and “desperate” situation, the people of Gaza obviously prioritized much more lethal and sophisticated weaponry.

Rockets take up much more space than bullets. Thousands of bullets can be stored on a bookshelf. Not so rockets. Each rocket takes the physical space of 1,000 bullets. Many warehouses must have been used to store the hundreds of rockets. So while the news describes the cramped quarters of the “coastal enclave” of Gaza, the militants have to qualms in using the finite space to store large weapons of destruction.

Elected terrorist army versus lone gunmen. There were a few racist murderers that burst into the mosque and synagogues in New Zealand and the U.S.A. They were fanatical “lone gunmen” who operated without support. However, the terrorists of Gaza number thousands of people who build, buy, transport, store and launch rockets. The terrorist group Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinian people to 58% of parliament. This is not a lone lunatic, but the mainstream desire of Palestinians.

Nearly a million targets versus a thousand people. The Muslim and Jewish houses of worship which were attacked held around a thousand people in total. But nearly a million people live within 25 miles of Gaza including the city of Ashdod with 225,000 people, Be’er Sheva with 186,000 and Ashkelon with over 100,000. These men, women and children in Israel were bombarded by the Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Antisemitic charter and mission compared to momentary lapse of reason / consumption of hatred. The racist killers in the New Zealand and American houses of worship were definitely consumed with hatred for Jews and Muslims well before they took violent action, but it is unclear what made these individuals act at that particular moment in time. Perhaps the hatred was “triggered” by a news item or something read online. Maybe it was an accumulation of things. It is possible that it was simply a moment of rage which might have passed without actually harming anyone. But not so for the Palestinian Arabs firing into Israel. Their charters calling for the death of Jews and destruction of Israel took months to write. The wars they fought against Israel have been going on for years. The 600 rockets fired into Israeli cities and towns went on all weekend. There was no momentary “snap” for the terrorists of Gaza.

We are told that Gaza is impoverished and cramped and that Gazans just want jobs, yet the Palestinian Arabs spend their finite resources on thousands of rockets. We are led to believe that there are just a few radical “militants” in Gaza, instead of acknowledging that there is an established military. We are told that the people of Gaza just want peace, even though they elected and continue to support the antisemitic jihadists of Hamas.

The Palestinian Arabs in Gaza demonstrate over and again that one of their core values is the destruction of the Jewish State.

If the madmen who killed worshipers in New Zealand, Pittsburgh and California had an army it would look like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. If they ruled a country, it would look like Gaza.

The “humanitarian crisis” of Gaza is not in the lack of jobs, food and infrastructure; it is that the people of Gaza continue to deny the humanity and rights of the Jewish people and Jewish State.

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Shrapnel of Intent

Pray for a Lack of “Proportionately” in Numbers. There will never be an Equivalence of Intent.

Looking at Gaza Through Swedish Glasses

Extreme and Mainstream. Germany 1933; West Bank & Gaza Today

The Palestinian State I Oppose

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