Progressive pro-Hamas protesters, the world needs you

Hello, progressive pro-Hamas protesters, how are you? Back from some anti-Israel protest, waving your Palestinian flags and walked around with your "kufiya" chic? Were you able to feel like you did something important for the world? Good for you!

Now that you are home, will you have some time to do a small protest against Russia after the recent bombing of a children's hospital? I haven't seen or heard you complaining about the matter. Perhaps, amidst so much anti-Israeli demonstration you missed it. It happens. But well, no protest of yours has been reported since Putin's invasion of Ukraine either. I am going out on a limb to express to you my concern about this since you claim to be pacifists.

Where are those Ukrainian flags? Where are those burnt and trampled Russian flags? Don't get me wrong, dear ones. I'm not in favor of setting fire to any symbol of any nation, but it seems you don't have enough matches or lighters, only enough to ignite Israeli or American flags. Striking.

However, if as you claim, your protests are meant to stand in solidarity with the victims and the oppressed, it seems that for some mysterious reason, you only focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, so you may extend your mantle of solidarity to other parts of the planet and while the Ukrainians are still waiting for your support, I would like to comment to you that there are millions of people in the world who need your full commitment because they are caught up in various conflicts and/or suffer from horrible atrocities. However, for some strange reason, they are forgotten. 

Afghanistan

It is strange that you define yourselves as "feminists" while you are not heard raising your voice for the rights of Afghan women, who are oppressed by the Taliban. Women there cannot choose their gender or pronouns, so they will remain women, and as such lack the most basic freedoms you take for granted. 

Afghan women cannot study, work, dress the way they want, get beauty salon treatments, leave their homes without a close male relative, play sports, board a bus with men, choose their husband or the number of children they want to have, look out the windows or balconies of their homes, or protest. 

Yet for some strange reason, you still have not organized a protest against the Taliban regime. Odd.

The Sahel region

Tribal conflicts and attacks by terrorist organizations among other desperate situations in the Sahel have plunged the African region into a deep crisis of violence that has generated death, displacement, oppression and extreme poverty in the area. In fact, jihadist violence left 23,300 dead in 2023 alone, according to a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), and 2,500,000 were reported displaced from 2012 to 2022, according to a report by the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR). 

No comment from you? For what strange reason could this be?

Somalia

In Somalia, they are also waiting for you usual outraged people to be outraged by the suffering of the people of that country, where from the beginning of the civil war in 1991 to the present, the conflict has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, both from direct violence and from causes related to fighting, famine and disease. 

In addition, in recent years, the Islamist group Al-Shabaab has carried out numerous terrorist attacks in Somalia and neighboring countries, causing the deaths of thousands of people. With this introduction, you can start to investigate the matter in depth so that you do not forget, since 1991, there have been people waiting for your solidarity, which for some strange reason has not yet arrived.

Central African Republic 

The civil war between the Séléka rebel coalition, composed mainly of Muslims, and the anti-Balaka militias, formed essentially by Christians, has left thousands of people dead, more than 1,000,000 internally displaced and more than 600,000 refugees since the conflict broke out in 2012. Yet, for some strange reason, I have not seen even one tent at any university to protest this and stand in solidarity with the victims.

Nigeria

While you claim that Hamas is some sort of resistance group, another similar Islamist organization called Boko Haram has been kidnapping and killing tens of thousands of men, women and children in Nigeria, but these victims do not have your solidarity either. Moreover, you have also not bothered to choose sides in other violent conflicts tormenting the country, such as farmers versus herdsmen. What is this strange reason why you prefer to ignore so much suffering?

Sudan and South Sudan

The Darfur region of Sudan has been the scene of a decades-long ethnic cleansing, led by Islamist dictator Omar al-Bashir, which peaked in the early 2000s. An estimated 400,000 people were killed.

However, the conflict has never stopped, and in 2023 a civil war broke out that has left thousands of people killed, abused and raped, among other atrocities. In addition, some 8,500,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.

Meanwhile, it is important to know another fact that will surely seem irrelevant to you, since your eyes are on Gaza, of course: some 25 million people are dependent on emergency food supplies, and according to a report published in April of this year, approximately 5 million of them were at risk of starvation. Yet for some strange reason, you have never shown any interest in the suffering of these people. Why is that?

The situation in South Sudan is also desperate. Since the outbreak of the civil war in 2013 until its end in 2020, thousands of people were killed, all kinds of atrocities were committed against adults and children, and millions of people had to flee their homes. However, the violence has not stopped, and the dragging conflict coupled with sporadic violence in the country and food insecurity, among other issues, continue to batter the citizens of this nation, which for some strange reason, you progressive pro-Hamas protesters choose to ignore.

Yazidis in Iraq

While Yazidis have been persecuted for centuries, the most recent massacre suffered by this ethnic group happened in August 2014, when ISIS launched a campaign to carry out ethnic cleansing against Yazidis in Iraq, in which 400,000 members of this community fled to other areas and others were killed or abducted and subjected to horrific acts of violence: slavery, forced labor, torture and rape. 

ISIS killed an estimated 5,000 Yazidi men and women. In addition, the terrorists forced the men to convert to Islam or die, while the women were kidnapped, forced to marry the highest bidder, sexually enslaved and forced to convert to Islam. Also, in case you are interested (I doubt it), there are still an estimated 2,800 Yazidi children and women still missing. But, of course, for some strange reason this has not piqued your interest, nor have you written a letter to demand their immediate release.

Iran

In Iran, women, peaceful opponents and sexual minorities are extremely oppressed. Homosexuals and critics are often imprisoned and/or executed, while women must follow a strict code of conduct and dress, otherwise they are arrested by police or even end up dead under "strange" circumstances; as strange as the reasons why you never raise your voice in the face of such atrocities.

Why don't you raise your voice in the face of these terrible conflicts and so much suffering in the world?

The truth is that the list could go on with the brutal atrocities committed in China against religious minorities and opponents, or in Russia, or in North Korea, or with the suffering of the Coptic minority in Egypt, or with the conflicts in Lebanon and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, you have all the technology at your disposal to inform yourselves about all these conflicts, real genocides, real ethnic cleansings and real massacres in order to show solidarity with the victims, who are desperate for help. 

We all want to see protest camps, activities to identify with all these oppressed groups, demonstrations of all kinds and demands for a ceasefire in all these wars and for all the above atrocities to stop. But for some strange reason, you don't.

You misnamed pro-Palestinians also don't cry foul when Hamas tortures and/or murders the same Palestinians who think differently or are sexual minorities; and for that reason it is necessary for the press to start calling them what they are: pro-Hamas, pro-terrorism and/or fascists. 

For some reason, think about it, Israeli Arabs do not want under any circumstances to be part of a Palestinian state, because in Israel, all people can live in freedom, regardless of race, gender, creed, ethnicity, sexual inclination or ideology. Even you can express all your hatred, something you could not do in Gaza or the West Bank or any territory ruled by an Islamic or leftist tyranny. In fact, your current Islamist allies, who are benefiting from using you, cannot wait to slit your throats and discard you like old rags when they succeed in advancing their liberticidal agenda. They detest you more than you claim to detest Israel, the U.S. and Western values in general.

The strange reason why you protest against the only Jewish state obsessively while obviating the countless conflicts and real atrocities being committed around the world, including those perpetrated by Palestinians against Palestinians, isn't really that strange, is it?