The Occupation of Gaza

We made a really big error in judgement, when the UN abandoned us to our fate we thought we had the backing of our brothers in the middle east, we simply couldn't accept the fact that the world had changed, and that we must change with it. We were so consumed with hate, against the jew, against the world that we lost sight of what was important.

After the Simurgh, Gaza was filled with refugees from around the world. We had been evicted and five million people were squeezed into Gaza. It was crowded, and UN troops patroled extensively. We felt anger and rage. There were peace candidates, people who begged and pleaded for us to accept this, to make peace with Israel. These voices were declared to be traitors and had to live under the protection of the UN. In retrospect we really should have listened to them.

The revolt wasn't a planned thing, we just saw a moment of weakness and armed with past bad habits and old Hamas hardware, we struck. We thought that our brothers in the middle east would understand, after all our enemy was the hated jew. We thought wrong, instead what was noticed was that we were the only people in the middle east and one of the few countries in the world that didn't send people to fight Sharr. What they noticed was that on the day Mecca was attacked, Israeli air pilots gave their lives in the fight and we did not. We thought our struggle was the most important one. We were wrong, our petty rockets were silenced from the lack of material and we went to our homes in triumpth.

The UN soldiers who had left to fight the Endbrigners returned in a rage, but we knew their number and just like the Israelis, they were weak. We demanded that fellow muslims be the ones to police us. We felt that they would collaberate in our war effort, that they would support our claim to regain the holy land. Unfortantly for us, they granted our request.

We had gotten used to a certain kind of warfare, one with one notable weakness, it depended on our enemy caring about what the public felt. When the Islamic league came in we cheered, the leader had fought in Mecca. He stared at us, as the crowd chanted death to Israel, the mans face was a mask and then he motioned for silence. He asked for one person, one person who could prove that he fought in the battle of Mecca.

Just one, not a single hand went up, the crowd was silent and then the chanting began once again. The man looked tired and exhausted and then the words fell on his lips.

"Kill them all."

When the massacre had ended, he demanded that the leaders of the revolt be handed over. The leader of the peace candidates, Amir Baz was an obscure man in his late 40s. He and his fellows handed over every single name and their location. And then the armies marched to their homes. Efforts to use human shields failed, our attempts to fight back were crushed and annihilated.

The slaughter was terrifying and efficient, Amir... we hated him, despised him and for his treachery he was given the honor of being our representative. There would be no democracy, no vote. There would also be no aid, the UN had cut off the spigot, the arab leaders and charities had bigger concerns and Israel simply didn't care.

We would have to grow our own food, treat our own water. The troops raided every house, frisked every person, any weapon they found was seized, anything that could be used to make weapons was seized. For the next 30 years we would live under their heel. Cut off from the world, we were forced to grow up or else. Many starved, many died, but as much as we hated Amir... he saved us. He forced us to become educated, forced upon us rule of law, he was a force of modernization and secularization. Our meager resources would be put into building ourselves up.

Those that opposed his reforms died, when the long occupation was over a different people emerged. We had been humbled, but the pain and suffering of our long night, there were fewer of us, but we were more educated, more skilled and in the post war economy we thrived. No one came to Amir's funeral. The man who created the modern nation of Gaza, it is only now with the passage of time that we appreciate the genius of the man who saved us from ourselves.