A pro-Israel group has put up on Hulu a 39-second video about Gaza, which opens with a narrator intoning “Come Visit Beautiful Gaza,”as those words appear on the screen. This is followed by a shot of palm trees swaying, and then “with its stunning beaches and charming boardwalks” (shot of beach), “you can stay in one of our five-star hotels” (shot of luxury hotel), “and get a taste of the best in Middle Eastern food” (shot of smiling chef leaning over one of his creations), “embrace the vibrant night life of the city” (shots of smiling groups of young Gazans), and “embrace a culture that is rich in tradition” (picture of elderly man), and —suddenly there is an ominous break, and the narrator intones “this is what Gaza could have been like, without Hamas” (shot of Hamas fighter, then of a line of missiles, then of Yahya Sinwar, then scenes of desolation), and finally, after the word “NOW” covering the screen, the narrator ends “this is what Gaza could have been like, if Hamas hadn’t built a nation of terror, instead of a nation of peace.” It’s 39 seconds of brilliant storytelling, and it is more powerful because it is all true.
More on this video can be found here: “It isn’t Zionists conflating Hamas with Gaza civilians. It’s the ‘pro-Palestinians.'” Elder of Ziyon, February 14, 2024:
Hulu is airing a commercial showing what Gaza could have been if it wasn’t taken over by Hamas.
It is 100% accurate – and Israel haters are livid, trying to get Hulu to ban the ad.
Arab News wrote, “Pro-Israel video tries to blame Palestinian people for Gaza destruction: expert” and “Critics claimed the ad was propaganda, attempting to unfairly attribute the devastation in Gaza to the Palestinian people.”
How can anyone watch that ad and think that is the message? The ad explicitly blames Hamas three times in text, once in audio, and does not blame Palestinians at all for Hamas’ crimes. It shows nothing but sympathy for Palestinian people, portraying them as wanting normal lives.
Nowhere in those 39 seconds are the Palestinian people blamed for the devastation in Gaza. It is Hamas that decided to “build a nation of terror,” Hamas that appears three times in the text displayed over photos of fighters, weapons, and ruin. Again and again it is Hamas, never the Palestinian people,” who are blamed for Gaza’s plight.
We see this often. Israel is in a war with Hamas, it is targeting Hamas, it says over and over again that the enemy is Hamas and not Gazans. But Israel haters take anti-Hamas statements – even to the ICJ – and claim they refer to all Palestinians.
The only people conflating Palestinians with terrorists are the people who claim to be pro-Palestinian. The only people who make a clear distinction between the two are the Israelis….
They conflate civilians with Hamas because they identify with Hamas themselves.
Civilians in Gaza, despite their despair over how Hamas treats them, stealing their aid money and using them as human shields, remain resolute in their hatred of Israel. They cheered when they first heard of the October 7 atrocities; some of them, we now know, had come into Israel alongside Hamas operatives and did their own raping and killing. Some of those civilians took Israeli captives back to their own homes in Gaza, and have used them in various unsavory ways, including as sex slaves. And as Hamas brought its Israeli captives, on motorcycles, and flat-bed trucks, back into Gaza, civilians had great fun beating those captives mercilessly as they passed slowly by.
“Come Visit Beautiful Gaza.” That’s what the Israeli video shows could have been, had Hamas never existed. And if Hamas is crushed, as we all must hope will happen, the people of Gaza will have another chance to construct a semi-decent polity, and semi-decent lives. Not all of them, of course, deserve such an outcome; many of those “innocent civilians” have blood on their hands. If a decent regime, not the Palestinian Authority, is imposed on Gaza by the Gulf Arab states who will be paying, one assumes, for the reconstruction of Gaza (Western powers have sent quite enough aid — many billions — already to Gaza, and ought not to continue the practice), they should be able to remove the most fervent Hamas sympathizers from positions of authority.
mgoldberg says
When I visited in 2003/2004/2005 to several jewish towns in Gaza, I was stunned by how much they had accomplished in some 30 plus years there. They had been welcomed to the area by the arabs who had nothing much there and who thought the jews were crazy to take some mobile homes and such and park them in the desert where they paid for lands that were desert sands. The muktar brought bread and salt and wished them well, and asked that if they were lucky enough to make it and stay, might there be some jobs and work for the arabs? But by the late 80’s, the return of Arafat and his henchman, the deaths of jews and the ‘apartheid’ was indeed declared by Arafat and the walls around the towns began to be fortified. When I got there in the above noted years, there had to be guards at all times and missiles indeed came over the fences at times. This was what the PLO and PA brought to the region and Hamas…. well Hamas was the purveyor of Jihad slaughter and remained so since 2005′. And yet, we have the same old western hacks trying to sell the homicidism of Hamas, as somehow ‘reasonable’ due to ‘oppression’. If only we could get the world to consider what Jihad of Islam means and considers and do away with the appeasement that has brought all this hate, hatred and madness to the rest of the world.
abu taleb says
Frankly I think, even without Hamas, Gaza will not be like what is shown on the ad. Gaza will be more like Yemen or Pakistan because muslims usually unable to create productive country, the same way with what happen in South Africa. Without rich natural resouces, Islamic countries will be poor (Malaysia maybe an exception, but 35% of its population are not muslims, and they are the ones who do the hard work).
Mike says
Abu: good comment, but one also has to consider that, if Gaza had had a more moderate and honest government that wanted to spend aid money responsibility without embezzling it and Washington on terrorism, andbhad focused on reconciling and working together with Israel for economic and social development, then Gaza could indeed have been like the portrayal in that fictional ad.
Mike says
….and *wasting* it on terrorism… (Ha! Washington also has sometimes wasted money by giving it to bad actors in that region.)
Scotsman48 says
The Israeli people turned their piece of Desert into an Oasis.
When Jews lived in Gaza they created an International Flower Growing Exporting Business and when they all were forced to leave the next day Hamas destroyed all the Flower growing Greenhouses putting hundreds of people out of a job which effected a thousand people or more.
Tel Aviv has the same Beaches as Gaza and yet only one is worthy of visiting… Take guess which one..
Rick Olsha says
It could have been an international resort. Stupid Palestinians. !!!
AM ISRAEL CHAI !!!!!!