1. About 10 days ago, an Israeli court ordered several Palestinian families to be expelled from their homes in Jerusalem. The deputy mayor of Jerusalem later admitted that the city brought the eviction case as part of a broader strategy of installing "layers of jews" throughout East Jerusalem to make sure that Jerusalem is "a Jewish capital for the Jewish people."
2. Palestinians protested the evictions as ethnic cleansing.
3. The Israeli government escalated the hostilities by cracking down on protesters, including assaulting worshippers trying to pray and forcibly clearing the al-Aksa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan, injuring 178 people.
5. Israel retaliated with an assault against Gaza which killed 20 people, including 9 children.
I'm sure it will only get worse from here.
Meanwhile, the American media paid very little attention to the evictions, the protests, the IDF's assault of worshippers at al-Aksa, really anything until #4. When Hamas started firing missiles, it was suddenly a top story. Because the story started there, it looked like Hamas just started attacking for no reason.
Personally, I question the motives of both the Israeli government and Hamas. I think the Netanyahu government was quick to escalate into violence because Bibi is under indictment for corruption and his political opponents are negotiating to form a new government that would depose him as Prime Minister and he perceives his hardline stance against the Palestinians as a strength. I think Hamas' attack was pretty counterproductive and was little more than a desperate attempt for the group to remain relevant. Lost in all of this are the ordinary Palestinians who continue to protest and who are getting unfairly lumped in with Hamas in the eyes of most American. In our media Hamas is an easy villain. The story is only worth telling if we have a good villain.
