This might not be fashionable but on this special day when we’re asked to show goodwill to all people, I’d like to pay tribute to the amazing fighting abilities of Hamas in Gaza.

Don’t click away immediately. Hear me out, please!

I appreciate that Australia is one of a few countries that have declared Hamas a terrorist organisation.

And such a declaration is spot-on in my view: Hamas’s demand for a one-state solution in Israel is totally unreasonable and at direct odds with Israel’s clearly stated plan for their own one-state solution. And both are totally against the two-state solution most the world and Penny Wong are calling for even though they know it will never happen!

I digress. Back to the amazing fighting spirit of Hamas.

Israel, with one of the world’s most powerful militaries, has been at war with Hamas now for a couple of weeks short of 15 months.

Yes, that’s how long Israel has been bombing the shit out of Hamas and yet Hamas continues to mount the brave fight. How, I hope you are asking, as do I.

In recent days, Israel has been forced to reluctantly kill dozens and dozens more innocent Palestinians in north Gaza as, with pinpoint accuracy, it targets Hamas fighters cowardly hiding in whatever hospitals are left there, or among women and children barely surviving among the rubble of their former North Gaza homes or in freezing tents in supposedly safe refuges.

My overall point though? In the whole of Gaza – an area about a third as large again as Stradbroke Island off Brisbane – Hamas, with no tanks, bulldozers, heavy artillery or air supremacy but with some rusty Toyota utes, are still up for the fight! An amazing effort, really.

Weren’t we told 15 months ago that Hamas had between 20,000 and 25,000 fighters? That number will have been reduced by some thousands. And in the time since, surely Israel has pumped enough concrete to fill Sydney Harbour many times over into every tunnel Hamas has ever built under the entire hellhole that is Gaza? That concrete pour would not have started, of course, until exceptionally brave IDF soldiers had engaged in fierce mano o mano combat with Hamas terrorists in those tunnels to free any remaining Israeli hostages, as had always been Israel’s primary aim in all this!

Yet here we are on Christmas Day 2024 and Hamas fighters bravely soldier on, all now sitting ducks above ground presumably as Israel finishes the job of razing north Gaza started all those months ago to make it easier for the developers waiting patiently to begin their gated communities for deserving Israeli families seeking a new life in New South Israel with ocean views.

So while I accept this may not be popular, I dips me lid to the fighting qualities of Hamas, now above ground and in hiding in the shattered apartments of north Gaza or cowering like cowards under an ICU bed in any hospital that miraculously might still exist or sneaking about among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian tent people facing death by starvation, disease or a US bomb dropped from above or a US shell fired from a tank, whichever comes first.

As I declared earlier, an amazing effort, really, considering the overpowering might of one of the world’s most powerful – and some unkindly say – most ruthless of militaries, adept as they are at killing very large numbers of people but mainly women and children from a very safe and politically manageable distance, preferably from high above, as they exercise their right to defend themselves.

Some have even called out what’s been happening in Gaza these last 15 or so months as genocide, which is terribly anti-semitic of them, of course, and an unconditional apology would be nice.

Don Gordon-Brown

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