'Open-Air Prisons'

Al Khalady Mosque in Gaza

Gaza was never the 'open-air prison' supporters

of Hamas claimed it to be. Billions in charitable

funding received from international donors and 

the United Nations to support Palestinian life in 

the strip, a mostly Jewish enclave in the Medieval era

and long aeons before, used to build a modern civil

infrastructure above ground was also made use of

to build an uncivil subterranean attack mechanism

by the Gaza-ruling Hamas terrorist organization to

stockpile munitions, establish military command posts

and smuggle weaponry and luxury goods for the

commanding Hamas operatives. Claims of an abject

population under the heel of an occupying force

the narrative of choice in the gullible West whose

press, academic institutions and unions steeped

deep in the lore of Israel as aggressor proliferated

the lies. In Syria, on the other hand, an open-air prison

did prevail and in the dungeons of the regime those

incarcerated for the crime of decrying the regime

were tortured, mutilated, murdered in their agonized

masses. Syria's ruler did not hesitate to stifle dissent

to his rule by the majority Sunni Syrians using 

proscribed chemical agents and barrel bombs to

great effect in diminishing a population under fire.

In the Western media, unions and academia not

much interest in defending victims of a bloody 

civil war with millions displaced, a half-million

lives annihilated, the smirking ruler restored to

the fold of the non-judgemental Arab League.