After the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis by Hamas, despite a large amount of Chinese propaganda, some Chinese netizens have spoken in support of Israel and the posts are not being removed by censors.
According to the post, Rafi Harpaz, deputy director-general and ambassador for Asia-Pacific Affairs of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that among the messages in China, “there was no clear and unequivocal condemnation of the terrorist attacks and vicious massacres carried out by the terrorist organization Hamas against civilians, as well as the kidnapping of dozens of people into the Gaza Strip.”
The day prior, Israeli Ambassador Irit Ben-Abba had expressed her condolences on Weibo for the victims of the terrorist attacks.
Despite a large number of hate-filled comments from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) internet trolls, the two official Israeli posts have attracted responses expressing sympathy which have not been censored.
One Chinese citizen wrote, “I support Israel and condemn terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians!”
Another read, “Terrorism is the common enemy of mankind. As a Chinese, I can feel the pain and suffering of Israel,” and “I hope Israel can get through this difficult time.”
Hu Xing (pseudonym), a Shanghai resident, told The Epoch Times on Oct. 17 that “Any human being with normal awareness would be pro-Israel and against terrorist attacks, and now you can see [these expressions] on Weibo and WeChat platforms.”
He also said the messages were not censored because people in the CCP have a doomsday mentality, fearing for everyone connected to Hamas. “If Hamas loses the war, the CCP will be attacked by the whole world, so they [the censors] don’t want to take the blame for the CCP. So, they turn a blind eye to comments that support Israel or condemn Hamas.”
CCP’s Stance on Hamas
After the Oct. 7 massacre, a number of Chinese media articles expressed support for Hamas.Sina, one of the largest Chinese news and social media sites, published an article on Oct. 25 stating that “Israel’s expulsion, confinement, and blockade of Palestinians are genuine apartheid and concentration camps.”
The article also said that “the brutality that Israel is now inflicting on the Palestinians can be found in the Japanese fascists during the war of resistance against Japan,” comparing Israel to “a chilling racial fanaticism, like the German Nazis and Japanese militarists of the past.”
An Oct. 17 article on Tencent, another large Chinese social media site, said that, with the exception of a few countries like the United States, 90 percent of the world’s countries do not consider Hamas to be “a terrorist organization,” but rather one of justice that “resists the Israeli aggression and persecution of Palestinians and the Arabs.”
Bejing has never labeled Hamas a terrorist group and has been long suspected of helping fund Hamas.
On Oct. 25, 2012, a $1 billion lawsuit filed in New York state court accused the Bank of China, through its U.S. branches, of making several millions of dollars in wire transfers to Hamas and Islamic Jihad beginning in 2003. The families of five students killed in a 2008 terrorist attack on the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem brought the lawsuit. The case was eventually dismissed by the New York court.
