Historical Devastation Did Not Produce Terrorism: Japan, Germany, and Rwanda Rebuilt
*Analysis (argument, not a rated fact-check):* The claim that October 7 and Palestinian terrorism are justified by historical oppression or dispossession requires believing that historical devastation inevitably produces terrorism. It does not. Japan was firebombed across 67 cities and hit with two atomic bombs. Germany was bombed into rubble, divided, and occupied. Rwanda lost up to a million people to genocide in 100 days. All three rebuilt — economically, politically, culturally — without producing ongoing terrorism against their former oppressors. The framework that makes Palestinian terrorism seem inevitable is selective, not predictive.
The argument is stated in many forms but reduces to one claim: Palestinian violence — including the October 7 massacre — is an understandable, perhaps inevitable response to historical oppression, dispossession, or colonization. To evaluate this claim, we need to test it against other cases where peoples experienced comparable or greater devastation. The results are inconsistent with the theory.
Japan: Two Atomic Bombs, 67 Firebombed Cities, Foreign Occupation
From 1944 to 1945, the U.S. Army Air Forces (XXI Bomber Command, under Curtis LeMay from January 1945) conducted one of the most destructive air campaigns in history against Japanese cities (Wikipedia):
- 67 cities firebombed across the Japanese home islands
- Tokyo, March 9–10, 1945: General Curtis LeMay's B-29 incendiary raid killed approximately 100,000 civilians in a single night, destroyed 16 square miles of the city, and left an estimated 1 million people homeless. It remains one of the deadliest air raids in history.
- Hiroshima, August 6, 1945: The first atomic bomb used in war killed approximately 140,000 people by the end of 1945.
- Nagasaki, August 9, 1945: The second atomic bomb killed approximately 70,000 people.
- Total Japanese war dead: approximately 3 million, including roughly 333,000 killed in the air raids by the most commonly cited estimate (estimates range from 241,000 to 900,000).
Post-war, Japan was occupied by American military forces. The Emperor — considered a living god — was forced to broadcast that he was not divine. Japan was required to accept Article 9, a pacifist clause in its US-written constitution prohibiting the maintenance of war potential. War reparations were imposed.
Within 25 years, Japan was the world's second-largest economy. Toyota, Honda, Sony, and Panasonic became global brands. The children of people who lived through the firebombing of Tokyo were building cars that Americans drove to work.
There were no Japanese suicide bombers killing Americans in 1970. There are none today. Japanese children were not taught that Americans are their eternal enemies who must be expelled from the Pacific.
Germany: Total Defeat, Division, and Generational Guilt
Germany's defeat in WWII was total and deliberately humiliating:
- Hamburg, July 1943: Operation Gomorrah firebombed Hamburg over 8 days, killing approximately 42,000 civilians and destroying 62% of the city's housing stock.
- Dresden, February 1945: Firebombing killed approximately 22,700–25,000 people and destroyed the historic city center.
- Total German WWII dead: approximately 7–8 million; military deaths are estimated at 4.3 million (German government) to 5.3 million (Overmans), with roughly 3 million civilian dead including expulsions (Wikipedia).
- Post-war division: Germany was divided into four Allied occupation zones controlled by the US, UK, France, and USSR. East Germany would remain under Soviet communist control for 45 years.
- Nuremberg Trials: German leaders were tried and executed for crimes their nation committed. Collective guilt for the Holocaust was institutionalized in German culture, education, and law.
- Reparations: Under the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement, West Germany paid billions of Deutschmarks to Israel and to Jewish survivors worldwide — accepting financial responsibility for crimes against a people who had no prior claim on German land.
Within 50 years, West Germany was the economic engine of Europe. East Germany, after reunification in 1990, rebuilt under those same institutions. Germany became the largest economy in Europe and a founding member of the European Union.
There are no German terrorist cells bombing Israeli cities because Germany destroyed European Jewry and Israel was established in the aftermath. German children are not taught that Jews are enemies to be annihilated. German political culture has institutionalized the opposite.
Rwanda: A Million Dead in 100 Days — Then Reconciliation
On April 7, 1994, following the assassination of President Habyarimana, Rwanda's Hutu-dominated government and armed militias began a systematic extermination of the Tutsi population:
- 100 days, approximately 800,000–1,000,000 Tutsi killed — the fastest genocide in recorded history
- Methods: Predominantly machetes and clubs, carried out by organized civilian militias (the Interahamwe) with radio incitement from Hutu Power Radio (RTLM)
- Perpetrators: In many cases, neighbors killing neighbors. Teachers killing students. Priests killing congregants.
- International response: Near-total inaction. The UN withdrew troops during the killing. Western governments refused to call it genocide while it was happening.
Post-genocide Rwanda faced devastation that dwarfed anything in Palestinian history: an entire generation of adults killed in three months, families destroyed, infrastructure collapsed, perpetrators living next door to survivors.
Rwanda's response was the Gacaca system: community courts where perpetrators confessed to their crimes, faced community judgment, and were reintegrated into the communities they had attacked. The goal was reconciliation, not perpetual revenge.
By 2024, Rwanda is one of Africa's fastest-growing economies. Kigali is regularly cited as one of the continent's cleanest and safest cities. Ethnic identity cards — the administrative tool used to identify Tutsi for killing — have been abolished.
Rwanda's post-genocide record is not free of cross-border violence: the RPF-led Rwandan army and its Congolese allies invaded Zaire in 1996–97, and a 2010 UN mapping report documented mass killings of Hutu refugees and civilians, saying some could be classified as genocide if proven in court — a finding Rwanda rejects (HRW). Tutsi survivors of the genocide are not described as "resistance fighters" for wanting justice. The framework that makes Palestinian terrorism seem inevitable would predict ongoing Rwandan terrorist campaigns. It does not explain the actual outcome.
Now Compare: Palestinians and the "Resistance" Framework
The Palestinian situation is invoked to justify ongoing violence 75 years after 1948. The framework requires us to believe:
- That displacement in 1948 (itself caused in significant part by Arab states rejecting the UN partition plan and launching a war) inherently justifies attacks on Israeli civilians today
- That no amount of state-building, economic development, or political compromise can substitute for this violence
- That the children and grandchildren of people displaced in 1948 bear a hereditary obligation to avenge that displacement — indefinitely
This framework is not applied to Japan, Germany, or Rwanda. It is applied selectively. Why?
The key differences are:
- The Palestinian leadership (Hamas in Gaza, and historically the PLO) rejected or did not accept partition or two-state offers in 1947, 2000 and 2008 (the PLO did sign the 1993 Oslo Accords, which deferred final-status issues). In this analysis's view, Palestinian leadership's rejection of these offers is a central reason the conflict remains unresolved; others also point to settlement expansion and Israeli positions in later negotiations.
- Hamas's 1988 charter calls for the destruction of Israel and invokes the killing of Jews; its 2017 policy document still rejects recognition of Israel while accepting a state on 1967 lines as a 'formula of national consensus.' Terrorism in service of genocide is categorically different from terrorism in service of national liberation.
- Gaza received substantial international aid annually; Israeli officials estimate Hamas built some 500 km of tunnels and argue that diverted aid and revenue helped fund them and its arsenal. The October 7 attack was the most sophisticated military operation Hamas had ever conducted. This is not what desperate, oppressed people do. This is what a military organization with infrastructure, funding, and political support does.
What the Oppressor-Oppressed Framework Actually Predicts
If historical devastation reliably produces terrorism, we would expect Japan, Germany, and Rwanda to have ongoing terrorism campaigns against their former oppressors. They do not. If poverty and displacement reliably produce terrorism, we would expect impoverished populations worldwide to produce terrorist organizations. They do not — terrorism is a political choice made by leadership, not an automatic product of conditions. The selective application of the oppressor-oppressed framework — to Palestinians but not to Japanese, Germans, Rwandans, Native Americans, or any number of other historically devastated groups — reveals it as a rhetorical device rather than an explanatory one.
None of this is an argument that Palestinian suffering is not real, that displacement is not a legitimate grievance, or that Israeli policy has been flawless. It is an argument that suffering does not explain or justify the targeting of civilians, that Hamas's terrorism serves Hamas's agenda rather than Palestinian wellbeing, and that the 'resistance' framing — applied to a movement whose founding document calls for genocide and whose tactical choice on October 7 was the rape and murder of music festival attendees and the kidnapping of infants — is not earned by the facts.