I’ve considered myself a liberal all my life. I demonstrated for civil rights and against the Vietnam war. I believe that love is love, science is real, Black lives matter, and that a woman should make her own choices about her own body. (Don’t believe in abortion? Don’t have one!)
I deplore the meaningless loss of life that happens all too often: school shootings, attacks on young Black men who “dare” to venture into certain neighborhoods, and yes, Palestinian civilians too.
However, I’m disgusted and horrified by people on the New Left attempting to cloak their antisemitism as “concern” for Palestinians. And their refusal to acknowledge Hamas as the murderers and oppressors they’ve been since they started governing Gaza in 2007.
Where was all this “concern” when Hamas dug up water pipes in Gaza to make rockets, and diverted construction materials meant for Palestinian building projects to create tunnels for launching weapons into Israel?
Where was the outrage when Hamas began building terror units in/around/under civilian buildings such as hospitals, schools, mosques, and homes, knowing full well that this put Palestinian civilians at risk?
Where is the condemnation of Hamas when LGBT Palestinians face extreme ostracism, are sometimes forced to flee as refugees, and risk being kidnapped and beheaded?
Hamas authorities also ban the activities of LGBT rights groups. And it isn’t just LGBT Palestinians who are oppressed by Hamas in Gaza. The oppression of women is an intrinsic feature of Sharia law. Human rights researchers rank the Palestinian territories among the worst places in the world to be a woman.
Where are the pro-Palestinian voices protesting Lebanon (where Palestinians actually DO live under apartheid in segregated, impoverished refugee camps)?
And where were the voices protesting Syria, where Palestinians were forced to flee in 2011 from the Yarmouk refugee camps? Or when Iraq invaded Kuwait and Palestinians were targeted because Arafat sided with Hussein and many thousands of Palestinians were expelled from the region, resulting in a population decrease of about 95%?
If someone is only protesting against the Jews and Israel, do they really give a damn about Palestinians? Or only care when they get to blame the Jews instead?
Hamas commander Mahmoud Al-Zahar is quoted as saying, “Israel is only the first target. The entire planet will be under our rule.”
You don’t have to be Jewish to take that threat seriously. Remember 9/11?
Khaled Abu Toameh is an award winning Arab and Palestinian Affairs journalist with the Jerusalem Post. He is Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
(November 30, 2023 / Gatestone Institute)
The Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel on Oct. 7 did not kill only Jews. The terrorists also murdered and kidnapped scores of Muslim Israelis, including members of the Bedouin community. The terrorists’ murder spree made zero distinction between young and old, Muslim and Jew.
More than 1,200 Israelis were murdered in the massacre, while another 240 were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages. Scores of Arab Israelis were murdered, wounded or taken hostage. Among the kidnapped is Aisha al-Ziadna, a 16-year-old Muslim citizen of Israel.
The first wave of Hamas’s attack hit a music festival at Kibbutz Re’im which had an estimated 3,500 young people in attendance.
The magnitude of the onslaught became apparent as bloodied and panicked people staggered into the medical tent screaming for help.
Finally, the medical staff was ordered to flee along with everyone else.
Awad Darwashe, 23, an Arab-Israeli paramedic, remained behind, refusing to abandon the wounded. “I speak Arabic. I think I can manage,” Darawshe said. Perhaps he thought the terrorists would not harm a fellow Muslim Arab. He was wrong.
Hamas mercilessly beat, humiliated, abducted and murdered their fellow Muslims, including Darawshe as he was bandaging the wounded. After Darwashe was murdered, his ambulance was stolen and driven into the Gaza Strip.
Abed al-Rahman Alnasasrah, 50, was murdered by Hamas terrorists when he attempted to rescue people from the music festival. He was married and a father of six children.
Fatima Altallaqat, 35, from the Bedouin village of Ar’ara, was also murdered, while working with her husband near the city of Ofakim in southern Israel. She was a mother of nine children, the eldest nine years old and the youngest six months. Her brother said that Hamas terrorists shot 40 bullets into her.
“We’re a religious Muslim family and she wore the traditional headdress of a devout woman. It is inconceivable they [Hamas terrorists] could not see who was inside [the car]. They were five meters away from her as they passed. She said she could not feel her legs. Her head was opened and I could see her brain. I knew she was close to death.”
Suleiman Zayadneh, brother and uncle, respectively, to four of the Arab-Israeli hostages, describes himself as proud to be a Palestinian and Muslim. He vehemently rejects what he views as Hamas’s negation of both identities:
“What national pride? What religion? The people who came to shoot and kill—they know nothing of religion. These [Hamas] people came and killed left and right.”
Lt. Col. Wahid al-Huzeil, an IDF liaison with the Bedouin community, noted:
“The fact that Hamas abducted innocent civilians, including women and children, shows that this organization doesn’t represent Islam… [which] opposes the murder of women, children and the elderly…. this incident shows how much… their struggle isn’t a religious one…. Israeli society must realize that its struggle isn’t against Arabs, it’s against Hamas.”
Asked in early 2023 about their general quality of life in Israel, many Arab Israelis responded positively. A hijabed young woman replied:
“We live in a country that gives us many things, from the perspective of the laws, benefits, and everything else. It is the best. In comparison to other countries, it is really good. I study, I work, I enjoy life.”
Ibrahim, a middle-aged man, was unequivocal when interviewed in 2014: “I never felt that I’m deprived in any way.” Asked if he felt inequality in treatment between Arabs and Jews, he retorted:
“Stop the nonsense. It is empty whining. I don’t believe in that. Everyone here can get where they want. What—the country doesn’t let them study? Y’allah, be a lawyer, be a teacher. Does anyone stop you? Even in prayer. Does anyone stop you praying? We pray five times a day, five times no one stops us. Whoever wants to be successful can be successful. Whoever doesn’t want to be successful blames the country, the government.”
Where in the Middle East are Arabs thriving throughout society, not just in a privileged world of favors and nepotism? Israel.
Two days after the Oct. 7 massacre, Nuseir Yassin, a video blogger with 65 million followers, posted:
“I realized that… to a terrorist invading Israel, all citizens are targets. More than 40 of them [the murdered] are Arabs. Killed by other Arabs. And I do not want to live under a Palestinian government. Which means I only have one home, even if I’m not Jewish: Israel…. So from today forward, I view myself as… Israeli first. Palestinian second. Sometimes it takes a shock like this to see so clearly.”
There have been many stories about reciprocal inter-communal generosity and heroism in the aftermath of this national tragedy, and they create hope for the future.
The family of Darwashe, the paramedic who would not abandon the wounded, stated:
“We are very proud of his actions… This is what we would expect from him and what we expect from everyone in our family—to be human, to stay human and to die human.”
Ali Alziadna, whose four family members are currently held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, is touched by the outpouring of support:
“People from all over the country come to hug and support the family. The entire nation is one family now.”
Many Arab citizens of Israel serve as IDF officers and policemen, risking their lives for their fellow Israelis. Many have created life-saving medical innovations. Many are serving at the front lines, saving lives.
Undoubtedly, one of the objectives of the Hamas massacre, in addition to slaughtering as many Israelis as possible, was to thwart normalization between Israel and Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia. Hamas may also have aimed to damage relations between Jews and Arabs inside Israel.
The terror group was, without doubt, hoping that we would witness another cycle of violence between Jews and Arabs inside Israel, similar to that which erupted in May 2021. Then, Hamas succeeded in inciting a large number of Arab citizens of Israel to take to the streets and attack their Jewish neighbors and Israeli police officers.
This year, however, the Arab-Israelis have not heeded the calls by Hamas. One reason is that Arab-Israelis saw, with their own eyes, how Hamas terrorists make no distinction between Jews and Muslims.
Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated thatit cares nothing for the well-being of Arabs and Muslims. From their luxury homes and hotel rooms in the safety of Qatar and Turkey, Hamas leaders give the orders to attack Israel and then sit back and let the world weep over the destruction they wrought upon their own people.
On Oct. 7, Hamas metaphorically shot itself in the foot by showing the world, with unfathomably ghoulish pride, by way of Go-Pro cameras and other self-documentation, that it has neither a religious nor a secular-humanist set of values. Perhaps the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should look at the Arab citizens of Israel and note how they enjoy equal rights, democracy, freedom of speech and a free media. If Palestinians wish to live well, like the Arab-Israelis, this is the time for them to get rid of Hamas and all the terror leaders who, for seven decades, have brought them nothing but one disaster after another.
I don’t normally address politics in this blog but this is too important to ignore. The writer addresses some uncomfortable truths we all need to understand. I’ve highlighted some key points.
Hamas’ charter needs to be taken seriously, it calls for the obliteration of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state and the obliteration of Jews.
By DAVID BREAKSTONE The destruction caused by Hamas Militants in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October 11, 2023. (photo credit: OREN BEN HAKOON/FLASH90)
I just checked. For anyone harboring any doubts, the horror of 9/11 was perpetrated by terrorists. Every American newspaper and news station reported it that way. Curious, then, that so many of the world’s most respectable news outlets, including CNN and The New York Times, are now reporting that the barbarism recently visited upon Israel was perpetrated by militants.
Militants: those intensely devoted to a cause, promoting their beliefs with the full power of their convictions, but not generally violent. I may not be totally objective, but that doesn’t sound to me a particularly fitting description of those who indiscriminately butcher babies, rape women, slaughter young festival goers, murder children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children, pile handcuffed civilians upon one another and burn them alive, and ruthlessly abduct infants and the infirm along with everyone in-between.
The savagery and the numbers are staggering. The more than 1300 dead, 3600 wounded, and 199 hostages are proportionally far greater than the casualties of the heinous attack on the Twin Towers. Ten deaths for every million Americans back then; 140 for every million Israelis today. Why, then, the refusal to call out Hamas for being the heinous terrorist organization it is? Antisemitism is too easy an answer. There may be an element of that in the equation, but it is far from a sufficient explanation.
The reason may be better attributed to the inconceivably lingering perception of Hamas as a humanitarian organization, concerned with the welfare of the Palestinian people, which is how it presented itself to the world when it came to power in Gaza in 2007. That, along with the persistent perception that it is Israel and its policies that are the root cause of the sadistic violence that has now erupted with unprecedented depravity. As casualties in Gaza continue to mount and as the humanitarian crisis there continues to deepen, demands that Israel explain itself are going to become increasingly strident. That might not be fair, but it’s already happening.The destruction caused by Hamas Militants in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October 14, 2023. (credit: Omer Fichman/Flash90)
SOME QUESTIONS and answers, then, for those prepared to take on our detractors:
1. Isn’t Israel’s occupation of the West Bank the real reason for the Hamas invasion of Israel – and doesn’t the cycle of violence that Israel and Hamas have been caught up in for years suggest that one side is as much to blame as the other?
While Hamas indeed declares its aim is to end the “occupation,” the occupation it seeks to end is that of the entire State of Israel. Israel’s 1998 offer to withdraw from 96% of the West Bank as part of a comprehensive peace plan was summarily rejected by the Palestinians. Its 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, rather than being welcomed as a harbinger of peace, has been met with a 17-year barrage of tens of thousands of rockets targeting civilians.
Hamas’ charter needs to be taken seriously. It asserts that “Palestine is an Islamic Waqf, land consecrated for Muslim generations until Judgement Day” and calls for the obliteration of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea (Article 11), an objective fueled by vitriolic hatred of the Jew. “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’” (Article 7), precisely the harrowing script played out on October 7.
Israel’s genuine desire for peace was signaled by its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and its ongoing efforts at rapprochement, which have been steadfastly rebuffed by Hamas who has remained true to its unequivocal declaration: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through armed struggle [and that] so-called peaceful solutions… are in contradiction to the principles of Hamas” (Article 13), decrying any attempt by Arab countries to enter into a peace agreement with Israel as a betrayal of Islam (Article 32).
In contrast, Israel has consistently advocated for a two-state solution to end the conflict. There is no case to be made for moral equivalency in judging the two sides joined in battle. Regardless, there is no justification for the war crimes committed by Hamas, deliberately targeting Israel’s civilian population while using its own as a human shield to deter Israeli retaliation.
2. Doesn’t Israel’s stranglehold on Gaza leave Hamas with no choice but to resort to violence?
After its 2005 withdrawal, Israel signed an Agreement on Movement and Access with the Palestinian Authority. It would have granted the Palestinians control over their own borders, allowed for imports and exports, and the construction of a seaport. Then came the 2006 elections in Gaza which brought Hamas to power after a bloody struggle that decimated the Palestinian Authority and rendered the accord obsolete. Nevertheless, Israel has continually facilitated the import of humanitarian aid and the supply of electricity and water. This continued even as Hamas channeled the massive amounts of building supplies and billions of dollars it received for construction of hospitals and schools into the construction of tunnels and the procurement of weapons for attacks against Israel’s civilian population rather than serving the needs of its own.
Still, right up until Hamas launched its brutal attack, Israel was allowing 18,000 Gazans daily to cross its border for work.
3. Even if Israel has a legitimate right to retaliate against the massacre of its citizens, doesn’t the death toll of Palestinians relative to the number of Israeli casualties indicate a disproportionate response on its part?
The death of every innocent Palestinian is a tragedy, and Israel, abiding by the rules of war, has been doing its utmost to avoid that. The problem is, that while Israel uses its weapons to defend its people, Hamas is using its people to defend its weapons. It not only launches rockets from schools, hospitals, and mosques, but endeavors to prevent civilians from evacuating areas Israel has expressly warned them to leave.
What does proportionality mean?
As to proportionality, what would that mean? Killing the same number of civilians in Gaza as Hamas slaughtered in Israel? That would be tit-for-tat, revenge, retribution. Israel has no interest in that. It wants only to render Hamas incapable of inflicting any further casualties on its citizenry. Ever. Its resolve in this regard is ironclad. Hamas will have to decide how many of its own civilians it is prepared to sacrifice in its attempt to save itself. In the meantime, Israel is doing what it can to mitigate the suffering of Gaza’s civilian population, having established a corridor for the safe passage between Gaza and Egypt of civilians and the humanitarian aid they require. These are all things the world needs to know. Words matter.
The Hamas Charter matters. Hamas’s actions matter even more. Its members are terrorists, not militants, and the victims of the October 7 massacre, and the entire enlightened world Hamas threatens, deserves to hear the story told as it is.
The writer is currently engaged in establishing the Navon Center for a Shared Society. He previously served as deputy chair of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization and was the founding director of the Herzl Museum and Educational Center. breakstonedavid@gmail.com
The destruction caused by Hamas Militants in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October 14, 2023. (credit: Omer Fichman/Flash90)
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