First, they’re nearly all about stopping Israel’s shameful conduct in killing so many Palestinian civilians in its pursuit of Hamas fighters, whereas giving a free cross to Hamas’s shameful breaking of the cease-fire that existed on Oct. 7. On that morning, Hamas launched an invasion by which it murdered Israeli dad and mom in entrance of their kids, kids in entrance of their dad and mom — documenting it on GoPro cameras — raped Israeli girls and kidnapped or killed everybody they might get their fingers on, from little youngsters to sick grandparents.
Once more, you may be — and must be — appalled at Israel’s response: bombing every little thing in its path in Gaza so disproportionately that hundreds of youngsters have been killed, maimed and orphaned. However if you happen to refuse to acknowledge what Hamas did to set off this — to not justify what Israel has carried out, however to elucidate how the Jewish state might inflict a lot struggling on Palestinian males, girls and kids in reverse — you’re simply one other partisan throwing one other partisan go surfing the fireplace. By giving Hamas a cross, the protests have put the onus on Israel to such a level that its very existence is a goal for some college students, whereas Hamas’s murderous conduct is handed off as a praiseworthy journey in decolonization.
Second, when folks chant slogans like “liberate Palestine” and “from the river to the ocean,” they’re basically calling for the erasure of the state of Israel, not a two-state resolution. They’re arguing that the Jewish folks haven’t any proper to self-determination or self-defense. I don’t imagine that about Jews, and I don’t imagine that about Palestinians. I imagine in a two-state resolution by which Israel, in return for safety ensures, withdraws from the West Financial institution, Gaza Strip and Arab areas of East Jerusalem, and a demilitarized Palestinian state that accepts the precept of two states for 2 peoples is established in these territories occupied in 1967.
I imagine in that so strongly that the factor I’m most pleased with in my 45-year profession is my interview in February 2002 with the Saudi crown prince, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, by which he, for the primary time, known as on your complete Arab League to supply full peace and normalization of relations with Israel in change for full withdrawal to the 1967 strains — a name that led the Arab League to carry a peace convention the following month, on March 27 and 28, in Beirut to just do that. It was known as the Arab Peace Initiative.
And are you aware what Hamas’s response was to that first pan-Arab peace initiative for a two-state resolution? I’ll let CNN let you know. Right here’s its report from Israel on the night of March 27, 2002, proper after the Arab League peace summit opened:
NETANYA, Israel — A suicide bomber killed a minimum of 19 folks and injured 172 at a well-liked seaside resort Wednesday, the beginning of the Jewish non secular vacation of Passover. At the least 48 of the injured have been described as “severely wounded.”
The bombing occurred in a crowded eating room on the Park Resort, a coastal resort, throughout the conventional meal marking the beginning of Passover. … The Palestinian group Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist group labeled a terrorist group by the U.S. State Division, claimed accountability for the assault.
Sure, that was Hamas’s response to the Arab peace initiative of two nation-states for 2 peoples: blowing up a Passover Seder in Israel.