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What Do Israel’s Critics Demand of the Palestinians?
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
Earlier this week, the Telegraph published an op-ed by Ben Wallace, Conservative MP and former Defense Minister (“Netanyahu’s tactics are weakening Israel,” Dec. 17).
Though Wallace condemns Hamas unequivocally, calls the group out on their antisemitic charter, admits that a “ceasefire” is meaningless as long as the terror group is in power, he also resorts to cliches illustrating his failure to understand the history of the conflict. For instance, he warns that Israel’s “disproportionate response” will serve as Hamas’s “best recruiting sergeant,” and that the war — which he describes as the IDF’s “crude and indiscriminate method of attack” — will alienate “moderate Palestinians who do want a two-state solution.”
First, as so many commentators have done over the years, Wallace denies Palestinians agency by suggesting that it’s Israelis, and not Palestinians themselves, who are responsible for shaping Palestinian attitudes towards peace and two states. It also erases the history of the conflict, in which Palestinian terror and extremism often peaked at times when Jerusalem was offering dramatic concessions for peace.
This includes the dramatic increase in terror attacks inside Israel by Hamas and other groups in the 1990s amidst the hope fueled by the Olso Accords, as well as the terror campaign known as the Second Intifada which, lets remember, broke out just as Israeli leaders were offering dramatic concessions that — if not turned down by Yasser Arafat — would have resulted in the creation of a Palestinian state.
The Second Intifada example is especially instructive, as those, like Wallace, who moan about Israeli counter-terror actions putatively causing Palestinians to be disenchanted with peace and co-existence never acknowledge the impact of destructive Palestinian decisions on Israeli views. For instance, the brutal war by Palestinian terror groups on Israeli civilians from 2000-2005 arguably did more to crush the Israeli peace movement than any other event since Oslo.
Similarly, Hamas’ rise to power occurred shortly after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, a timeline that wasn’t lost on those on the Israeli left and center, most of whom assumed that the country’s unilateral disengagement from the territory would result in greater peace. “Moderate Israelis,” to use Wallace’s formulation, were alienated by Palestinian decisions to reward Israeli concessions with more violence.
Wallace’s blind spot and double standards also extend to his failure to empathize with the unimaginable shock and trauma Israelis have experienced as the result of the savage murder, rape, torture, and mutilation of Jews on October 7, the worst antisemitic attack since the Holocaust.
Most of those living in the Gaza envelope communities decimated by Hamas terrorists, let’s remember, were on the political left, a good number of whom were engaged in peace projects with Palestinians.
Many residents of those in towns, like Be’eri and Kfar Aza, who weren’t murdered on that horrific day can’t help but reconsider their assumption that most Palestinians long for peace, in light of the atrocity itself, widespread Palestinian support for Hamas’ savagery, and videos showing the rapturous reception in Gaza for terrorists returning from their killing campaign, with their brutalized Jewish victims being presented as trophies.
Indeed, it’s been reported that some Palestinians who worked in the Israeli kibbutzim targeted by Hamas on Oct. 7 took part in the atrocities, while other workers allegedly used their access to those communities to gather intelligence for Hamas, “from the layout of homes to entry codes for the kindergartens.”
As Ilanit Suissa, a survivor of Kibbutz Kfar Aza and (former) self-described peacenik, told the Jewish News, “My heart is not just broken because of the Holocaust that took place here, but also because my whole agenda and ideology has broken down. I don’t know what to believe any more.”
Note that Suissa wasn’t “radicalized” by the Hamas massacre. She merely responded in a healthy way to the cognitive dissonance she experienced as a result of her strongly held beliefs clashing with reality. Moreover, Israeli society as a whole — despite the immeasurable trauma of Oct. 7 — hasn’t turned to extremism, with polls showing that a centrist coalition would trounce the current right-wing government if elections were held today.
This brings us back to the Palestinians.
What does the MP for Wyre and Preston North demand of them in response to the ISIS-style Hamas massacre of Jews Oct. 7? In his Telegraph op-ed, he addresses how they may respond to Israel’s military response to Oct. 7, but ignores the question of their response to the atrocity itself. It seems that — at least if he agrees that Palestinians should be held to the same moral standard that Israelis are held to — he should expect them to denounce Hamas, the group who speaks in their name, and their supporters, if not apologize to the Israeli victims on behalf of the Palestinian community.
Moreover, as the destruction in Gaza is the direct result of Hamas’s killing rage on Oct. 7, they should rightly hold Hamas directly responsible for the suffering Palestinians in the territory have experienced.
Let’s put it this way: If Israeli society did in fact radicalize as the result of Oct. 7 and voted in large majorities for Itamar Ben-Gvir-style extremism, Israelis themselves would be held responsible by Wallace for their decision to take that destructive political path. So, why wouldn’t he similarly hold Palestinians — and Palestinians alone — responsible for a collective decision they may make to embrace the antisemitic death cult that wrought horrors upon the region?
We’re not holding our breath, but we’d love to know his response.
Adam Levick serves as co-editor of CAMERA UK – an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.
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‘We Are Being Held Hostage’: Lebanese TV Host Says Hezbollah Taking Lebanon Toward War, ‘Certain Death’
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters through a screen during a rally commemorating the annual Hezbollah Martyrs’ Day, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Photo: Reuters/Aziz Taher
A Lebanese TV host said last week that Hezbollah has essentially taken Lebanon hostage, comparing what the Iran-backed terrorist organization has done to the country to the hijackers who carried out the 9/11 attacks in the US.
Dima Sadek, who hosts a show in Lebanon on MTV, expressed her fear and outrage over what Hezbollah is doing to Lebanon and the path of near-certain war it is taking, according to a report and translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Hezbollah, which wields significant political influence across Lebanon, boasts significant military capabilities much greater than those of other terrorist organizations in the region such as Hamas. The Lebanese Islamist group has long declared it seeks to destroy Israel.
“We are in danger of a hellish, existential war,” Sadek said on June 24 regarding the threats Hezbollah has made to countries such as Cyprus, which is in the European Union. “We are being held hostage. We have been hijacked by a group that has no clue of what is going on in this planet.”
She pointed out that “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who was the only one who managed to save your axis in the Syrian war, cannot overcome Europe, so how come you are threatening Europe with such confidence?”
Regarding the fear and helplessness she and some other Lebanese feel over the direction Hezbollah is taking, she asked, “Do you know who we resemble? The passengers on the 9/11 airplanes. We are like airplane passengers who do not see what is happening around them. We are being led by one person, and we have no idea where we are heading.”
She added, “The only thing that we know for sure is that this person is taking us to a catastrophe and certain death.”
#ICYMI: Lebanese TV Host Dima Sadek: There Is Nothing Left of This Country Besides Hizbullah and Its Weapons; They Are Holding Us Hostage; We Are Like the Passengers on a Hijacked Plane on 9/11 Heading Towards Certain Death #Lebanon #Hizbullah @DimaSadek pic.twitter.com/v7WDtIQqEV
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 30, 2024
Hezbollah terrorists have been firing drones, rockets, and missiles at northern Israel daily from southern Lebanon since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, leading Israeli forces to strike back. Tensions have been escalating between both sides, fueling concerns that the conflict in Gaza — the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas to Israel’s south — could escalate into a regional conflict.
More than 80,000 Israelis have evacuated Israel’s north and been unable to return to their homes. The majority of those spent the past nine months residing in hotels in safer areas of the country.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has also stepped up its threats against the rest of the world, including Cyprus.
Last month, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a speech in which he said an “all-out war” with Israel was “getting very close.” He added that if Cyprus, a European Union member, were to help Israel in some way during that war, then “Cyprus will be part of this war too.”
Israeli officials have said that, while they seek a diplomatic resolution to the current situation along the border with Lebanon, they are prepared to escalate military action against Hezbollah to push the terrorist group back in order to allow displaced Israelis to return to their homes.
Hezbollah, like Hamas, has been accused of using civilians as “human shields” when fighting Israel.
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Hezbollah Launches Big Attack on Israel, Sonic Booms Rattle Beirut
Rockets launched from Lebanon to Israel over the border are intercepted, amid the ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Israel, near the border with Lebanon, July 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ayal Margolin
Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched a big rocket and drone attack at Israel on Thursday and threatened to hit new targets in retaliation for the killing of a top commander, in the latest surge of violence in the steadily worsening conflict across the border.
Sparked by the Gaza war, the conflict between the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah and Israel has been gradually intensifying for months, raising fears of a full-scale war, which both sides have indicated they want to avoid and diplomats are working to prevent.
As the latest violence played out in areas at or near the frontier — in keeping with the pattern of the last nine months — the sound of sonic booms rattled nerves for the second successive day in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon.
Israeli jets broke the sound barrier over several areas of the country, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
Hezbollah said it launched more than 200 rockets and a swarm of drones at 10 Israeli military sites in retaliation for Israel‘s killing of Hezbollah commander Mohammed Nasser in the south on Wednesday. Nasser is one of the most senior Hezbollah commanders to be killed by Israel during the conflict.
The Israeli military said around “200 projectiles and over 20 suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory,” a number of which were intercepted by Israeli air defenses and fighter jets.
Israel‘s ambulance service said no casualties were reported. The Israeli military said some of the drones and interceptor shrapnel set off fires.
The Israeli air force “struck Hezbollah military structures” in the areas of Ramyeh and Houla,” it said, referring to two villages in south Lebanon.
Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, speaking at an event in Beirut commemorating Nasser, indicated his group would widen its targeting.
“The series of responses continues in succession, and this series will continue to target new sites that the enemy did not imagine would be hit,” Safieddine said.
DIPLOMATIC PUSH
The United States has been leading diplomatic efforts to deescalate the fighting. Hezbollah has said it will not cease fire as long as Israel continues its offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The hostilities have inflicted a heavy toll on both sides of the frontier, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
Amos Hochstein, a senior US official at the heart of the diplomacy, discussed French and American efforts to restore calm in meetings with French officials on Wednesday, a White House official said.
“France and the United States share the goal of resolving the current conflict across the Blue Line by diplomatic means, allowing Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return home with long-term assurances of safety and security,” the official said, referring to the demarcation line between the two neighbors.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that Israeli forces were hitting Hezbollah “very hard every day” and will be ready to take any action necessary against the group, though the preference is to reach a negotiated arrangement.
Hezbollah also launched rockets at Israel on Wednesday in retaliation for Nasser’s killing.
Hezbollah began firing at Israeli targets along the border with Lebanon after its Palestinian terrorist ally Hams launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, declaring its support for the Palestinians.
Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 300 Hezbollah fighters and some 90 civilians, according to Reuters tallies. Israel says fire from Lebanon has killed 18 soldiers and 10 civilians.
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Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say
Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
A Drexel University professor allegedly participated in a mass theft of items from a synagogue in a suburb outside Philadelphia, a local NBC affiliate reported on Tuesday.
Mariana Chilton, 56, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel, has been accused of stealing pro-Israel signs from the Main Line Reform Temple in Lower Merion Township, traveling there from her neighborhood of residency, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Chilton allegedly drove the getaway car while two other accomplices, Sarah Prickett and Sam Penn — who is from New York — trespassed the synagogue and absconded with the loot.
“We are just taking them because we feel like it is a representative of genocide,” Chilton told law enforcement after being caught in the act, the report stated. She then, after offering to “just put them back,” refused to identify herself and comply with other lawful orders.
Video evidence provided by a local resident placed Chilton and her accomplices at the scene of the crime, and a Main Line Reform Temple official identified the signs recovered from her car as the temple’s property. That was enough for law enforcement to charge her with several offenses, including conspiracy and theft. She is also charged with driving without a license and not registering her vehicle.
Drexel University has not responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Experts have told The Algemeiner in the past academic year that while the conduct of anti-Zionist students should be reported on, the role of faculty in fostering and engaging in antisemitic acts should be closely scrutinized. Last semester, anti-Zionist faculty attached themselves to anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations, sometimes breaking the law by preventing officers from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
At Northeastern University in Boston, professors formed a human barrier around a student encampment to stop its dismantling by officers, and at Columbia University, anti-Zionist faculty at the school, as well its affiliate Barnard College, staged a walkout in support of the demonstrations and demanded the abeyance of disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist students — dozens of whom cheered Hamas and threatened more massacres of Jews similar to Oct. 7 — who violated school rules.
Chilton’s case is unlike any other reported in the past year, however. While dozens of professors have been accused of abusing their Jewish students and encouraging their classmates to bully and shame them, none are alleged to have resorted to stealing from a Jewish house of worship to make their point.
Mass participation of faculty in pro-Hamas demonstrations marks an inflection point in American history, Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in April.
Since the 1960s, he explained, far-left “scholar activists” have gradually seized control of the higher education system, tailoring admissions processes and the curricula to foster ideological radicalism and conformity, which students then carry with them into careers in government, law, corporate America, and education. This system, he concluded, must be challenged.
“The cost of trading scholarship for political propagandizing has been a zeal and pride among faculty who esteem and cheer terrorism, a historical development which is quite telling and indicative of the evolution of the Marxist ideology which has been seeping into the academy since the 1960s,” Romirowsky said. “The message is very clear to all of us who are looking on from the outside at this, and institutions have to begin drawing a red line. The protests are not about free speech. They are about supporting terrorism, about calling for a genocide of Jews.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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