Don’t put blame solely on Israel

The writer of the recent letter “For goodness sake, end Gaza war” may call themselves “Realist”, but this is yet another case of the anti-Israel side being blissfully unaware of the realities of the Israel-Hamas war, and apparently of the very concept of irony.

What “Realist” calls for isn’t an end of the Gaza war, but for Israel to surrender to a genocidal enemy whose intentions to kill Jews and eradicate the Jewish state could not be clearer.

Because the so-called pro-Palestinian side shows it doesn’t actually care about the Palestinians so much as it hates Israel. There is, to the surprise of precisely no-one, zero mention of Hamas in Realist’s letter. Nor is there any mention of the 130 hostages that are still being held in Gaza – including not just Jews, but eight Muslim-Israelis and a number of foreign nationals, too.

Despite the fact that Hamas started this war ... that Hamas has been mercilessly oppressing the Palestinians living in Gaza since coming to power in 2007, and ... has been using civilians as human shields throughout this and every other conflict with the Israeli military, the entire responsibility of the war is put solely on Israel.

There would be no war had Hamas not attacked unprovoked (on 7 October). There would be no more war if Hamas releases the hostages and surrenders unconditionally.

Hamas has rejected the latest more-than-generous ceasefire deal offered by Israel and the US, backed by Qatar and Egypt.

Say what you want about Biden (I’m ambivalent) or Netanyahu (want him gone), they’re not Hamas and they’re not Hamas’ backers, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Not even close.

It’s telling, therefore, that so many “pro-Palestinian” activists reserve their ire exclusively for the former, while bending over backwards to ignore or even justify the latter.