TRY A LITTLE HONESTY ABOUT ISRAEL
Scan news accounts of anti-Israel campus and street protesters. Read their demands and manifestos. Collate the confusion after Oct. 7 from the Biden administration.
Here are some of the most common untruths about Oct. 7 and the war that followed.
› “Progressive Hamas”
Gay and transgender student protesters in America would be in mortal danger in Gaza under a fascistic Hamas that has banned homosexual acts and lifestyles. Anyone protesting publicly against Hamas or its allies would be arrested and severely punished.
Women are segregated in most Hamas-run educational institutions. Under the Hamas charter, women are valued mostly as child-bearers.
› “Colonists and settlers”
Students scream that Israelis are “settlers” and “colonists” and sometimes yell at Jewish students to “go back to Poland.”
But the Jewish presence in presentday Israel is deeply rooted in ancient tradition. Dating back at least three millennia, the concept of “Israel” as a distinct Jewish state, situated roughly in its current location, is ingrained in history.
› “Two-state solution”
When student protesters scream “From the river to the sea,” that is not advocacy for a two-state solution.
It is a call to eliminate the state of Israel — lying in between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea — and its 10 million Jewish and Arab citizens. The Hamas charter is a one-state/no-Israel agenda, which we saw attempted on Oct. 7.
› “Occupied Gaza”
Gaza was autonomous. The Israeli border is closed, but so is the Egyptian border. There have not been any Jews in Gaza for nearly two decades.
So on Oct. 7, Gaza was not occupied by Israel. It was under the control of Hamas, designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.
After being elected to power in 2006, Hamas canceled all subsequent elections and ruled as a dictatorship. Gaza forbids Jews from entering Gaza and has driven out most Christians. Israel hosts two million Arabs, both as Israeli citizens and residents.
› “Targeting civilians”
After murdering nearly 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, Hamas scurried back to Gaza and hid in tunnels and bases beneath hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Its pre-planned strategy was to survive by ensuring Gaza civilians would be killed. Hamas has indiscriminately launched more than 7,000 rockets at Israel, all designed to kill Jewish civilians.
Outside assessors have concluded that Israel has not inadvertently killed a greater ratio of civilians to terrorists compared to most other urban fighting conflicts elsewhere, and perhaps even fewer than American engagements in Mosul and Fallujah.
› “Genocide”
Israel has not tried to wipe out the Palestinian people in the fashion of Hamas’s one-state solution plan for Jews.
Before Oct. 7, some 20,000 Gazans a day requested to work in Israel — on the correct expectation of much higher wages and humane treatment.
If Hamas had come out of its tunnels, separated from its impressed civilian shields, released its surviving Israeli hostages, and either openly fought the Israeli Defense Forces or surrendered the organizers of the Oct. 7 massacre, no Gaza civilians would have died.
According to Hamas’s questionable “genocide” figures, roughly 4% of the Gazan population died during the Israeli response to Oct. 7. At least a third to almost half of those deaths, according to various international observers, were Hamas terrorists.
› “Disproportionate response”
Iran tried to send 320 missiles and rockets into Israel. Israel replied with three.
Hamas launched 7,000 rockets into Israel and slaughtered 1,200 Israelis before the IDF responded in Gaza, often dropping leaflets and sending texts to forewarn citizens.
Israel has been disproportionate only in the effectiveness of its response. Hamas and its Iranian benefactor intended disproportionately to hurt Israel but utterly failed.
So Israel proved to be competent, and Hamas incompetent in their similar efforts to use disproportionate force.