First, they’re nearly all about stopping Israel’s shameful habits in killing so many Palestinian civilians in its pursuit of Hamas fighters, whereas giving a free move to Hamas’s shameful breaking of the cease-fire that existed on Oct. 7. On that morning, Hamas launched an invasion during which it murdered Israeli mother and father in entrance of their youngsters, youngsters in entrance of their mother and father — documenting it on GoPro cameras — raped Israeli girls and kidnapped or killed everybody they might get their arms on, from little children to sick grandparents.
Once more, you will be — and ought to be — appalled at Israel’s response: bombing all the pieces in its path in Gaza so disproportionately that hundreds of kids have been killed, maimed and orphaned. However in case you refuse to acknowledge what Hamas did to set off this — to not justify what Israel has performed, however to clarify how the Jewish state may 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 move, 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 habits is handed off as a praiseworthy journey in decolonization.
Second, when individuals 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 answer. They’re arguing that the Jewish individuals don’t have any proper to self-determination or self-defense. I don’t consider that about Jews, and I don’t consider that about Palestinians. I consider in a two-state answer during 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 individuals is established in these territories occupied in 1967.
I consider in that so strongly that the factor I’m most pleased with in my 45-year profession is my interview with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, in February 2002, during which he, for the primary time, known as on your complete Arab League to supply full peace and normalization of relations with Israel in alternate 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 do exactly 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 answer? 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 not less than 19 individuals and injured 172 at a preferred seaside resort Wednesday, the beginning of the Jewish non secular vacation of Passover. At the least 48 of the injured had been described as “severely wounded.”
The bombing occurred in a crowded eating room on the Park Lodge, 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 individuals: blowing up a Passover Seder in Israel.
