First, they are effectively stopping Israel’s shameful act of pursuing Hamas fighters and killing so many Palestinian civilians, while at the same time breaking the cease-fire that existed on October 7th by Hamas. The idea is to give a free pass to shameful failures. That morning, Hamas launches an invasion, murdering Israeli parents in front of their children, murdering children in front of their parents and recording it with a GoPro camera, raping an Israeli woman, They kidnapped or killed anyone they could get their hands on, from small children to sick grandparents.
Again, you may and should be appalled by Israel’s response. It is Israel’s response to so unjustly bombing everything in its path in Gaza that thousands of children have been killed, maimed, and orphaned. But if we refuse to acknowledge what Hamas has done to bring about this state of affairs, then we are not trying to justify Israel’s actions, but rather how the Jewish state can be used against Palestinian men, women, and children. To explain how you could inflict so much pain, you are just a partisan cabal. Another partisan log is lighting the fire. By giving Hamas a pass, the protests impose such a burden on Israel that its very existence makes it a target for some students, while its murderous acts are miscast as a laudable venture in decolonization. .
Second, when people chant slogans like “Liberate Palestine” or “From the River to the Sea,” they are essentially calling for the disappearance of the state of Israel, not a two-state solution. They claim that Jews have no right to self-determination or self-defense. I don’t think that way about Jews, and I don’t think that way about Palestinians either. I believe that in exchange for security guarantees, Israel will withdraw from the Arab areas of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and a demilitarized Palestinian state will be established that embraces the principle of two states for two people. I believe in a national solution. In the areas occupied in 1967.
I believe so strongly in that that the thing I am most proud of in my 45-year career was the interview I did with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz in February 2002, in which he for the first time addressed all Arab countries. The Arab League called for an offer of complete peace and normalization of diplomatic relations with Israel in exchange for complete withdrawal from the 1967 front. This call led the Arab League to convene a peace conference in Beirut on March 27 and 28 the following month to do just that. It was called the “Arab Peace Initiative.”
And do you know how Hamas reacted to the first pan-Arab peace initiative for a two-state solution? CNN tells us. The following is a report from Israel on the evening of March 27, 2002, shortly after the Arab League Peace Summit opened.
NETANYA, Israel — A suicide bomber killed at least 19 people and injured 172 others at a popular seaside hotel on Wednesday, the start of the Jewish religious holiday Passover. At least 48 of the injured were described as having “serious injuries”.
The bombing occurred in the crowded dining room of the coastal resort Park Hotel during the traditional meal that marks the beginning of Passover. …The Palestinian group Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist organization designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Yes, that was Hamas’s response to the Arab peace initiative for two people, by two nation-states. The idea was to blow up Israel’s Passover Seder.
