How can one rationalize murdering more than 1,200 individuals, committing sexual assault against women, decapitating babies, and setting fire to innocent children?
This question burns inside me as I watch Western, pro-Palestinian academics join rallies in support of Hamas.
A few days after the massacre, a coalition of 34 Harvard student organizations signed a letter saying that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” and that “the apartheid regime is the only one to blame.”
The letter was signed by Muslim and Palestinian support groups, Harvard Jews for Liberation, and the African American Resistance Organization, among others.
At the same time, in the heart of New York City, residents have held multiple rallies for Palestine, shouting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “New York City you will see, Palestine will be free.”
JTA quoted one of the organizers, who chose not to be named, as calling the violence in Israel a “great escalation of a historic struggle” and “not a terrorist attack” but instead a manifestation of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
A Palestine vigil was held at George Washington University. A large Palestine celebration took place in Dearborn, Michigan. On X (formerly known as Twitter), crowds were waving Palestinian flags at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center. One child had a sign that read “Israel is killing children like me,” with red paint splattered over the sign.
The list of examples could go on.
“They still don’t get it,” Harel Chorev of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University said of what he called the “idiot Western pro-Palestine academy.”
“They cannot say Hamas is a lethal, murderous organization like ISIS,” Chorev continued. “They are still justifying what happened. Instead of saying, ‘Wow, we were so wrong about Hamas being a legitimate liberation organization,’ you are getting these shameful reactions.”
He said that anyone who supports Hamas’s actions against Israel “does not deserve to be called an intellectual or a professional.”
Hamas is evil, why doesn't the West see that?
Chorev touched on something, however, that has become deeply ingrained in Western society: the perception that Hamas are “normal enemies” that can be negotiated with, explained David Wurmser, a fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, who used to advise US vice-president Dick Cheney.
“Hamas is evil,” Wurmser said. “There are no political opponents.”
And he is right.
SO WHY can’t this Western, pro-Palestinians academy understand that the recent attacks by the Hamas terrorist organization have nothing to do with colonization, occupation, oppression – or even fear that Israel would sign a peace deal with Saudi Arabia and leave the Palestinians behind?
The massacre against Israel was rooted in Hamas’s lethal, radical ideology. Believing anything else is believing lies.
In a striking interview with Sky News, head of political and international relations for Hamas, Basem Naim, told the reporter that Hamas did not kill any innocent Israeli civilians.
“We didn’t kill any civilians,” Naim says more than once. “Within the operation, I cannot confirm this Israeli propaganda.”
But when pressed by the reporter, who saw photographs of the dead bodies, Naim twisted the narrative: “We have to redefine what is a civilian,” the spokesperson said. “I cannot consider a settler living in the West Bank, carrying guns, burning the city of Huwara, a civilian. We cannot consider anyone sitting around the borders working on cyber and artificial intelligence to control and put us under siege as a civilian.”
However, the people killed in the South lived within Israel’s sovereign territory along an internationally recognized border. They were not living in the West Bank or any other settlement and were not involved in putting Gaza under siege.
If anything, they were the ones who supported Israel’s pullout from Gaza in 2005.
Hamas is lying to and manipulating Western media and academia.
While Israel’s response will tragically include the loss of innocent Palestinian lives, this will be the result of Hamas using their homes and hospitals as launching pads, while not providing bomb shelters or other means of protection.
What happened in Israel should be a warning sign to the entire West to wake up.
“The forces of evil are moving,” said Wurmser. “It’s time for the West to respond and act.”