Zahra Sakkejha and her peers wore purple T-shirts and held signs that read, “Free the Hostages, “Ceasefire Now,” “Diplomacy Now,” and “Not One More Drop of Blood!” They chanted, “In Gaza, in Tel Aviv, all the children want to live!”
While polls show widespread resistance to aid that will help hungry and homeless Gazans, there is an Israeli constituency that wants to help.
The deaths of children and other innocents in Gaza, mostly from US-supplied weaponry, are what’s driving campus protests. Too many non-combatants have died, but Israel is not trying to exterminate the Palestinian people.
Israel has expelled Al Jazeera. Defenders of Israel regard it as the Middle East’s only democracy, but democracies don’t generally ban press coverage.
There’s a refusal by some on the left to denounce Hamas as a violent terror group that not only committed a vile atrocity against Israelis, but has exercised authoritarian violence against Gazans for over 17 years. [Posted by permission of the Forward]
Despite its horrors, the Israel-Hamas war provides a new opportunity for diplomatic solutions; but that won’t happen if Netanyahu remains in power.
Global eruptions of antisemitism precipitated two conferences at the same venue, over 20 years apart. Although Israel is not to blame for the hatred of Jews, its policies and military actions often trigger it.
I analyze the nature of Hamas and explain why Israel is not guilty of genocide yet has apparently violated the rule of proportionality in its war against Hamas. I also advocate an endgame strategy that reintroduces the prospect of a 2 state solution.
Most Jewish students at Occidental were already quite critical of Israel’s policies . . . . But most were unwilling to join a protest that failed to acknowledge Hamas’s responsibility for its massacre of Israeli Jews.
If Qatar is able to arrange a ceasefire in place, releasing all surviving hostages in exchange for some number of Palestinian prisoners, Israel should take it.
© 2023 All rights reserved