Israel's War of Liberation

Genocidal regime or human rights champion?

On October 7, Hamas shot, stabbed, raped, blew-up and mutilated unarmed Israeli men, women, children and babies. Three days later President Biden assured the world that “Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.” A recently freed Israeli hostage begs to differ…

“Everyone over there is a terrorist,” Mia Schem declared. The 21-year-old Israeli-French tattoo artist said Gaza’s civilian population did nothing to help her, and everything to maintain her confinement.

“Suddenly I realized that I’m with a family,” she told a TV interviewer. “Suddenly I’m asking myself questions: Why am I in some family’s home? Why are there kids here? Why is there a wife?”

If you’re tempted to dismiss Ms. Schem’s blanket condemnation as biased and anecdotal, cnn.com has news for you:

A poll by the Arab World for Research and Development found that 62% of Palestinians in the West Bank have a "very positive" view of Hamas, and 68% "extremely support" the attacks of October 7.

And yet the President, the media and the useful idiots taking to the streets to chant “from the river to the sea” label Palestinians killed or wounded by Israel’s ongoing assault “innocent civilians.” Non-combatants yes. Innocent? Not so much.

America’s pundit class, the President and Progressives won’t go there. That line of enquiry might devolve into a discussion about the values inherent in Judaism and Islam, both in theory and practice.

We can’t have that in our fabulously pluralistic society. Luckily, there’s another way to frame Israel’s war on Hamas that skirts the passions raised by religious debates. Freedom vs. fascism.

Lest we forget, Hamas are fascists. Freedom of speech and assembly, an independent justice system, religious tolerance, LGBTQ+ rights? Not in Gaza.

As Israel won’t let that happen again, you can make a good case that Israel’s fighting for its freedom to exist and the freedom of the Palestinian people. Freedom to enjoy the same rights Arab Israelis enjoy. Americans, too.

Why aren’t we hearing a liberation message from pro-Palestinian protesters? Surely they don’t want “innocent civilians” to live under the yoke of a brutal dictatorship. If Israel called it quits…

Why is the left railing against Donald Trump as a wannabe fascist dictator while cheering for a Islamic regime that would gladly line them up against a wall and shoot them?

OK, not cheering. What’s the catchy phrase they use? Silence is violence!

By not lobbying for Palestinians’ freedom from Hamas, the left are giving the terrorist group their tacit support. How great is that?

President Biden is equally shtum on the subject of human rights in Gaza. D’uh. American Muslims are a large voting block: 4.45m voters in key voting states. Some 69 percent of this demographic supported President Biden in 2020.

The closest the Commander-in-Chief came to mentioning the human rights angle in the war on Hamas: “Israel and Palestinians equally deserve to live in safety, dignity, and peace.”

Shouldn’t that be all people deserve to live in safety, dignity and peace? And where is the word freedom in that?

It seems clear that post-Afghanistan America has thrown in the towel on the whole “let freedom ring” thing. At least when it comes to foreign policy, where some of our most important allies are governed by brutally repressive regimes.

But we should talk a good game. I suggest an important change. Instead of calling the Palestinians “caught up” in the war on Hamas “innocent civilians,” we should call them “oppressed civilians.” Yes?