OPINION:
A new survey from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 72 percent of Palestinians say Hamas was quite right in attacking Israel on that fateful October 7 day, and more than 90 percent don’t believe the Hamas terrorists committed any war crimes, such as torture and killing of women and children.
Palestinians, people of peace? There’s a laugh. There goes that whole leftist argument that the Palestinians living in Gaza are poor victims who don’t support the Hamas terrorists.
This poll also found that since the war, “support for Hamas has more than tripled in the West Bank compared to three months ago” — albeit “the majority in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip does not support Hamas;” that support for President Mahmoud Abbas, his Fateh party and the Palestinian Authority has dropped and that 90 percent in Gaza and even more in the West Bank are now demanding Abbas’ resignation; and that “support for armed struggle [rose] ten percentage points compared to three months ago, with more than 60 percent saying it is the best means of ending the Israeli occupation, [while] in the West Bank, the percentage rises further to close to 70 percent.”
That last is a key finding for all those two-state advocates out there. How to strike a diplomatic deal with a group of people who think you have no right to exist — that is to say, that your entire existence is one of illegal occupation?
At a time when the United Nations just pushed a resolution calling on Israel to cease its military attacks against Hamas — using plight of the poor Palestinian people as justification — this survey shows as most significant and enlightening because it shows maybe, just maybe, no, most definitely in fact, the Palestinians aren’t quite as innocent victim as, say, Rep. Rashida Tlaib and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres might have believed.
Tlaib, of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” chanting fame — a phrase that is thinly disguised code for calling for the destruction of the Israeli people — and Guterres, who recently said “it is important to … recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” and that the “Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” are both indicative of the rhetoric used by anti-Israel, antisemites who see the Jewish people as illegally dwelling in lands that rightly belong to the Palestinians, despite the fact there has never, historically speaking, been a Palestinian people or a state of Palestine.
As J.D. Farag, a Christian pastor who was born in Beirut to an Egyptian father and an Arab mother, says the words Palestine and Palestinian are taken from the word Philistine, the name of a group of people who no longer exist.
“When Jerusalem was destroyed and Israel was captured, they named it, as was the custom of that day, after the arch enemy of the people that they had just conquered. And who was the people group that were the enemy of Israel? The Philistines. So they first named it Philistia,” Farag said, “which is translated or transliterated really, as Palestine … and ever since then it’s been known as Palestine — that’s what the Romans changed the name to.”
But, he added: “There’s no such thing as a Palestinian. And if there’s no such thing as a Palestinian, or a Palestine, then that means there’s no such thing as a Palestinian state.”
It’s not the Israelis who want to eradicate the Arabs or the Muslims or any other group of people from the face of the earth. Visit Israel — research Israel — and within the boundaries of Israel and inside the geographical lines of Jerusalem are Muslims, Arabs, self-described Palestinians, living in safety and security alongside Jews; praying and worshipping in line with their own Islamic beliefs, in safety and security, alongside Jews. That same atmosphere of safety and security and religious freedom is not extended to Jews crossing into areas populated by the self-described Palestinian people, however.
As a matter of fact, Jews don’t even cross into these areas because they’re prohibited, and if they go, they go at their peril.
Only 22 percent of those taking part in the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research survey said Hamas was wrong to have launched an attack against Israel in October.
Fully 95 percent said they believed Israel had committed war crimes in the last three months of warring against Hamas.
Only 10 percent believed the same about Hamas.
Hamas is a terror organization filled with terrorists who want to obliterate Jews, obliterate Israel and obliterate the West — and the people of Gaza believe them over Israel; support them, not Israel; cheer them, not defenders of Israel. Any questions?
It’s impossible to make peace with people who are determined to destroy you.
America, the West, Hamas apologists and pro-Palestinian protesters — that is, tools of the terrorists — should stop pretending like a two-state solution is possible and that Israel can foster a friendly side-by-side living condition if only the IDF would stop firing. This is a lie that emboldens Hamas and antisemites.
If an election were held in Gaza today, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — the one the left likes to build as the voice of reason and calm — would only receive 16 percent of the vote and Ismail Haniyeh, the senior political leader for Hamas, would receive 78 percent, the survey found.
The ’peaceful’ Palestinians have spoken. And they say now as they’ve said in the past: there will be no peace with Israel.
Those who refuse to acknowledge this truth are only helping the antisemites, endangering the Israeli people and setting the security of the West in harm’s way.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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