OPINION:
Last week, decent people mourned the 1,200 killed in the pogrom waged by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023 — the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust.
Last week, decent people remembered the 254 men, women and children — including Americans — dragged by Hamas terrorists into the tunnels of Gaza. Sixty-four are believed to remain alive despite the torture inflicted on them.
But I want to spend a few minutes talking about the indecent people — the anti-Zionists who last week celebrated the murders, rapes and abductions.
On city streets and university campuses, they chanted “Globalize the intifada!” and “Hey hey, ho ho! Israel has got to go!”
They cheered for Hamas (decimated but not yet defeated), Hezbollah (which has fired thousands of missiles into northern Israel since Oct. 8, 2023) and the Houthis in Yemen (whose slogan is “Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam!”).
These and other terrorists are guided, armed and funded by Iran.
If you’re familiar with their ideology — their theology, really — you understand why they have no interest in peace talks or a two-state solution.
They may agree to deals that benefit them, but words put to paper by naive diplomats don’t bind them.
The war they’re waging is not intended to change Israeli policies. It is intended to exterminate Israelis.
On Oct. 7 a year ago, the terrorists proudly recorded their atrocities — e.g., stabbing pregnant women and burning parents and their children alive — on their GoPro cameras. They did so to provide a preview of the Holocaust 2.0 they envision.
“It’s time for the nation of Jihad!” shouted one terrorist featured in the new documentary “One Day in October.” “We’ll slaughter them! … I want to livestream this! We’ve got to show the folks back home!”
Not all anti-Zionists are so outspokenly genocidal. Many simply question whether Israel should exist. By what means do they foresee the Jewish state being disestablished? They leave it unclear.
Perhaps they’d propose that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank be granted Israeli citizenship, after which Hamas candidates could run for the Knesset, competing with those from such traditional Israeli political parties as Likud, Yesh Atid and the United Arab List.
Or maybe they hope that Iran and its proxies would permit Israelis to quietly board boats and planes bound for Berlin and Boca Raton.
Are they aware that half of Israel’s population comes from families who either fled or were expelled from what we’ve come to call the Islamic world, countries where minorities enjoy no freedoms or human rights?
Anti-Zionists have been saying “We don’t want two states! We want 48!” I doubt most of them know what happened in 1948. I’ll summarize.
The British imperialists who had replaced the Turkish imperialists after World War I withdrew from Palestine. The U.N. recommended partitioning the territory into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs.
The Jews agreed. What choice did they have? They had suffered years of attacks by their Arab neighbors, whose most prominent leader was Haj Amin al-Husseini. He’d spent World War II in Berlin, assisting Hitler.
When the Arabs — who didn’t yet identify as Palestinians — violently rejected this two-state solution, the Jews declared their independence on a sliver of their ancient homeland.
Within hours, armies from the surrounding Arab states launched a war to drive them into the sea — the sea alluded to in the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”
Against the odds, the Jewish state survived. Palestinian Arabs not opposed to Israel became citizens of Israel. They and their progeny constitute roughly 20% of the population today.
That campus anti-Zionists don’t know much about history is unsurprising. But members of Congress should not be so ignorant. Take Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Last week, he repeated the truism that Israelis have a right to defend themselves while attempting to block shipments of American weapons that Israelis need to defend themselves.
He echoed Hamas propaganda. One example: He asserted that 60% of Gaza residents killed since Oct. 7 were women and children.
Does he not know that such institutions as the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School have established that Hamas’ numbers are “probably outright faked” and that the majority of those killed are likely “Hamas fighters”?
And why does he fail to mention — much less condemn — that Hamas uses women and children as shields?
How is he unaware of such military experts as West Point’s John Spencer, who has concluded that “Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history and beyond what international law requires”?
And why doesn’t he call on Hamas to release its hostages and cease firing at Israelis?
I could cite other examples of disinformation from anti-Zionists in Congress, the media and the U.N.
But I prefer to end with a few words from someone who knows what she’s talking about.
Assita Adoua Kanko, an African-born Belgian member of the European Parliament, last week commemorated the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and the Hezbollah attacks that began the next day by telling a plenary session of that body:
“The truth is that this was never about love for the Palestinians but hatred for the Jews. This was not about a two-state solution but about erasing the Jews and destroying the West.
“Radical Islam and its terror groups have no borders. The intention of the Muslim Brotherhood and affiliated criminal organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah is to establish a caliphate on earth. Only justice and the courage to stand for our values can stop them.
“I will always stand by the victims.”
• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washington Times.
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