Ryan ChartrandJosh falsely asserts that protesting rockets fired into Israel “would have done no good” since the United States does not support Israel as it does the Palestinians. The U.S. has actually given millions in aid to the Palestinians. The U.S. and other organizations have legitimately refused to deal with Hamas ruled Gaza because Hamas will not agree to halt terror, recognize Israel and abide by past agreements.
It should also be noted that Hamas is virulently anti-Semitic in its charter and rhetoric, while there is nothing comparable in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. In addition, Hamas forced the war on Israel by launching 200 missiles (1). If nothing else, people protesting Israel’s invasion of Gaza should also protest Hamas to establish themselves as balanced.
Josh then states that Israeli terrorists attacked Deir Yassin and massacred 254 Palestinians and said outright that the massacre was meant to warn other Palestinians to flee. Again, this is simply not true. A study by the Bir Zeit University determined that the total number of civilians killed was 107 (2).
Deir Yassin did in fact have a Iraqi troops stationed there and the Israelis needed to capture the village to safely reach the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem. If you read Menachem Begin’s book “Revolt,” you will see that most of the efforts of the Jewish ‘terrorists’ were against the British. The Israelis did not want to kill civilians but were forced to since the Arabs stationed their soldiers in the village itself. This is equivalent to what Hamas is doing in Gaza right now.
1) Lecture notes from Dr. Lloyd Moffet
2) Sharif Kanaana and Nihad Zitawi, “Deir Yassin,” Monograph No. 4, Destroyed Palestinian Villages Documentation Project, (Bir Zeit: Documentation Center of Bir Zeit
Andrew Max
Social sciences freshman