The Hamas attack on the Re’im dance party and on the kibbutzim on October 7, during which 1,200 Israelis were raped, mutilated, tortured, and murdered, and what followed after, has caused leftist Israelis in the so-called “peace camp” to completely rethink their assumptions about the possibility of a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. It is not Hamas that they have had to change their views about — they never had any illusions about that terror group — but they have had to reconsider their faith in those “innocent civilians” with whom they had hoped to make peace. More on this sea change in attitudes among Israel’s left-wing “peace activists” can be found here: “Their dovish hopes clipped, some Gaza border residents make peace with becoming hawks,” by Canaan Lidor, Times of Israel, March 4, 2024:
The fact that the Hamas terrorists who invaded her kibbutz on October 7 wanted to murder everyone there came as no surprise to Irit Lahav, a peace activist from Nir Oz, where one in four residents were killed or kidnapped.
Even before the massacre, Lahav had entertained no illusions about Hamas. Like many other kibbutzniks and moshav residents with dovish attitudes near the border with Gaza, she had seen how the group deliberately targeted civilians, including by firing rockets into residential areas at specific times to increase loss of life.Yet she had always believed that Hamas’s actions were distinct from and unrepresentative of the wishes of the silent majority of Palestinian civil society — ordinary and decent people whom she imagined were concerned primarily with providing for their children and improving their own lives under difficult circumstances.
That belief was shattered on October 7, by what she says were “hundreds of civilians, including women and children, who followed” behind the terrorists, invading Israeli communities to celebrate and join in the pillaging, vandalization and destruction of Israeli communities.
“This wasn’t something I had factored in,” said Lahav.
Not only did many hundreds of these “innocent civilians” follow right behind the Hamas operatives on October 7, but they took enthusiastic part in the ghoulish proceedings. Some”civilians” joined in the mass rape of Israeli girls; other “civilians” stepped over Israeli corpses to steal whatever property they could find in the homes of Jews. Once the houses had been looted, civilians joined Hamas operatives in setting fire to them. When Israelis who were left alive were driven into Gaza on the back of pickups or flung over motorbikes, civilians would run beside the vehicles to beat the traumatized and helpless hostages, delighted to participate in the tormenting of the hated Jews for as long as they could. And we know that it was not just Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad that took Israelis as hostages. Some were also taken from the kibbutzim back to Gaza by those “innocent civilians,” who wanted to further torment and exploit them, including using the girls and women as sex slaves. We have no idea how many of those hostages are still being held by those civilians and how many have been murdered.
Another blow to the Israeli peace camp has been the widespread support in Gaza for the atrocities committed on October 7. Nearly two-thirds — 66% of Palestinians in Gaza — support what Hamas did on October 7. In the West Bank, more than four-fifths— 83% — of Palestinians support the atrocities, for a total of 75% approval among Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. When three-quarters of the “Palestinians” support what Hamas did — the beheading of babies, the burning to death of children, the mass rape, mutilation, and torture of girls and women, the slicing off of women’s breasts, the cutting off of genitalia from the men and gouging out of eyes, the murder of children in front of their parents and of parents in front of their children, can anyone of sense believe that these people who have declared their support for Hamas are “innocent civilians” just because they were not members of Hamas? Some of them actively participated in the attacks, others savagely beat the hostages as they were brought back to Gaza, and a great many others — two-thirds of Gazans —said they approved of the atrocities. They cannot be considered “innocent civilians.”
It’s been far better for naïve leftist Israelis to have learned this lesson now, as Irit Lahav and so many others have done, before Israel is pressured to make a catastrophic withdrawal from parts of Judea and Samaria. No more withdrawals from territory to which Israel has a superior claim, based on the Mandate for Palestine and on 3500 years of Jewish history. No more “two-state solution” nonsense. This has been an unintended consequence of the atrocities committed both by Hamas and by “innocent civilians” in Gaza — and a most important one.
abu taleb says
Islam has brainwashed muslims to hate the Jews and other non muslims, even muslims in different sects, to think that muslims are superior to non muslims in every way and to blame non muslims for every misery muslims have.
Karen Dowden says
The core teachings of Islam stipulate hate for all infidels, especially Jews. This will never end. Remember one of Mohammed’s first terror acts was to wipe out 2 Jewish tribes in Arabia. In one case about 400 males were slaughtered and women and children taken as hostages. So……. This situation will not end. Muslims also consider themselves as “The Best of peoples”.
Ray Jarman says
Were it not for the oil in the Middle East, people in this area of the world would be living squaller. With women not working and men with up to four wives (many of them first cousins or even closer), there is little time for advancement in sciences or even simple production of items to make a better life.
YHolansky says
AND NON-MUSLIMS, AETHEISTS, & AGNOSTICS + some fellow JEWS at the UN, EU other World Bodies, UK, North American, European, Australian, uneducated, ignorant mobs of children yelling for HAMAS
deny atrocities even took place October 7,2023.
Setting numbers in proportion to the USA and 9/11 it would have been the same as losing 30,000 Jews! However the nature of the loss, is even more horrific The total disregard for the suffering or who the individual was and the disregard for the corpse. Do this to this to a Muslim and the whole World will cry out. Do this to a Jew and the whole World will deny it happened until it reaches 6mm and can’t be denied except for beginning after 70 years later by fringe groups, the Arab World, and Abu ABBAs leader of the Palestinians. He earned his PhD writing his dissertation claiming the Holocaust never happened. Yet he’s respected and lauded in the Western World
. These kids and Professors could never live under Hamas 1 day and their directing Professors guided by whom NO one knows for sure except they are only one level above their students in knowledge on the Middle East! Speakers who visit their campus they shout down because they can’t afford for the truth to confuse their students.
Tony Rice says
After reading this Article, whatever sympathy I had for the inhabitants of GAZA has evaporated. As usual, despite extreme provocation, the I D F have and continue to behave admirably, despite whatever lies and untruths other countries may say, including the now known bent U N. ISRAEL is fighting for Western Judeo/ Christian civilisation and is our canary in the coalmine. Don’t forget, the power behind Biden is OBAMA, a Muslim, anti Israel, anti Jew, anti Brit and pro Islam
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I actually have never drawn any artificial distinctions b/w Hamas/Fatah/Islamic Jihad vs the average “Palestinian” residents of Gaza, Judea or Samaria. They are all jihadists, and the one who is not – the PFLP (which has Christian Pali members) is a communist outfit. So I’d flip the “no-human-is-illegal” cliche of the Dems, and say that the “Palestinians” are illegal. I’d probably buy a gun and have it on me before I do that, though
Ray Jarman says
+1
Infidel, you just did it so you should have a gun at the present time.😃
YHolansky says
All those friends, who have given us aid, grants and loans in the past, remember; this isn’t a Diplomacy Card to coerce Israel, to commit National Suicide. We won’t agree to perceived solutions that we know by experience of living in the Middle East generations, amongst friendly and unfriendly Arab Muslims, that will follow a path towards our demise, the end or weakening of our National Sovereignty.
If we say No, it’s because we know it’s not going to work. Remember how US General Allen tried to pressure us to accept withdrawal from areas in Area C and set up Electronic Surveillance? Our Generals countered when we are there to stop the terrorists from rising up and moving toward us our border is secure , he replied the Palestinian Police can fill this role. At that point Our Generals politely smiled and told our political leaders NO! When has the PPD laid down their lives protecting Israel. At the end of the day the US goes home to sleep several thousand miles away. Europe goes home a few thousand miles away. None of them can agree on anything in a crisis. When it comes to Jews other than the US they don’t have a good track record. Todays administration calls into question,the price to be paid for American Aid.
John Pepple says
That part of the world never went through the Enlightenment, so no one should be surprised at this. It’s basically “oppress or be oppressed” with them.
I know that Plato somewhere says that it is better to suffer injustice than to engage in it, but in this case I have to disagree. It is better for enlightened people to “oppress” unenlightened people than vice versa. Enlightened people will, for example, bring good medical care to the people they are supposedly oppressing, while the opposite will not be true.
Peter Burrows says
It comes as a shock to learn that even in Israel, the nation on the front line of civilization vs Islam, that people haven’t read the Koran. Islam requires Muslims to KILL us unless we convert to Islam or submit to be ruled by Muslim theocrats. Allah has said so quite specifically in the Koran, verses 9.5 plus 9.29. After 1400 years, you’d think we’d get the message, especially the Jews, God love ’em.