26 comments

1. Yes! Stop! Hamas is NOT Palestine they are ISIS and yes once eliminated Israel will be safer. 

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   1. Hello Amnonz,
      Thanks for sharing your view. Did you watch the Peter Beinart video? I suspect not.
      Israel had lots of problems with Palestinians before Hamas was ever invented, and will keep on having them even if Hamas disappears. Its problems with Palestinians will continue until Palestinians are treated properly.

   2. It is worth remembering that the political wing of Hamas won the last election that Palestinians were allowed to hold. Israel and its enablers refused to deal with the victors. That strengthened the hand of the militant wing who feel that nothing but violent resistance will work.

2. Although: if Hamas kills another 700+ civilians, including 240 music goers, will that make Palestine freer… is the obvious corollary … that should have been asked first.

   R.

   1. Hey Robin,
      of course not. The solution can only come through mutual respect and equality.

3. Palestinians always get the worst of it ,,very sad ..israel has been butchering them ,, taking their lands etc etc,,for years and now palestine is fighting back and they are the bad guys????what am i missing here..

4. You are asking the wrong question. The question you should ask is, “What is wrong with the Palestinian national movement that produces the kind of depraved violence that we saw yesterday?”

   Whether secular or Islamic, the deeply rooted Jew hatred embedded in the Palestinian national movement erupts decade after decade. This is one of the reasons that the Palestinian cause is usually supported by antidemocratic nations like the Soviet Union and Iran.

   1. Mr. Roytenberg,
      You ask an important question but I think it has a clear answer. If you treat people badly, you will change them. If you torture them, they are likely to “go crazy”. If you take away their property, they will feel lost and not know what to do. If you take away their hope for a full future, you will make them more likely to take huge risks because they feel that they have nothing to lose. If you treat them with contempt, they will view you as worthless. If you do hateful things, they will hate you. In other words, you can make enemies and make them depraved.

      Rabbi Hillel told us how to prevent this – don’t do these things. We would not want them done to us; we should not do them to others. We have to recognize their rights, their feelings, and their desires. We have to treat people with respect. Those who are respected, offered a future, granted their rights, etc. are much less likely to be depraved.

5. Sadly I have been following the atrocities in Gaza and Israel since the first day and one overarching theme runs through the discourse. Namely that Palestinians are worth less as people than Israelis. Long before hamas existed Israel committed atrocities against Palestinians. Tantura, Deirdre Yassin and the nakba itself. In modern times Israeli acts in conflict with Gaza have included war crimes, use of white phosphorus, DIME munitions, and targeted killings of various Palestinian political figures. Recent killing of Shareen Abu Akhlah, the firebombing of the Dawabsha house and murder of a baby, and the daily violence and murder of young Palestinian men have passed without comment from the west. The current Israeli military actions include war crimes including the total blockade of Gaza which is collective punishment of non combatants. And all the western media and politicians can do is to react with horror at lost Israeli lives and give passing, if any, thoughts to dead Palestinians. Until both peoples are seen as equals in life and death and are seen as worthy of genuine justice, this endless cycle will continue. Had the west not enabled Israel to date, I doubt we’d be where we are now.

6. There’s no way to hope that Israelis will think or act rationally, whenever one Jew or many are killed. During the years, due to the power that the world gave them, in many ways, plus their own developments, with the billions that they got, especially weapons development, they had it relatively very easy to control the Palestinians, subjugate them and show them “who is the boss” – as one high ranking Israeli put it some years ago.
   Also winning every attack or skirmish they engaged in, those made them feel that they are special people. They are worth more than others, especially Palestinians or Arabs as they call them. Their mindset is, how dare anyone harm an Israeli Jew. And when it happens they go into the mood of revenge, absolute revenge.

   A few years ago in an attack in Gaza, the officer gave an order to his group, to start shooting. One soldier asked: where and whom to shoot. Officer: shoot to the right, shoot to the left and in the middle. Shoot anything that moves.

7. Hey Peter, I do not think the rhetorical or hypothetical nature of your question makes it acceptable. Not in the least. There is so much you can do and spin to make Canadians listen.

8. It’s interesting that media reports and mainstream commentators have had nothing to say or to speculate about possible Palestinian motivations.

9. I like to add to the question. What do you expect practicing apartheid against people for 75 years will give you in return on your billions of dollars investment!! It’s the struggle to be free that has no limits.

10. This debate will never end because in much of the world, particularly in more advanced economies, justice is a commodity from the media to the courts. In Canada the narrative is set by lobbies which buy government policy to media output. Except for one, the details are well known on this forum. The coronation of Justin Trudeau was sponsored by a lobbyist, the late Barry Sherman. Only eyes were rolled rather than heads.I am less knowledgeable on Europe, but from Sunak through von der Leyen to Zelensky all politicians parroted complete support for Israel.

    With Russia posing an existential threat to Eastern Europe, resources could now be diverted to helpless little Israel. Add to that another German in the US at much the same stage as Hitler, one hundred years ago and the planet going up in flames, I take comfort in nearing the end of nine decades.

    Bob Pflug

11. Frankly, as long as Israelis continue to support a man like Netanyahu, who campaigns on his want to continue to lockup innocent Palestinians as though it will stop Hamas. Hamas is far more of a threat to Israel than the old Palestinian Organization was. Eliminate Hamas without accepting the UN ordered right of Palestinians to return to their original homes in what is now Israel and you will get yet another Palestinian agency taking up the cause.
    What drives or drove either agency was the collective punishment and enforced movement of 2 million Palestinians from their own homes into an
    ever shrinking tiny enclave called Gaza the size of any Canadian city neighbourhood.
    A relative comparision might be seeing the entire population of Toronto forced at gunpoint into say Brampton. Most would see it as their duty to object.
    Frankly the US and Canada have much to answer for as well, as each claim to be nations that abide by the “rule of law”, yet both ignore the law as determined by the UN, which both claim to have founded.

12. The chant is always from the river to the sea. They want the Israelis gone. The youngest Palestinian children are taught to hate, singing songs about killing Jews this is their doctrine , this is what needs to change. UNWRA has allowed this in their school books to be taught in schools for 75 years , when you instill that much hate for so long with no change of course nothing will change . Nor will it change if they don’t recognize the historical place Israelis have in Palestine as well as the Christians , Islam wasn’t born until the 7th century . With President Abass’s policy of “pay to slay” Jewish people nothing will change .

    1. Hey Fred,
       Thank you. I think you might be mistaken.
       For Palestinians to be free “from the river to the sea” does not mean that the Israelis have to leave. But they would have to give up the idea of Jewish supremacy.

       1. The few times that I have heard that Hamas, or Palestinians in general, want to force Jews to leave (drive them into the sea), I heard it from Israeli or pro-Israel Jews. I have never heard that from a Palestinian mouth.

          On my first trip to Palestine, I was surprised by one thing. Both Palestinian and Jewish academics repeated one sentence, “We would like to work with them as equals but they just want to drive us out.”. Of course the Palestinians and Israelis had a different set of people in mind for “we” and “them”. Somebody is telling them that the other side wants to eliminate them but I do not believe it is true. Of course, my experience is not a scientifically random sample but I heard it very often and I never heard the contrary statement.

       2. In my 45 years of being active in Palestine/Israel issues, I did not hear Palestinians saying to get rid of all Jews, but I heard that from many Zionists. I live in Toronto for 53 years. In fact in Israel, many Jews openly saying to kill all Arabs (they refuse to call them Palestinians), or expel them or both, especially recently, with the fascists who are running Israel, it has been said even in the parliament.
          It is a fact that most Muslims and Palestinians always believed and advocated that Abraham (Ibrahim), was the father of both, Muslims and Jews and could live together, with no problems. That was the reality of hundreds of years, untill the European Zionists came and put their life upside down.
          (I myself lived in Israel for 20 years).

       3. Peter, you don’t even speak Arabic and yet you have no issues explaining to Fred, an Arab man who grew up in Lebanon among Palestinians what is the meaning of the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”

          I call it Swedsplaining

       4. Hey Ahik,
          “Swedsplaining” haha!! Touché.
          I can’t speak for Palestinians. Different Palestinians have different ideas. I was reflecting the conversations I ahve had had with Palestinian activists.
          Ironically, notwithstanding my last name, I speak more Arabic (about 20 words) than Swedish (about 5).

    2. And where did the Arab youth come that spray death to Arabs on mosques and homes, wave flags celebrating Palestinian deaths, and assault Palestinians because they are not Jews? Do really believe that hatred is unidirectional??

       1. John, Are you talking about Arab youth or pro-Israel youth?

13. Thank you Peter — very well said.

    Michaela Huard

14. Israel fights this war which Hamas started with the intension to force Hamas to Unconditionally surrender. Duh.

    1. actually, the UN general secretary was pointing out that Hamas did not start this war. The war began long before Hamas was created.

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