When Israel's incursion into Gaza is underway, resulting in grinding, dangerous, urban combat, Israel's critics -- including many in the media -- will shift away from discussing the heinous actions of Hamas, and pile on the Israeli response. Lectures about "proportionality" will be commonplace, Hamas propaganda will be in full swing, and people will perversely blame Israel for a situation that Hamas has guaranteed through its butchery and despicable tactics. One of those tactics is using civilians as human shields, using schools, mosques and hospitals as terrorism launch points and weapons depots. When Israel attacks these legitimate targets, the Hamas chorus in the global media report these a cruel or reckless or senseless assaults on schools, mosques, hospitals and civilians.
That is exactly why Hamas engages in such evils: For their purposes, they work. Some in the media are already laying the groundwork for these predictable manipulations -- and Israeli officials are already pushing back, aggressively. Unfortunately, quite a lot more of this narrative-busting moral clarity will need to be sustained over the coming days and weeks:
Israel’s President has had enough.
— Michael Dickson (@michaeldickson) October 12, 2023
We all have.
“With all due respect. If you have a missile in your goddamn kitchen and you want to shoot it at me, am I allowed to defend myself? Yes. That is the situation.” pic.twitter.com/KDnH9S3OIg
That's exactly the situation. Hamas exults in Jewish deaths, and it causes Muslims to die, in order to exploit and weaponize those deaths against the Jews. Hamas' savagery, and the twisted combination of anti-semitism and leftist 'anti-colonial' grievance-mongering, are two of the terrorist organization's most potent weapons. What kind of headline is this?
The Israel-Gaza war is still in its first week, but some people in the United States and around the world have lost their jobs, or have faced discipline or backlash, for their criticism of Israel. https://t.co/SNgxTCRK7P
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 12, 2023
Whatever you think of the rules and guardrails around 'cancel culture,' -- or "accountability" as the Left calls it, when it favors cancel culture -- people are not facing backlash and consequences for "their criticism of Israel." It's due to their defenses, justifications and celebrations of the mass murder of civilians, including babies. What kind of "human rights activism" is this?
Is this what it means to be “pro-Palestinian”? https://t.co/f7CRM3C4DV
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) October 12, 2023
It seems the answer to Katie's question is, in a great many cases, 'yes.' Clarifyingly, the "free Palestine" crowd is searingly defining left-wing terms like "decolonization" to entail child murder and myriad additional horrors. Here's an alleged violent version of the same type of incident -- unsurprisingly on an 'elite' US college campus:
BREAKING: A 19-year-old female suspect allegedly assaulted a 24-year-old Israeli General Studies student with a stick in front of Butler Library around 5:40 p.m. on Wednesday, the student and a New York Police Department spokesperson told Spectator. https://t.co/wzbdWkwYqk
— Columbia Daily Spectator (@ColumbiaSpec) October 12, 2023
A 19-year-old female suspect allegedly assaulted a 24-year-old Israeli School of General Studies student with a stick in front of Butler Library around 5:40 p.m. on Wednesday, the student and a New York Police Department spokesperson told Spectator. The suspect was taken into custody and charged with one count of assault, according to the NYPD spokesperson. The spokesperson said the student, who spoke to Spectator on the condition that he be identified by his initials I.A. citing fears for his safety, suffered minor injuries, including a laceration to his hand...A friend of I.A., who is also an Israeli General Studies student and spoke to Spectator on the condition of anonymity citing fears for his safety, said that earlier in the day, the suspect approached him and other students who were in Uris Hall putting up posters with names and photos of Israelis that Hamas has reportedly taken as hostages. The friend said the suspect asked to join them, telling the students she was Jewish. Throughout the morning, the suspect continued to stay with the group, I.A. said.
Around 5:30 p.m., I.A. said he was outside Butler with four other friends and noticed the suspect, now with a bandana covering her face, ripping the flyers off the wall. When they approached her, I.A. said the suspect screamed obscenities toward the students and hit I.A. with a stick. I.A. said he defended himself when the suspect allegedly tried to punch him in the face. After the incident, I.A. said that one hand was bruised and his ring finger on the other hand was broken. The group of students went to Columbia Public Safety, who contacted the NYPD, I.A. said. I.A. said that he does not plan to return to campus in the coming days. He also said he informed other Jewish and Israeli students that he does not feel safe and that they should consider the risk of coming onto campus due to protests scheduled for Thursday.
She apparently posed as sympathetic, only to desecrate the hostage posters and physically assault an Israeli Jew hours later. Fans of bloodthirsty, bigoted terrorists getting violent? How...expected. It is genuinely frightening out there for Jewish people, given how monstrous the "Free Palestine" movement is. And when the propaganda onslaught enters full throat (it's already getting there), never lose sight of the facts:
Hamas published a video showing their members digging up water pipes and converting them to fire rockets at Israel. pic.twitter.com/Vqjea9JoZy
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) October 12, 2023
But plenty of food, electricity, and drinking water in Qatar where the leaders of Hamas live lives of luxury. Maybe they might share with the subjects they have led to wreck and ruin?
— David Frum (@davidfrum) October 12, 2023
