Opinion: The antisemitic lie at the heart of too many campus protests - CNN [View all]

[question everything]

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Claims that Israel has been committing a genocide of Palestinians date to long before October 7. Yet the population of Gaza was estimated to be less than 400,000 when Israel captured the territory from Egypt in a war against multiple Arab countries in 1967. It’s now estimated at just over 2 million. Population growth of almost 600% would make it the most inept genocide in the history of the world. What about now? Those repeating the word genocide over and over, turning it into a mantra that penetrates the public consciousness, smearing Israel and anyone who supports it, ignore the facts of this war.

This is not an unprovoked war, like Russia’s against Ukraine. It’s not a civil war between rival militias, like the one raging in Sudan — which, by the way, is being ignored by almost everyone, even though the UN describes it as one of the “worst humanitarian crises in recent memory,” where a famine could kill 500,000 people. No, Israel was attacked. On October 7, Hamas launched a gruesome assault on Israeli civilians, killing some 1,200 — including many women and children — and dragging hundreds of them as hostages into Gaza. Today dozens — including many women and children — remain in captivity.

Those who keep saying that Israel’s response is an act of revenge rather than the strategic, defensive war that most Israelis view as a fight for national survival against a determined enemy backed by a powerful country are deliberately distorting reality. In doing so, they are perversely evoking the same false blood lust and grotesqueness embedded in the blood libel archetype. Indeed, Hamas’ actions, which precipitated this war, don’t seem to exist in the minds of ostensibly humanitarian-minded protesters. Nor even the fate of the hostages, still captive in Hamas tunnels.

Although the campus protests vary in their message and actions from school to school, we never hear protesters chant that Hamas should release the hostages or accept a ceasefire. Quite the contrary. Accusations against Israel at times include praise for Hamas, one of whose aims — the end of the Jewish state — is shared by some key organizers of the student protests. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently said, “It remains astounding to me that the world is almost deafeningly silent when it comes to Hamas.”

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Aid distribution in the middle of a lawless war zone without police to protect supplies is incredibly difficult, and Hamas at times appears to be trying to make the situation worse. Hamas has “intercepted and diverted” food aid, according to the State Department. Trucks carrying food have been ransacked, looted and otherwise attacked, according to UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Palestine James McGoldrick, though he didn’t specify by which groups. On Sunday, Hamas fired rockets in the direction of one of the main aid crossings, killing four Israeli soldiers and disrupting humanitarian deliveries. Even the pier being built by the US to boost aid deliveries has come under fire.

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-antisemitic-lie-heart-too-162406008.html