Scan the news accounts of anti-Israel campus and street protesters. Read their demands and manifestos. Let’s sort out the confusion created by the Biden administration after October 7th.
Here are their 10 most common lies about October 7th and the war that followed.
“Progressive Hamas”
American gay and transgender student protesters will be in deadly danger in Gaza under fascist Hamas, which has banned homosexual acts and lifestyles. Anyone who publicly protests against Hamas or his allies will be arrested and severely punished.
Women are segregated in most Hamas-run educational institutions. Under the Hamas Charter, women are primarily valued as bearers of children. By design, there are very few women in high positions in business or government under Hamas.
“Settlers and Colonists”
Students sometimes shout that Israelis are “settlers” and “colonizers” and tell Jewish students to “go back to Poland.”
However, the Jewish presence in modern Israel is deeply rooted in ancient traditions. The concept of “Israel” as a separate Jewish state dating back at least 3,000 years and located approximately in its current location is rooted in history.
In contrast, much later, the Arabs invaded the Byzantine-controlled Levant and reached Palestine, about 1,800 years ago. rear Creation of the Jewish State of Israel.
“Two-state solution”
When the student movement participants chant, “From the river to the sea,” they are not advocating for a two-state solution.
It is a call to eliminate the state of Israel and its 10 million Jewish and Arab citizens, located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The Hamas Charter is a one-state, non-Israeli agenda, and we witnessed it being attempted on October 7th.
“Occupied Gaza”
Gaza had autonomy. The Israeli border is closed, but so is the Egyptian border. There have been no Jews in Gaza for nearly 20 years.
In other words, as of October 7, Gaza was not occupied by Israel. It was under the control of Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the US government.
After being elected to power in 2006, Hamas canceled all subsequent elections and imposed a dictatorship. Gaza banned Jews from entering Gaza and expelled most Christians. Israel hosts two million Arabs as both Israeli citizens and residents.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu is the problem.”
The United States and Europe insist that the conservative government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the only one supporting Israel’s tough response in Gaza. Thus, both the EU and the US are doing everything in their power to undermine and even overthrow the elected Netanyahu government.
However, most Israelis support Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition government’s policy of destroying Hamas in Gaza. There is no evidence that any other alternative Israeli government would do anything different from current policy toward Hamas.
“They’re targeting civilians.”
After killing about 1,200 Israelis on October 7, Hamas rushed back to Gaza and hid in tunnels and bases under hospitals, schools, and mosques.
The pre-planned strategy was to survive by ensuring the killing of civilians in Gaza. Hamas fired more than 7,000 rockets into Israel, each aimed at killing Jewish civilians.
External reviewers say Israel’s inadvertent civilian killing rate against terrorists is no higher than in most other urban combat conflicts, and perhaps even higher than in U.S. engagements in Mosul and Fallujah. It is concluded that there are few.
“The protesters are pro-Palestinian.”
Increasingly, protesters do not distinguish between supporting “Palestine” and supporting Hamas. Their chants often reflect Hamas’s original exclusionist charter and recent genocidal abuses by its leadership. Some demonstrators wore Hamas logos and waved flags. Many praised Hamas’s massacre on October 7th.
“Anti-Israel is not anti-Semitism”
When protesters yell at Jewish students to “go back to Poland,” demand a “final solution,” assault them, or bar them from campus facilities, they don’t ask them if they are pro-Israel. .
For protesters, anyone who identifies as Jewish becomes a target of anti-Semitic abuse and violence.
“genocide”
Israel is not trying to wipe out the Palestinians like Hamas’ plan for a Jewish one-state solution.
Before October 7, about 20,000 Gazans per day wanted to work in Israel, expecting much higher wages and more humane treatment.
If Hamas had come out of the tunnels, left the shield of moved civilians, released the surviving Israeli hostages, openly fought the IDF, or forced the organizers of the October 7 massacre to surrender. Not a single civilian in Gaza would have died.
According to Hamas’s alleged “genocide” figures, the Israeli response on October 7 killed approximately 4 percent of Gaza’s residents. According to various international observer groups, at least one-third to almost half of those deaths were Hamas terrorists.
“Unreasonable response”
Iran tried to send 320 missiles and rockets to Israel. Israel answered with three.
Hamas fired 7,000 rockets into Israel and massacred 1,200 Israelis, frequently distributing leaflets and sending texts warning the population, before the IDF counterattacked in Gaza.
Israel was disproportionate only in the effectiveness of its response. Hamas and his Iranian supporters have tried to unfairly undermine Israel, but have completely failed.
Thus, in similar efforts to use disproportionate force, Israel proved competent and Hamas incompetent.
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow at the Center for American Greatness. He is a classicist and historian at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the author of Basic Books’ The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won. You can get in touch by emailing authorvdh@gmail.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.
