Commentary

Fernandez: Hamas attacks Israel

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by Peter Fernandez

At 6:30 a.m., October 6, on a sleepy October Shabbat (Saturday) morning when observant  Israelis might be relaxing and waiting to take down their temporary Shelters in celebration of Succot, a traditional harvest holiday commemorating the Israelites’ deliverance out of Egypt, another ruthless enemy from the south, invaded Israel. 

From Gaza, The Palestinian Islamist group, Hamas, attacked a seemingly unprepared Israel with constant rocket fire, and with land and sea forces breached security fences, managed to take over an entire police station, killing its 20 officers, capturing a kibbutz, and killing over 800 Israelis, mostly civilians. 

This is the worst fighting between Arab and Israeli since the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu promised “Mighty Vengeance” against the terrorists, who entered civilian homes, murdering and taking innocent occupants hostage. According to The Guardian, a London-based daily periodical, “Up to 100 Israeli hostages, including women and children, may have been taken into Gaza by Hamas, hugely complicating any military operation to free them.”

The sheer scale of terror and violence of this unprovoked attack against the Jewish state’s populace far outweighs the repeated rounds of internecine fighting between Hamas and the Israel Defence Forces that the world audience has become familiar with. In a video statement, PM Netanyahu stated,” We are at war, not in an operation or in rounds, but at war. What happened today has never been seen in Israel, we will take mighty vengeance for this black day. I tell Hamas, you are responsible for the wellbeing of the captives, Israel will settle the score with anyone who harms them.”

Now begins the daily debate between polarized Americans, sadly reminiscent of the Union and the Confederacy. Perhaps it is slavery to identity politics, the attack on our two first constitutional amendments, and biased identity journalism.  It seems fair and consistent to say this was an unprovoked attack against the Jewish state, but the left’s pro-Palestine propaganda machine says that it is, of course, Israel’s fault for owning the world banks, stealing Palestine in 1948, apartheid, yadda, yadda, but these are easy-to-swallow racist lies since they have been repeated over and over again, ad nauseam.

The historical context of this conflict needs to be considered before any well-informed and unbiased opinion can be formulated. Please consider reading Jonathan R. Verlin’s Seven Times Palestinians Rejected Peace published by American Thinker, November 22, 2017.

Seven Times Palestinians Rejected Peace – American Thinker. Included also are two of Hamas’ main articles: 

Article 13 There is no negotiated settlement possible. Jihad is the only answer.

Article 14 The liberation of Palestine is the personal duty of every Palestinian.

Sunday, in NYC, over one thousand pro-Palestine demonstrators, some carrying signs stating that “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” shouted across the crowded, police refereed streets at the minor, but vocal pro-Israel faction. It is safe to say that most of these protestors consider the butchering of whole families to be legitimate.   

IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Cornricus compared this invasion to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. “This is uncharted territory. When it comes to us fighting terrorism, we will need to new heavy and stronger tools against these terrorists. I wouldn’t rule out anything at this stage. This is an unprecedented attack which calls for an unprecedented response against Hamas which will render it incapacitated to do such an attack again,” he added.“This is not a normal situation — this will not end with the limping ceasefire,” he added. 

History needs to be referenced to understand that it is the Palestinians who are in the wrong and have been since four Arab nations attacked the fledging Jewish nation in 1948. Those Arab armies would have also butchered Israeli civilians. 

“Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees while it is we who made them leave,” wrote Khaled al-Asm, who was Syria’s Prime Minister at this time, in his 1970 memoirs. “We brought disaster upon Palestinian refugees by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave.” 

Since that time, we have at least three members of Congress, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who have failed to condemn this murderous invasion. 

The author is a children’s book author and Vermont resident.

Categories: Commentary, National/International News

26 replies »

  1. A talking point is “self-determination” for the Palestinian people. Palestinians in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank can vote. The Knesset includes Palestinian representatives. An Islamic theocracy, or a Marxist communism, would allow them no such self determination.
    Yes, countless Palestinian militants are openly Marxist.

    • Actually, Palestinians in Gaza only vote in Gaza, not Israel. They are two separate countries and Gazans don’t have Israeli citizenship. Palestinians in the “West Bank “ are also not Israeli citizens and don’t vote in Israel; they vote for their own government which is currently the Palestinian Authority run by Abbas. Palestinians within Israel are Israeli citizens and so of course vote in Israel.

  2. Uh, excuse me, how can you call an attack by occupied and direly oppressed people “unprovoked”? And occupied for scores of years. Fernandez should not make untrue statements, which appear to support the theft of Palestine. Do some history research please, before opening your mouth. Otherwise, the impression is given of being in the pay of interested parties.

    • @ Mary

      Your comment tells me all I need to know about you. And I suggest that it is YOU, not Fernandez, that needs to do some research before spouting off. And if you’d like to learn more about the homicidal maniacs you are supporting, I suggest you watch Ben Shapiro’s show from yesterday on YouTube; The Face of Absolute Evil.

    • Dear Mary,
      Your “direly oppressed people” are not resisting occupation, they are butchering, murdering, raping and decapitating Jews. Your poor Palestinians attaqcked and murdered families and children, but its ok with you? Guess what, Mary? There are no Jews in Gaza. They left in 2005, leaving behind green hothouses, wells, etc., and your lovely terrorists dstroyed those, too. Perhaps you should read the Quran and see what it says about Jews and Christians. Hamas occupies the Palestinians and uses them as human shields, and have for decades. There has never been a Palestinian state declared with a Palestinian government, but only a Islamo-terrorist group, Hamas. You read your politically correct revisionist histories and I will read my much more objective sources. Have you ever set foot in Israel, err, “Uh, excuse me,” your murderous Palestine. I sincerely doubt it.

      • Mr Fernandez, I lived in North Africa and Middle East for fifteen years and taught Jordanian and Palestinian students at university and have been following the situation in that part of the world for over fifty years. I don’t see that your attitude and way of speaking to me allows for any intelligent and humane conversation. You are making assumptions that have no bearing on reality. Unfortunately, your views appear to me to be the result of the steady Zionist propaganda that is the only point of view expressed in our mainstream media and held by most of our politicians. There will be human justice, perhaps not in our lifetimes, but all who hurt others will pay. If you would try to address me without slurs, I might be able to communicate with you.

      • Actually Mary, our MSM is rather anti Israel. From the NYT to the WAPO, CNN, etc, with rare exceptions, Palestinian rights and arguments are favored and Israel and Jewish points of view demonised. The UN is completely on the side of Muslim countries and Palestinians. I’m absolutely floored that you argue otherwise.

    • Is that any rationale to behead babies like the soulless Hamas have done in these attacks? Slaughter of the innocent cannot be justified by any far fetched strained arguments. The same with abortionists who look the other way and blame anyone and anything to justify such abhorrent and ungodly butchery…”revenge is mine, sayeth the Lord,” and it will surely happen and soon and swiftly…

  3. Didn’t Israel leave the Gaza Strip in 2005 to be governed by the Palestinian Authority?

    • Yep. There are no Jews or Israelis in Gaza other than the captive hostages and a couple of bodies of dead soldiers they refuse to return for many years now.

  4. The cognitive dissonance of the MAGA’s to be anti-Ukraine but pro-Israel is concrete proof that if you stand for nothing then you will fall for anything.

  5. False equivalence (in this case a euphemism for dishonesty) strikes again.

    Greg, you seem to have forgotten that Trump was impeached for calling Ukrainian President Zelensky, congratulating him on his election, and asking Zelensky about the Obama/Biden administration’s refusal to provide military aid to Ukraine unless the anti-corruption prosecutor investigating Burisma and Hunter Biden was fired. Trump’s impeachment zealots claimed, as you seem to be doing now, that it was Trump who withheld Ukraine aid, which proved not to be true. In fact, earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that “President Barack Obama refused to provide weapons or other lethal military gear to Ukraine” when Russia first began its aggression. Meanwhile, it was Trump who first sent the military aid to Ukraine, including Javelin antitank missiles, after Obama refused to do so.

    Today, the U. S. has already sent another $75 Billion to Ukraine since the war began. And you want us to believe the recent demands that there be an audit trail of that money, before more is provided, is akin to not supporting Ukraine.

    Your criticism is especially curious, since it was the Biden administration that recently released $6 Billion to Iran – who was the architect of the recent attacks against Israel.

    • A synopsis:
      “Under the so-called Gaza-first approach, the [Gaza] Strip was to serve as a litmus test for the broader Oslo project,..”

      Unfortunately, for everyone, the Palestinians lost control in Gaza to the Iranian proxy Hamas extremists. Then, in August 2005, the Gaza disengagement was a tremendous gamble for Israel. Yet everyone hoped that the Palestinian people would seize this historic opportunity to build an independent mini-state.

      The rest of the story, as they say, is now history. But don’t blame Israel or the Palestinian people. Blame Iran and their allies, Russia, and China.

  7. Check this out for the wider picture—-https://anonfamous.substack.com/p/albert-pikes-wwiii? Many will pooh-pooh this, but there are so many corroborating facts in our time . . .

  8. “”Why is no one asking what would make thousands of young men commit suicide, in effect, and bring what they know will be horrific death and destruction to hundreds of thousands of their families? Commentators appear mystified: surely everyone knows that Hamas fighters have no chance, ultimately, against the country with the fifth largest military in the world. Why would they risk every Palestinian’s future by such an act?
    The reality — censored by our media and ignored by our governments — is that Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip have no future to look forward to.
    No one is pointing out the slow genocide that Israel is imposing on the millions of Palestinians literally caged in Gaza and the total lack of hope for any future that differs from Israel’s periodic slaughtering of their families and devastation of their homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, and civic buildings. Along with constant attacks on fishermen, farmers and anyone thought to be in the resistance, Israel ensures that Gazans have limited electricity and little fuel. When I visited Gaza in 2006, (before the Israeli attack), it already looked apocalyptic, with people reduced to traveling on donkeys amid ruined buildings and traffic lights that no longer worked. ”

    https://www.globalresearch.ca/desperate-hamas-gamble-mass-slaughter-allow-palestinians-future/5835605

    • Mary

      The Gaza Strip isn’t occupied by Israel. It is ruled by the terrorist organization Hamas, elected by Gaza. Israel provides water and electricity as well as other things for FREE to Gaza. Gaza is in the condition it’s in as their rulers, Hamas, dedicate most of the money they take in to building terror tunnels, missiles and other weapons. It’s not used to build infrastructure, homes or anything other than a single minded devotion to attempting to destroy Israel and murder Jews.

      Gazans are brainwashed from a young age to hate Jews and Israel. They are taught that it is their mission to destroy them and they will be rewarded in the afterlife. This is why they do what they do.

      I feel rather sorry for you actually. Your support of homicidal maniacs is a concern.

      • To VTIndependent: Now you are saying I support “homicidal maniacs”. It is really impossible to have a conversation with a person who states such a slur in a public forum. I think it will very soon be apparent that Hamas is supported by both Israel and the US, as Isis was, and that the Palestinians have no real voice in their own land at present. Yes, there are homicidal maniacs—mostly in all our governments, running the central banks, and the pharmaceutical industry. I hope you don’t belong to any of those groups.

      • ThankYou, VTIndependent! Mary keeps accusing people of slurring her. But what is happening is she refuses to confront the truth (or slurs) because it gets in the way of her hatred of Israel, which she may have accumulated from her Jordanian and Palestinian “students” and their open-minded kin in teacher-parent conferences. Inshalla.

    • If Egypt would open their doors to their fellow Arabs, the Palestinians, instead of turning their backs on them, that would help, Mary.
      In 1948, after the creation of the Jewish state, Iraq, Syria, Iran and other Moslem states, forced tens of thousands of Sephardic Jews from their heridatary homes, while stealing all their property and bank accounts. Who took them in? Israel. There are lots of Arab nations, including Jordan, which is 75% of the orginal mandated Palestine.
      If you reread your reply to my article, you should see that you slurred me, and you kept it up in your last letter. Your steady diet of pan-Arab propaganda is not appealing. How can you criticise Israel after what Hamas did? Please don’t condescend further by “showing off” that you are willing and open-minded to a conversation.

  9. Got to love all the infighting over people who all want us dead.

    This whole thing is designed to divide us, bankrupt us, and bring us into a never-ending century old war that we can’t win. You would all rather fight about which sides right when both sides continually aggravate each other. One things for certain when you look at the amount of land that israel and Palestine have been split into, one is a clear winner, and my instincts say that this is no different with the exception of bringing the US into it. It’s their 911 all right.

    • Thankyou, Brian! GREAT POINT! Transgenderism, the border, Israel/Palestine, Democrat/Republican, Identity politics, Wokism, all part of the Biden Administration’s attempt to split us.