By J.P. Watson

While folks in Thetford are crowing about passage of their Article 23 resolution condemning Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, I thought it would be appropriate to point out a few facts that might have slipped their minds.

Israel is a microscopically small country, a fingernail-shaped slip of land surrounded by an enormous mass of Muslim countries whose inhabitants overwhelmingly would like to push the entire population of Israel into the Mediterranean. (Hence, “From the River to the Sea.”) Palestinians, in particular, will not be satisfied until every Jew is dead. They are not interested in treaties or offers of land, offers which they have rejected numerous times because they want to keep the pressure on Israel and continue being perceived as victims in the eyes of the world. They do not want to bargain. Offered a state of their own, they would reject it. They don’t want a state alongside Israel. They want all of Israel—without the Israelis.

As Bill Clinton recently recalled, Israel had offered Yasser Arafat, former president of the Palestinian Authority, a peace deal that would have given the Palestinians a state on 96 percent of the West Bank and 4 percent of Israel with the choice of where that land would be. They were offered a capital in East Jerusalem as well as two of the four quadrants of the old city of Jerusalem.

They said no.

“Hamas did not care about a homeland for the Palestinians,” said Clinton. “They wanted to kill Israelis and make Israel uninhabitable.”

Link here: https://x.com/Osint613/status/1852116637752705343

The Palestinians have been working for decades—not to better themselves, their families, their communities, or their land, but to kill Jews and destroy Israel. They live to fight. It’s all they understand, all they desire. That is what “jihad” is all about. Almost all of their thoughts, energies, and labors are focused on destroying Israel. Indeed, the opening of the Hamas Covenant (1988) couldn’t make this plainer: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.”

Link here: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/hamas.asp

Imagine if your next-door neighbor worked tirelessly day and night firing rockets and bullets at your house, digging tunnels to access your living room, killing your sons, seizing your wife and daughters. You would need to take action or die. Like these single-minded neighbors, Palestinians think of nothing but fighting and killing Jews. Israel has given them food, supplies, water and other utilities. Showing their gratitude, Hamas digs up the water pipes and converts them into rockets to fire at Israel.

I am reminded of a pithy quote that summarizes the situation in the Middle East: “If Hamas stopped fighting, there would be no war. If Israel stopped fighting, there would be no Israel.”

To be sure, Israel’s assault on the Palestinian territories has been savage. Many Palestinians have been injured or killed. This is unfortunate. But polls show that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians support Hamas, their elected government. It’s worth noting that, during the October 7, 2023, Hamas assault that killed 1,200 Israelis, many of the perpetrators were Palestinian “civilians.” The distinction between Hamas fighters and Palestinian civilians is blurry at best. The people support Hamas and share its hatred of Israel. How many Palestinians want to live in peace and harmony with Israel. Very few.

Israel is fighting an existential threat. It is fighting for its very existence. It is a small country with astonishing military strength, which is necessary for its survival. Without a strong military, Israel would be wiped out. There is no doubt about this. Israel does not want to fight, but it must. Israel’s fight is with Hamas, and it is clear that Hamas must be rooted out and destroyed.

Hamas is the target, but sometimes civilians become unintended victims. When a surgeon removes cancerous cells from a body, he inevitably kills healthy cells in the process. This is unfortunate but unavoidable. Such is the case with Israel’s surgical removal of the cancer of Hamas. Palestinian civilians sometimes are destroyed as well. Why is that? In many cases, it’s because Hamas uses non-combatants, including women and children, as human shields, callously sacrificing the lives of their people in their fight with Israel. We must also remember that many of these civilians are working with and on behalf of Hamas. They fire rockets from their homes, schools, hospitals, and mosques. Just because they don’t wear green headbands does not mean they are “innocent” or less deadly than uniformed Hamas fighters.

When Thetford residents vote their support for Article 23, they are effectively supporting the terrorist attack and murder of 1,200 Israeli civilians in their homes. They are condoning or forgiving the abduction of hundreds of others, many of whom were killed in captivity, including the two Bibas boys, a toddler and a baby, who were murdered bare-handed by their captors. Their mother is still unaccounted for.

This video shows the Bibas mother and sons as they were being abducted by Gaza civilians: https://x.com/ReuvenAzar/status/1892390757824147797

This story and video from the Daily Mail reveal the horrific torture by Hamas of Israeli hostages: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14378377/Hamas-hostages-hung-feet-forced-rotten-bread-tunnel.html

In celebrating and patting themselves on the back after passage of Article 23, Thetford voters are showing support for Hamas and the ghoulish, despicable ceremonies accompanying the return of hostages either in coffins or broken and barely alive. In their deals to swap Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages, Israel releases murderers, rapists, and other criminals by the hundreds and receives in return perhaps a half-dozen gaunt, beaten, traumatized, and starving hostages.

I am appalled that so many of my fellow Vermonters are blind to this horrifying reality and gleefully, in a shameful show of self-righteous virtue signaling, vote their support for a terrorist regime and hatred of a nation fighting to avoid obliteration. They denounce Israel’s “genocide,” but what are calls for killing Jews and pushing Israel into the sea if not genocide? In rejecting Israel’s right to defend itself, Thetford voters are rejecting Israel’s right to exist, and what is this if not antisemitism pure and simple?

The author is a Fairlee resident.