By Peter Fernandez
Why is it that pro-Palestine and Hamas activists never protest in support of Tibet, which has been militarily occupied by China since 1950? Why are there no campus demonstrations championing the Uyghurs, the Sudanese, the Chechens, and the Kurds, all of whose civil rights have been violated for years?
According to a March 8th Newsweek article, “…more than 1,000 people-including Christian minorities and Alawites, the (Islamic) sect to which Assad belongs-have been killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and local reports.” SOHR director Rami Abdurrahman stated, “This is one of the biggest massacres during the Syrian Conflict.” But not so much as a peep from the West’s paper-mache-patriots for Palestine.
Why aren’t these duty-bound supporters of the disenfranchised protesting the new Islamist strongman Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Sunni “militant” group’s media-muffled genocide? “The constitution for the first time in Syria’s history recognizes Islamic Law as the main source of jurisprudence,” states a March 13 Gulf Insider article. Previously, the Assad government only recognized Islamic Law as a source or one of many sources.” What this means is that with hardline Sunni Islamist terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in power, non-Muslims, such as Christians, Druze, as well as nonconformist Muslim denominations, will no longer share the religious freedom they experienced during Assad’s rule.
Syria’s secular society is being replaced by the creeping normality of Sharia Law, where women will soon have to wear burkas and hijabs, and will not be allowed the benefit of a higher education.
New Post-Assad Syrian Constitution Enshrines Islamic Sharia Law – Gulf Insider | Gulf Insider
Western protesters may not campaign for the civil rights of Syrians, Tibetans, etc., but they willingly chastise Israel with lies and medieval blood libels. One of the pretentious protesters’ many preposterous pleas is that Israel is a “Colonial, Imperial State.” This was addressed to Mahatma Gandhi in 1939 by a supporter Palestinian liberties, Austrian-Israeli philosopher Martin Buber: “Our settlers do not come here as the colonists from the Occident, (the West) to have natives do their work for them; they set their shoulders to the plow and they spend their strength and their blood to make the land fruitful.”
Israel concluded its military occupation of Gaza in 2005, hoping for a peace partner on their southern border. Instead, Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian legislative elections, overthrowing the Palestinian Authority’’s ruling party, Fatah. But tensions between Fatah and Hamas spiraled as murderous clashes ensued with opposing factions committing war crimes, according to Human Rights Watch, including the tossing of trussed and gagged opponents off 15 story buildings.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/06/12/gaza-armed-palestinian-groups-commit-grave-crimes
Then, after 18 years of rocket attacks into Israel, came October 7th, 2023, the Jewish State’s 9/11.
The Palestinians have been offered an independent state in 1937-38, 1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. At the Camp David Summit in 2000, according to then-President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak proposed a withdrawal from 91% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, with Israel retaining control over the remaining 9% of the West Bank. “…no one disagrees that the offer included statehood for the Palestinians on more than 90% of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip,” writes Alan Dershowitz. “Although some Palestinian supporters have denied this.
“ President Clinton and those who participated in the negotiations have confirmed the basic outline of the various offers.” However, unknown to both Clinton and Barack, former president Jimmy Carter “was working behind the scenes to undercut the peace process.” Carter had assured Arafat that if he accepted this magnanimous peace plan, he would be assassinated. Never a friend of Israel, Carter wanted credit for the peace deal.
“Had I been elected to a second term,” explained Carter in a December 2nd, 2003, New York Times article, “with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution.” A poor choice of words to complete his statement.
After the ill-fated peace negotiations, Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, a prominent diplomat during this era, told Arafat, “ I hope you remember, sir, what I told you. If we lose this opportun ity, it is not going to be a tragedy, it is going to be a crime.” Bandar also stated that the PLO leader’s rejection was “a crime against the Palestinians-in fact, against the entire region.”
The Left also chose to harass Israel in 2013, when former Syrian Prime Minister Bashar Al Assad murdered approximately 1700 of his countrymen with sarin gas bombs. His only objective was to stay in power, since anti-government rebels led by Ahmed Al Sharraa’s HTS “freedom fighters” in Ghouta, a Damascus suburb, were attempting to overthrow the corrupt Assad regime.
According to a December 10, 2024, article by En.Haberlen.com, a respected Arabic, Russian, Kurdish, Turkish, and English news source, Bashar al-Assad smuggled $135 billion upon fleeing Syria. Other new sources publicized that his regime airlifted $250 million to Moscow between 2018 and 2019. Many Syrians near starving conditions.
The New Voice of Ukraine described Bashar al-Assad as “the richest refugee in the world.” But the Left rebuked ”the evil Zionist entity” Israel while ignoring the crimes of Assad and now his Al-Qaeda spawned Islamist replacement, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
On July 26, 2024, the New York Times published an article by Declan Walsh entitled “Starva tion Spreads in Sudan, Military Blocks Aid Trucks at Border.” According to the article, as many as 2.5 million Sudanese faced starvation. The corrupt Sudanese army had refused UN aid convoys to enter the country, regardless of the ongoing famine. According to Newsday, at least 20,000 Sudanese have since perished from famine-related illnesses. Have the pro-Palestine Police heard or even care?
According to UN sources, since October 7th, 2023, Israel and its allies have provided nearly 3750 tons of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians. There have also been US reports, “that Hamas has blocked entry of food, stolen it, and even attacked food trucks designated for Gaza’s civilian population.”
In 2023, the International Rescue Committee’s Emergency Response estimated that 8.3 million Somalians required humanitarian aid. Seven hundred twenty-seven thousand people are projected to face catastrophic food insecurity, and 3 million Somalians will be displaced by the end of 2025. But who do Omar and the Left protest against?
Black Lives Matter endorsed Hamas immediately after October 7th.
In an 8/27/2024 New York Times op-ed, “Can We Be a Little Less Selective with Our Moral Outrage?” Bret Stephens wrote, “Of all the world’s injustices, perhaps the saddest is that so many of them are ignored. Protestors the world over loudly demand a cease-fire in Gaza; a dwindling number of people still take note of Russian atrocities against Ukraine. Otherwise, there’s a vast blanket of silence under which some of the world’s worst abusers proceed largely unnoticed and unhindered.” He was referring, of course, to Hamas, Venezuela, Turkey, Sudan and Iran.
Finally, according to Alan Dershowitz, the hard-left haters of Israel utilize “shouting, slogan jeering, propagandizing, protesting, demonstrating, defunding, accusing, and/or ignoring or censoring opposing views.” The railing resistance obstructs entry, and sometimes resorts to physical violence against their passive and outnumbered opponents.
Locally, the liberal media, including the Burlington Free Press, the Barre Times, and 7 Days, routinely censor rhetoric sympathetic to Israel.
The author is a children’s book author and Vermont resident.