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| Reps. Gottheimer, Crawford, and Jackson meet with families of hostages... |
It was a fact-finding visit, the details of which can be found on his website.
It is important to note his concluding comment, which in part said the
following:
“Since October 7, I have been clear: we must bring home every hostage, surge humanitarian aid to innocent civilians, and end Hamas’ reign of terror in Gaza. My trip to Israel was vital to understanding exactly what needs to be done to accomplish these goals and to protect America and our allies from terror.
Given the situation, it was extremely important to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials, Ambassador Huckabee, and family members of hostages still in Gaza. It was also critical to visit an aid staging location at the Kerem Shalom border crossing and a GHF coordination site, which gave me a better understanding of efforts to surge aid into Gaza. We must ensure aid is able to swiftly reach Gazans in need, not Hamas terrorists, who continue to steal food from innocent Palestinians. With so much misinformation, there is no better way to understand the situation than to see it firsthand.
How unusual. Unlike most of his fellow Democrats, Gottheimer is a Democrat who cares enough about the facts to go see them for himself. And like those of us who are not fooled by the increasingly misleading media reports blaming Israel for starving Palestinians, he saw firsthand that this was not the case. The mainstream media draw their own erroneous conclusions based on lies fed to them by Hamas and their willing collaborators in the UN and ‘humanitarian’ organizations with a long history of anti-Israel bias.
Meanwhile Europeans, with an even longer history of
anti-Jewish bias, have quickly bought into those lies and were just as quick to
act on them. Two of the biggest, France and the UK will be recognizing a
Palestinian state at the UN this fall. Germany will be ceasing to supply Israel
with weapons to fight its war against Hamas.
One of the more egregious false reports currently
circulating in the media is the claim that Israel plans to occupy all of Gaza. Strongly
implying that this will be a permanent occupation. That is a lie. Netanyahu unambiguously said that it is a temporary
occupation for purposes of securing the safety of his people as well as the
safety of Palestinians in Gaza. After which Israel will transfer control to
responsible Arab nations.
This temporary occupation is being treated as though it was
going to be permanent anyway and has been condemned by all Arab and European
nations - and Canada. Thankfully, the president has made the right call here:
Netanyahu is doing what he believes is right for his country, and it is not the
businessof the US government to tell him how to conduct his war against people
whose stated and published goal is to annihilate the Jewish people.
The world’s reaction underscores my view that Europe is
antisemitic at the core. And it doesn’t take much to bring it to the surface.
The supposed (and very tepid) support Europe gave to Israel after the Holocaust
was based entirely on guilt. Sure, they felt bad about the massacre of six
million Jews. But not that bad. Now that they have found the fig leaf of
Palestinian suffering to blame on Israel, they can safely return to their
anti-Jewish bigotry without actually being accused of it.
While the media do not have a centuries-long history of
antisemitism, their left-wing bias has pushed them in that direction,
nonetheless. Just as it has in Canada and much of the Democratic Party. Instead
of relying on facts, they respond to images of hunger, death, and destruction,
which they blame on Israel’s tactics in pursuing the most vile of terrorists. If they mention
Hamas’s direct responsibility for civilian deaths at all, it is in passing. Ignoring
the fact that Hamas embeds itself among sensitive civilian locations
(hospitals, schools, etc.) and includes its fighters in the count of ‘innocent
civilians’ when they are successfully targeted by the IDF. And the media buy
this narrative wholesale.
The media focuses relentlessly on Palestinians in Gaza
crying over their plight while blaming Netanyahu for it all. Without a word of
contradiction - indicating tacit agreement! Does it not occur to a single
Palestinian that it is Hamas that brought this tragedy upon them? Surely it
must. They must know that if Hamas hadn’t attacked Israel on October 7th,
none of this would have happened. They must know that if Hamas returned the
hostages, admitted defeat, and laid down their arms, their misery would end.
I’ll bet it does occur to them. But they will never say so for two reasons.
One - because of
their fervent belief that Palestine—all of it—belongs to Islam. A Jewish state
in what has once been inhabited by Muslims is an affront to their theology, and
they would rather suffer than blame Hamas, who after all share their goal of
restoring all the Holy Land to Islamic hands.
This is why so many Gazans cheered when Hamas dragged the
hostages through their streets on October 7th. They saw it as a
victory toward that goal. While they now know they were badly mistaken, that
hasn’t changed their resolve to eradicate the Jewish state.
The second reason is more mundane Any public blame assigned
to Hamas by a Palestinian in Gaza can be a death sentence.
Even so, there are huge protests in Israel against Netanyahu
for continuing the war. Even from former supporters. Some fear that the
hostages will be killed if Israel proceeds to control all of Gaza. Many are
simply tired of war and want to see it end. Israel’s citizen-soldiers have been
stretched to their limits, serving multiple tours over the past two years. They
have given more for their country than should be asked of any human being. The
question many Israelis now ask is: how much more can they take, and to what
end?
I understand that sentiment, and on one level I agree with
it. But at the same time, I am not going to second-guess the most consequential
prime minister in Israel’s history.
Netanyahu’s failure to protect his people on October 7th
was his last one. Since then, under his leadership, he has changed the face of
the Middle East. He has defanged Hamas, destroyed Hezbollah… leading to the
coup against Syria’s Bashar Assad… thereby ending Assad’s alliance with Iran.
He has eliminated many of Iran’s top military leaders and nuclear scientists,
and taken out key missile launching sites and uranium enrichment facilities…
thereby enabling the U.S. to finish the job. He has shown that any missile
attack against Israel by Iran will fail to achieve their goal of wiping Israel
off the map. You don’t hear Iran talking about destroying Israel much these
days; they are more interested in preserving control at home.
Meanwhile, under Netanyahu’s leadership, Arab nations have
become more open to alliances with Israel for both security and economic
purposes. That is what the Abraham Accords is all about. The recent declaration
by the Arab League urging Hamas to release all the hostages and leave Gaza is a
direct result of Netanyahu’s post-October 7th achievements. Despite their recent
condemnation over Israel occupying Gaza. As noted Netanyahu has made it
absolutely clear that he has no intention—zero—of permanently occupying it. His
purpose is to rid Gaza of Hamas and then hand over control to responsible Arab
nations, who can help Palestinians govern themselves without a terrorist
organization over their heads.
Netanyahu is a great leader—not because I say so, but
because of what he has accomplished. None of his predecessors (with the
possible exception of Ben-Gurion) could have dreamed of such achievements.
To those who wish to see him gone, for whatever reasons, I
have one message: be careful for what you wish. Yes, he has flaws. A lot of
them. But they are far outweighed by his achievements since October 7th.
I see no one else with the determination or ability to succeed in his goals for
the people of Israel as Netanyahu has done. Under the most difficult of conditions.
Consider all the pressure he is under that would break a
lesser man. He is being tried for corruption. He has disappointed both Charedi politicians
and those to his right. He has alienated many in his own Likud party. Most of
the Knesset despises him. He has been indicted for war crimes by the ICC and
threatened with arrest by several European countries and Canada. He has been
accused of genocide and of starving innocent civilians - and yet, under these
circumstances, he has accomplished all of the above and is poised to do more.
That is why I cannot second-guess his decision to occupy all of Gaza - temporarily. I just hope his instincts now are as right as they have been in nearly all of his decisions since October 7th that have brought us to this point.
