When the United States was attacked in 9/11, it responded – both rationally, to take out terrorism infrastructure in Afghanistan, and irrationally against Iraq and in cracking down on Muslims in this country. Perhaps close to 400,000 civilians were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan as a result. That’s tragic. It’s also common in war. Around 20,000 French civilians were killed just by Allied bombings during the invasion of Normandy during World War II.
Here are some basic propositions that I believe about the current crisis in Gaza.
- Israel has a right to exist and defend itself from attack. It should minimize civilian harm while doing so.
- Hamas, which subjugates Palestinians and hides amongst them using them as human shields, sought to provoke Israel as they were on the verge of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia. There’s a human tragedy in Gaza, largely at the feet of Hamas – which continues to steal what little aid has arrived. They believe their position is strengthened through the visible suffering of Palestinians.
- The Palestinian leadership has consistently turned down two state solutions that have given them nearly everything they’ve asked for – as more militant groups such as Hamas have made compromise impossible. Their goal is destruction of Israel and cannot afford normalized relations. Under any of the offers made by Israel in the last 24 years, the Palestinian people would have been better off.
The last great Israeli leader of peace was Ehud Olmert who offered 94% of the West Bank, with pre-1967 buffer zones split in half and a land swap of the balance from pre-1967 borders (involving land Israel acquired for its security after it was invaded). While Israel would exit small settlements in these areas, their own politics would not allow them to exit Gush Etzion, Ma’ale Adumim and Ariel hence the need for land swap, giving up land near Afula-Tirat Tzvi, Lachish, Har Adar, Judean desert.
The Ehud Olmert offer, developed with the Palestinian Authority over two years, included ceding sovereignty over the holy basin in Jerusalem which includes sites of importance to Muslims, Christians and Jews – to be jointly administered by a group of nations including the Palestinian state. And they offered an international fund for Palestinians. Palestine would have been precluded from entering into a military agreement with a government that does not recognize Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was assassinated for offering much less. Yet Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas rejected the deal. Hamas attacked Israel. Criticism of the current Israeli administration needs to be coupled with an understanding of the fear that creates it.
- I’m not sure what the end game is here. There can’t be peace while Hamas remains. Palestinians would be better off without them, for generations to come. Other Arab nations could step up in the interim but that’s a heavy lift. These are complex problems, while American protestors play-act as being oppressed themselves.
Hello Muddah, hello Faddah
Here I am at Camp Intifada pic.twitter.com/zUo4oof3qd— Fuzzy Chimp (@fuzzychimpcom) May 2, 2024
UChicago encampment requests Plan B, HIV tests and dental dams, per a post on the organizers' Instagram pic.twitter.com/EEbzLqraMX
— Gabby Deutch (@GSDeutch) May 2, 2024
As Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) writes, “Want peace in Gaza? Where are the campus protests demanding Hamas to take this ceasefire deal? Tents and chants won’t end this, but Hamas could.” There are still five Americans hostages held taken by Hamas who are believed to be alive (several have been confirmed dead). We should be calling for their unconditional release.
Sara Nelson, president of the largest flight attendants union (which represents cabin crew at United Airlines, among others, and is trying to organize at Delta) has came out for the protestors on Friday.
It is disturbing to once again witness violent crackdowns on students protesting for peace. Our union unequivocally condemns mass arrests on college campuses and the attacks against peaceful protestors. We stand in solidarity with the students, student workers, and faculty who are exercising their constitutional rights to assembly and protest. We condemn violence and hate in all its forms.
…A strike is a form of protest. Our labor movement was built by those who were willing to risk being arrested, beaten and even killed to exercise that right. To see the power of the state turned against protestors reminds us of the darkest days of our movement, when workers were arrested, beaten and even gunned down in places like Ludlow, Cumberland, Chicago, Homestead, Flint, and many more.
Students at George Washington University held a ‘peoples’ trial’ on Friday seeking “to hang their provost and chop the heads off of the Board of Trustees?”
Guillotine, Guillotine, Guillotine, Guillotine
At Johns Hopkins University a grad student was assaulted and events were blocked from being held and moved for safety. Another was punched in the head at Berkeley. Protestors have called for Jews to become the victims of Hamas, and for Jews to be excluded from campuses.
Sara Nelson is backing chants of “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here” and “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” Or a sign saying that the next target of Hamas’s military wing should be a group of Jews on campus:
There’s a first amendment right to protest against the government, and government-run universities are obliged to honor that right. People can protest in public, no matter how vile their message. I long for the days when the ACLU held to core beliefs and advocated for the right of Nazis to march at Skokie because free expression only matters when it protects ideas that you loathe.
However this does not include taking over facilities and disrupting classes, damaging property and harming others. Sara Nelson either doesn’t understand the difference or is intentionally obtuse about it as she jockeys for accolades among ‘the groups’ of influence within her party.
I could be wrong here, but I have always believed that Airlines, like Hotels, and Restaurants, and many other industries are considered to be Service Industries. Therefore, it would seem to be in the best interest of their Company, as well as their co-workers, not to mention their paycheck, that they refrain from overtly taking sides in a situation that is not their fight. It is one thing to be personally sympathetic to one side versus the other, but what Sara Nelson has done is to drive away business from her Company potentially effecting her Union’s membership.
In truth, there have been and continue to be atrocities on both sides of this conflict. I am not saying she does not have a right to her feelings on this issue. However, when your voicing your strong opinion, some thought should be given to the time and place, and more important the people you represent and what it means to them.
Bring in the third world … become the third world .
Students with an “open mind” … have a lot of garbage dumped into their brain .
Hamas are savages that should be destroyed. But I am not sure Israel’s response to Hamas’ savagery is any better. In trying to better understand the Palestinian perspective – are they rejecting past “generous” peace proposals because they believe Israel was carved out of their land taken from them? Thus, any proposal short of them getting this land back isn’t “generous” at all?
Thanks for a reasonable and balanced view on this Gary.
@ Gary
Once again you get it wrong,
I read the part you quoted in your article, please show me the part where it say the AFA supports Hamas as your headline states. I see them stating they support the right to protest and linking that to striking, if I am missing the part where she says they support Hamas please highlight it for me.
Personally I think it’s all ridiculous but I agree with the first amendment and the ability to “peacefully “ protest and you should get arrested if you step over the line.
I agree with the rest of your article on the history of Israel and the Palestinians just your headline is inaccurate.
Thank you Gary.
“American protestors play-act as being oppressed themselves.”?
No, it’s not play-act. There are anti-war and pro-Palestinian rights protesters who have been and are being oppressed across the US since October 2023. The “encampments” are a follow on from earlier oppression and even violence aimed at them, oppression and even violence meant to try to downgrade the bury their general messages that get in the way of legitimizing Israel’s barbarism in the so-called Palestinian Territories which Israel occupies. The chances for a two-state solution were already long ago dismissed by such a critical mass among Israeli society and voters that Palestinians were at most to be left with bantustans and “encouraged” to leave and not “burden” or increase the risk to Israel’s “Jewish” state status.
You know what they say about how no constitution can save freedom and liberty when it dies in the hearts of enough people? Much the same goes for the idea of “peace treaties” that are designed to delay rather than permanently deliver “the goods” sooner than later. In this situation, “the goods” would be the land and sovereignty that are the natural right of the Palestinian peoples under international law. The very “goods” that Netanyahu never really wanted to see delivered — not even one inch as he has repeatedly put it, even back when Rabin was alive and Israel wasn’t even so far right wing as it had become when Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli opposed to even the half-baked giving of Palestinian land under international law to a Palestinian state authority.
@30west – re-read the headline ‘please show me the part where it say the AFA supports Hamas ” the headline says she came out for the pro-hamas protestors, not that she came out for hamas
Nothing says 2024 quite like an aviation blogger having the most thoughtful, informed & nuanced view published in the past 7 months. Thanks, Gary for the context and history.
@gary you seem more knowledgeable about genocides than leading Holocaust scholar Amos Goldberg, professor of Holocaust History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who has called this an actual genocide!
https://zeteo.com/p/gaza-genocide-israel-holocaust-scholar?r=2vqod&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true
Today Hamas bombed Kerem Shalom crossing after it was opened by the Israelis to provide aid for the Gazans…
Need I say more…
Sara has never been known to be the smartest, just the loudest. The Palestinians elected Hamas as their leader.There is not even a Muslim country willing to take in the Palestinian people!!!! She might want to read a history lesson before spewing her dribble. Bless her heart for thinking she is important……….
@Steven – this is unquestionably a tragedy however appeal to experts engaged in histrionics doesn’t make something so, genocide has a real meaning and calling this a genocide removes significance from the term.
Thank you, Gary, for an excellent post on the subject overall. We all need to get the hostages home.
“ this is unquestionably a tragedy however appeal to experts engaged in histrionics doesn’t make something so, genocide has a real meaning and calling this a genocide removes significance from the term.”
So when a noted scholar in the subject area disagrees with you Gary, he is dealing in histrionics, but when you suggest that the death of 1200 Israelis at the hands of 2000 fighters is an attempt at genocide, that is calm and rational.
For what it is worth, I actually agree with you that the Israeli atrocities in Gaza are not genocidal. I don’t think Israel has any desire to wipe out all Palestinians. They could not care less whether the Palestinians live or die, they just want them gone from the areas that Israel wants for itself. Not genocide, just its’ close cousin, ethnic cleansing.
pro hamas? Bias much? I think that is your problem, actually most americans’ problem, they view this from a very biased angle. Most people just want Israel to stop killing civilians by saying they are human shield without providing any proof. Worse, they bury the evidence and not allow any independent third party to investigate.
Maxine is off in saying this: “ The Palestinians elected Hamas as their leader.There is not even a Muslim country willing to take in the Palestinian people!!!!”
The last time Hamas won a general election in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territory of Gaza, something like 40% of the Palestinians in Gaza today weren’t even born and over 65% of the Palestinians in Gaza today weren’t even allowed to vote then. Of the remaining 35%, many of them didn’t vote for Hamas.
A lot of Palestinians live in the Muslim-majority countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria. Also, there are sizable populations of resident Palestinians in Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and some of the other GCC countries. Those are all Muslim-majority countries, but none of those countries are the historical Palestinian homelands from which they were displaced in and after the run-up to the creation of the country of Israel. Of course in the dreams of the Israeli right-wing and their supporters opposed to a sovereign Palestinian state in the historical homelands of the Palestinians, the Palestinians would all or mostly all be pushed out into Muslim-majority countries and “secure” Israel’s “Jewish” state status over a larger territory than that granted to it under international law.
Very accurate and well written. There is no desire for Hamas to be at peace with Israel and Israel will be foolish if it ever accepts a 2 state system or allows Hamas to continue to exist. Either will just be a base for future attacks on Israel. Israel is smart enough to know you cannot reason with a group that vows to destroy your nation. Of course we have not learned that in the U.S. We continue to allow both illegal and legal immigrants that hate our country to pour into our country. Biden is even talking about allowing Gazan Palestinians to resettle in the U.S. That makes great sense from an evil administration. Just more people to hate our country and take to the streets chanting “Death to America”.
Great way to create public empathy for your union members by endorsing Soros sponsored anti American protests.
The headline is horrid. Protesting the mass murder of Palestinians is not supporting Hamas.
Can’t believe anyone would come out in favor of Hamas but then I can’t believe 75 million voted for the number one a**hole in America, Chump. Bunch of 75 million a**hole Chump fools!
Gary’s thoughts summed up: everything is Palestinians’ fault, for all time. Why is the American Airlines / credit card promo blog guy even talking about geopolitics ? I mean, it’s a free country, but… We might as well be asking Stormy Daniels for her take.
Amazing how far some people will go to hide from and/or try to justify the unfolding genocide of Gazans, including countless indiscriminate killings by the IDF (where no one could argue Hamas was ‘hiding’, like when they killed their own hostages who were naked, waving white flags, the little girl Hind in the car and her entire family, and the paramedics trying to get to her, and the WCK workers,) AND using starvation. Gary is hiding from or distorting history, and backwards engineering the justification of the current mass slaughter. Gary clearly either doesn’t understand the Palestinian perspective, or doesn’t care that Bibi’s goal is their permanent subservience or destruction. Who would willingly accept that fate ? Most people in Gaza today are the descendants of those forced to leave their homes in Palestine, when Israel was created out of thin air.
Anyway, people like Gary who use their platforms to justify or apologize for genocide, should be at most corrected or chastised, and at least.. ignored.
There is nothing anti-American about being anti-war, pro-human rights, pro-civil rights, and pro-national self-determination for people abused by powerful occupiers and overlords with barbaric disregard for civilians “in the way”.
Gary Leff needs to read Nelson’s comments again. She is for the right to protest, against violence and threatening behavior. Leff should be ignored and his financial support dropped.
@Christopher Raehl, you’re right that protesting the mass murder of Palestinians is not supporting Hamas, though while I have protested the Israeli conduct of this war myself, because of what I see is a lack of much of any concern by the Israeli government for the lives of Palestinians who are victims of both Israel’s conduct of the war against Hamas and even more so, the subjugation of the Palestinian people by Hamas who have stolen their food, their income, their aid from other countries and their lives. I am even more concerned that the IDF hasn’t reeled in rogue members who have violated Israel’s own laws and have not charged them with their crimes.
As a Jew, I am appalled that the Netanyahu government has dismissed the will of the majority of Israeli people and is not actually trying to obtain the return of hostages nor again try for peace and to stop conducting a war that is killing many more Gazans than Hamas. (The stats of dead and wounded is greatly exaggerated by the press, using Hamas stats without verification. If you look at the stats from Hamas, they make no sense when you try to reconcile them. Even so, the number of Gazans that are being killed is appalling.) I must interject here that I don’t think that peace is actually possible at this time as Hamas has proved itself to be an unreliable negotiating partner and due to Hamas and its brethren, the Palestinians have rejected every peace plan offered, even two that gave them 98% of what they wanted, save a law of return for Palestinians to Israel, which would have meant the end of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people within 2-3 generations and while there was no similar law of return of Jews to Palestine after the settlement. It’s clear that the Palestinians have never negotiated in good faith. I would also interject here that Gary’s description of the history account he made is generally dead-on accurate.
That said, the history of Hamas/Israel can’t be an excuse for what is going on in Gaza today. On the other hand Israel has a right to exist, something Hamas refuses to grant or even discuss and it is relevant that Hamas has broken every cease fire and every agreement to end fighting that they agreed to.
Then there is the realization that the second part to your statement is missing. Pro Hamas rallies and Hamas support are quite different than protesting the plight of the Palestinians that I support (By the way, I personally know Netanyahu and have never supported him or his governments over time. We went to high school together and were in many activities at school together. He isn’t just a disaster for the region. He is a disaster for Israel and has always been so.) I have heard the calls on college campuses at their “Pro Gazan” rallies for the destruction of Jews and for violence against American Jews, many of which while supporting Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people have never supported the Netanyahu government or his actions in the territories over the years, his looking away at the violence of Israeli settlers against peaceful Palestinians, and his conduct of this war. What I see on college campuses is the use of the rally call “From the river to the sea,” which is a call for the total destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. I see in their rallies’ full fledged support for Hamas, for antisemitism and a call for violence against all Jews, for the expulsion of all Jews from American colleges and a call for American Jews to be sent back to Poland and Germany. That’s not support of the Palestinian people or a call for peace. That’s a call for murder and hate and genocide of the Jewish people on college campuses. I invite you to go to some of these rallies. Their calls of hate are loud and clear.
What was the purpose of coming out in support of Hamas? If Sara Nelson were a nobody, none of us would care whether she supports Hamas or not. She’s trading on her position in a union, even if she was not giving that affiliation, wearing her FA uniform, etc. So, IMO, she’s ill-bred and ill-mannered. I wish her no ill — it does me no good to do so, but I have less respect for her than I might have had in other circumstances. I’m in no position to teach her better manners, so I’ll just chalk up to stupidity her behavior. But nowadays, what should I have expected?
Sara Nelson didn’t come out in support of Hamas. She is no Hamas supporter. But don’t let the facts get in the way of an ideological desire to union bash and act as if all is well in the world with the barbarism which is being protested against by people exercising 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech, expression, peaceable assembly, and to petition governing authorities and rally the public to peacefully protest against violence and the deprivation of basic human rights to such extent that war crimes charges against the Netanyahu regime and Hamas figures are in consideration.
It is sort of amusing how those Netanyahu regime supporters — open or closeted — who had complaints about “cancel culture” in “liberal academia” are now all into “cancel culture” — that too “cancel culture” on steroids. The steroid rage is on display, and the hypocrisy on “cancel culture” speaks either to a lack of adherence to previously-touted principles or to a lack of honesty and openness about working backward from a set objective in order to engineer a narrative about principles for marketing purposes to reach the objective by “any means necessary”. Sad but predictable.
Hopefully, the freedom suppressers face their day in court as defendants and end up having to pay big bucks to the people harmed by the suppression measures.
It will be ironic to see Donna Shalala as a defendant for suppressing critics of Israeli government policy and practice at home. Who is she? She’s an Arab-American and the very same former US cabinet minister who later ended up harassed by “security” at TLV and is currently the head of New College in NYC. Columbia U’s Arab-American president seems to be right in line with Egypt’s awful dictator on the matter of protesters.
@Steven: Regarding your list of causes for which students were mocked for demonstrating in favor of, I would note that pretty much every cause, both good and bad, has had students both in support and opposition.
“They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” — Carl Sagan
University protest movements of the social justice sort since in the 1960s have turned out later to get a much more positive look globally and in the history books than the right-wing status quo “counter-protesters” opposed to them got. Maybe some of you weren’t around to see the monkey and “have a banana” type racist mockery and other such “counter-protester” stuff done to anti-apartheid protesters when the US was still an ally of the apartheid state of South Africa, but nowadays it’s “free Mandela” and other such protesters against the apartheid state that are looked at more kindly by history than those who tried to shut down and mock those status quo-challenging protesters.
Israel isn’t making itself more secure longer term when seeking a victory that may even mean a complete tactical defeat of Hamas but has already led to a strategic defeat when more and more people now have the excuse and anger — and eventually more of the means — to just ignore the rule-based international law and order which provides guardrails to better secure Israel and all of us. Don’t be surprised when terrorist actors — state actors or others — say “the rules didn’t apply when Israel did it, so we don’t believe there are any such rules that apply when doing much the same to Israel.”
The best shield against antisemitism and sword for Zionism within the confines of international law comes when the Palestinians and other Arabs see that Israelis and the lovers of Israel don’t see Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims as sub-humans undeserving of the same rights and respect as Jewish Israelis. Unfortunately, so much of Israeli society is already dominated by violent bigots and has become a mirror of Hamas except in ethnic and religious identity that the security risk of Israelis and Palestinians is worse off today than a year ago and is on path to be worse off 10-20 years from now than ever before.
I stand with the peaceful, law-abiding protesters’ right to protest for peace, social justice and against religious and racist bigotry and to be free from violence and harassment while protesting in such manner for just that.
So disappointing Gary. You often have based takes, but not this one. It is not pro Hamas to demand that your university, and nation, divest from or stop support for an entity that is performing ethnic cleansing on a stateless people. It’s actually very in line with what we should expect from university students. How are you so wrong on this?
@Jordan ” It is not pro Hamas to demand that your university, and nation, divest from or stop support for an entity that is performing ethnic cleansing on a stateless people. It”
That wouldn’t be pro-Hamas, necessarily, but many of the protestors are clearly pro-Hamas as noted in the post.
And they’re demanding divestiture of…. index funds which they likely do not understand (or maybe they’d be protesting many of their own parents?)
Furthermore calling this sad situation ‘ethnic cleansing’ simply dumbs down that phrase. It is not that, at all, although it’s a genuine crisis.
I am not a fan of the protesters’ boycott and divestment calls but I do fancy one aspect of those calls: if they would mean comprehensive disclosure of university endowment funding and the use of those endowment funds. I would like the public to see the details of how all such “donated” funds are used, and whether or not some of the biggest “donors” are getting kickbacks of sort on the “donations” for which the “donors” may be effectively exploiting to reduce their tax burden. Not just the kickback of affirmative action for the children of the richest, but also in who gets endowment-related asset management fees, payment for capital/order flow money, and other such self-dealing vehicles that are ultimately a form of the taxpayer-subsidizing the rich “donors” and may be part and parcel of legalized corruption or maybe even also illegal corruption.
You were aware of the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims in the Balkans during the Clinton Administration years? Of the Bosniak refugees whom I know in the US, Canada and Scandinavia that lived through that ethnic cleansing, many of them tell me that they see even worse ethnic cleansing going on in Gaza since Hamas’s barbaric October 2023 invasion of Israel. And they are seeing that even despite the best efforts of the Israeli government to suppress freedom of the press and critical media coverage of what’s going on with the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Of course Sara Nelson is on the side of Jew-hating campus idiots.
All the worst people like and support each other. The mobsters and the crazies.
“Jew-hating campus idiots” is an apt reference to the right-wingers bashing Jewish Americans honorably standing among and for their fellow campus anti-war and pro-social justice protesters as critics of the Netanyahu regime and the increasingly fascist right wing version of Israel that has been brutalizing the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank like never before.
Gary’s really good at saying this is ‘not genocide’ or ‘not ethnic cleaning’ (despite all evidence to the contrary,) but seems to struggle with saying what it really is, besides….. *sniff* a tragedy. What a joke. Also seems happy to erase from consideration the Jews who have joined the protests. For shame.
Can someone explain what her opinion on the matter has to do with being a stew?
Can someone explain why anyone should care what her opinion is?
Can anyone explain why she shouldn’t be removed from her position for publicly connecting her opinions to the industry?