Supporters of Palestinians – and in some cases of Hamas – have been taking over roads leading to airports, blocking access at places including Chicago O’Hare, New York JFK, and Los Angeles and elsewhere.
This has been a huge inconvenience to travelers that are missing flights, and probably doesn’t gain any sympathy from them. Still, it’s probably better to protest at airports than the planned and since-cancelled protest at the Holocaust Museum. But what are they trying to accomplish exactly?
— Oliya Scootercaster (@ScooterCasterNY) December 27, 2023
JUST IN: Pro-Palestinian Protesters block highway and entrance to Chicago O'Hare International Airport..pic.twitter.com/FOitOJtTMr
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) December 24, 2023
Hamas supporters take over LAX. The reporter who called these "Pro Palestinian" protests is a propagandist for terrorists pic.twitter.com/1habCAwUVD
— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) December 27, 2023
What happened on October 7 in Israel was disgusting. I don’t need to rehash the barbarity against civilians. There are still Americans being held in Gaza. It’s certainly heart-wrenching to watch, as well, people suffer in Gaza as Israel works to take down Hamas in response.
Protesters get attention by blocking airports. They demonstrate their power. And support for Israel probably does cost the Biden administration support among Democratic activists. Although the idea that they’d stay home in the 2024 election with Donald Trump on the ballot seems odd.
The question is, and I’d really like to understand the answer from protesters, is what do they want to see happen exactly?
- A ceasefire means Hamas re-arming. Is that actually the goal? Or is it just mood affiliation with ‘suffering bad’ (or, in many cases, Jews bad)? And if they really want a ceasefire, and Hamas to re-arm, then what happens after?
- How should Hamas be removed from power? They hide amongst civilians and use them as human shields. Civilian deaths during World War II are estimated at over 30 million. U.S. post-9/11 wars have cost the lives of nearly half a million civilians. War is devastating, tragic and unfair. What rules of engagement ought to apply to Israel and has any country ever upheld similar rules in a similar situation?
- Does Israel have a right to exist as a Jewish state? Many would argue that the entirety of the land (“from the river to the sea”) should be Palestinian, with Jews cleansed of the area. That is the goal of Hamas. Leaving them in power means they continue to fight for this goal.
jIf you believe Israel shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state, should Arab states be permitted to exist? If you think Israel should be permitted to exist, then how should they ensure their security against a force on their border that wants them dad?
Arab countries did nothing for Palestinaian sovereignty when they controlled Gaza, the West Bank and Golan Heights until the 1967 Arab-Israeli War (when they invaded and lost territory). Egypt, Jordan, and Syria could have declared one and did not. In fact, Israel is the only country ever to grant sovereignty to Palestinians.
When Palestinians were being killed in much larger numbers in Syria there were no blockades at the airports. There is a sense in which concern for Palestinians is now the ‘current thing’.
Now that Hamas has rejected Egypt’s peace plan – having the terrorists relinquish power and running real elections – no one has started protesting Hamas demanding a cease fire.
I believe that Israel has an obligation to prosecute the war as humanely as possible. And I think criticizing some of their moves is reasonable. But I’d love to hear what protesters would have Israel do, if they were suddenly Prime Minister – with a goal to preserve their country and the lives of its citizens, and bounded by electoral constraints that while real aren’t as severe as those Palestinian leaders have faced at the hands of Hamas.
Palestinians would have been better off with the UN partition plan in 1947 that Arab states rejected; with a state that was offered 20 years later; with the Clinton plan in 2000; and with Ehud Olmert’s plan. All were rejected.
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, Chritians 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.
So what do you do? Is a cease fire your end game, what happens next? I don’t know exactly what works here. Certainly any peace has to mean Hamas’ exit from Gaza. Ideally Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates exert greater influence in the region (versus Iran proxy Hamas). The Saudis recognize Israel.
Then with the credible commitment to peace by regional players the Olmert proposal could become realistic again.
Aside from the Bibi and Hamas apolologists,, the discussion boils down to the fact there is no solution as long as Palestinians support Hamas and Israelis support right wing governments such as Netanyahu.
I am also tired of the Fox news crowd and MSNBC crowd projecting their domestic agendas onto the discussion.
Another concern is the muslim majority population of taxi/uber drivers at the airports I use. For example, refusal of muslim bus drivers to show up and drive Jewish groups.
There seems to be no pushback from TSA, the airports, politicians in charge, airlines, or anyone in power.
I want freedom to travel and to fly without restrictions and without kabuki theater security.
@DC not in DC – WW2 is not a good analogy, and the Japanese did not kill only 2,400 Americans. They declared war on America, and it wasn’t going to end until there was unconditional surrender by one side or the other.
The analogy to the horrible thing Hamas did on Oct 7 is 9/11. In response to the killing of 3,000 Americans we invaded the countries that harbored and trained them. After thousands of civilian deaths, we ended up with ISIS, then after some more deaths, the Taliban are back in power.
@Gary – I’d argue that Friedman (while clearly not pro-Hamas, nor am I) laid out a post-ceasefire pathway in the NYT that made sense for Israel. Require the return of all remaining hostages in return for a unilateral cessation of war, use tactical strikes to continue to degrade Hamas military capability and Mossad to kill their leadership, rely on the sympathy generated by the Oct 7 attacks to get the Arab states to the table to work on a final solution to the Palestinian problem that doesn’t involve gas chambers.
I’d throw out the same challenge to the pro-war camp-
– what do you do after you’ve occupied the Gaza Strip, and Hamas fighters have gone to ground? There’s going to be continued killing of Israeli soldiers in the occupied areas- what’s the appropriate response?
– what does a credible peace look like brokered between Israel and the remaining Palestinians? Please, no pipe dreams about UAE and Saudi Arabia stepping in to govern Gaza! They are not going to be the solution- the best you will get is that they cease to be an active problem. I also don’t see how you go back to Oslo after Oct 7 and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza.
@ chris rael: actually, i disagree with the use of the term “zionism” and/or “zionists” to describe the Balfour Declaration, Sykes-Picot and the betrayal of Faisal at Versailles. And therein is the root cause of the current mess.
Both “sides” have been bad actors, no doubt, but the last 75 years have proven that the 1947/48 UN Resolution 181(II) was the way to go.
from the wiki:
“In 2011, Mahmoud Abbas stated that the 1947 Arab rejection of United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a mistake he hoped to rectify.”
@gary: UAE and Saud are indeed pipe dreams; it can’t be anyone with a dog in the hunt – no christians, no sunnis, no shiites, no jews.
China & Japan, you’re up.
I wasn’t using Zionism to describe those things. I was using Zionism the describe the ethnic cleansing of the native population perpetrated by Zionists.
That is simply not at all what happened @christopher raehl, and you also do not get to define terms in common use as you wish to avoid criticism
Gary: I think you are sincerely asking the questions trying to understand the different viewpoints, and I commend you for that. As a well-read and well-travelled thinker, I did expect more of you than to rehash right wing Israeli talking points though, but I do not blame you as you have been immersed in these talking points probably all your life, and there is ongoing concerted effort to quash true conversation even today. So thank you for soliciting viewpoints and conversation.
The Hamas doctrine of an Islamist state between the River and the Sea is the same exact mirror image of the ultra-right Zionist nationalist doctrine- now part of the current government, representing (x-Bibi’s Likud Party) over 30 seats in various factions in the 120-seat Knesset. These extremists, controlling the current government in Israel, want a pure “Jewish” land between the River and the Sea (pre-1967 Israel, Judea and Samaria (i.e. West Bank as they call it)? Think about it for a second. What happens to the non-Jews? Suppression, oppression, apartheid. This is exactly what is happening. These radical ultra-nationalist Zionist would say that the Palestinians can go live anywhere in the Arab world, but that’s like saying the Spaniards can go live peacefully in Poland if Muslims decide one day to make Spain a safe home for all Muslims again. You are a traveler Gary. Go be an eyewitness yourself. Travel to the West Bank, go look at the separation wall “security wall”, look at highways built for the Jewish settlers in the West Bank cutting through olive groves for Palestinians, that only Israeli cars can travel on. Laws that allow only people of Jewish faith to build or even remodel in certain areas. Stand by a village hilltop and watch the settlers with M16’s harass and shoot Palestinian farmers in an effort to force them to move. Count the tally of those dead in 2023 in the West Bank by Israeli settler attacks, protected by the IDF, 483 and counting every day.
What is the solution you ask? Do not mix nationalism and religion. Not on any side. Not Hamas, not Jewish ultra-right Zionism, not Christian crusaders, not in USA, not in the Spanish Inquisition. Live in a land in a democratic state where you are forced by law to accept and tolerate different religions and teach your children tolerance. If the Jews want a safe place to live, continue to allow BY LAW Jewish migration to that land, and also allow Palestinian right to return- all those families that were forced out in 1948 and later. And under no circumstances should you accept civilian deaths as the norm, or self-defense, especially when done in a true carpet bombing campaign. Then the other side will justify the killing of civilians they do next as armed resistance, and self defense also. Neither is acceptable. That is dehumanization on either side, no matter what your intentions are. Hence the call for a ceasefire and a diplomatic solution, as elusive as it may appear. War is not, never a solution.
@Gary: That’s exactly what happened. In 1900 there were a couple hundred thousand Jewish people in what is now Israel, and millions of others. That has since changed. How did it change?
A very large part of that change was accomplished by some Jewish people progressively pushing anyone else out of the land they want for a Jewish state, and it continues today with the continued apartheid policies against people in the occupied territories.
The Palestinians are occupied and abused by an oppressive government, not much different than being Black in South Africa during Apartheid. Hamas is no doubt absolutely brutal – but Israel is far, far from innocent, benvolent, or even practicing “self defense”. Israel is an aggressor.
The extremist government of Israel terrorises Palestinians, which creates support for Palestinian extremists, who terrorise Israeli’s, which creates support for the extremist government of Israel, which terrorises Palestinians, which….
That’s the cycle. It does no good to cover one’s eyes and pretend Israel’s extremist government doesn’t play just as much a role in the violence as Hamas, even if the details of their terror (Fly bombs on planes first, look the other way as settler’s “defend” themselves from farmers, etc) is different.
There is much truth to the quote usually attributed to Golda Meir during the Yom Kippur War, “If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.”
And @Christopher Raehl – Jews first settled in Jerusalem during the Iron Age, around 1000 BCE. The term Palestinians in the modern sense refers to the Arab population living in the region and their national identity largely formed in the 20th century. Playing games of who was there first is silly at this point, what happened to the Jews that were there before Palestinians do you think?
Not for nothing but while you may think Israel is ‘new’ as a nation established in 1948 it is older than 134 of the 193 UN membet nations.
Gary: Now it looks like your real motive for writing this column is not discourse but to find people who will regurgitate your extremist denialist viewpoints towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Yes, Gary: there is something called Palestine and the Palestinian people. We won’t go back to 4000 BC, but there was a Palestine with its own passports, currency and culture before Israel was created in its land, with Jews, Muslims and Christians living together. Zionist nationalism wants to make that land only Jewish in its ideal form, the dominant right wing factions are very open in their cleansist desires, others see political pathways for a solution but are now a minority. Your dear idol Golda Meir’s statement “there is no such thing as the Palestinian people” is part of the problem of dehumanizing a whole people and culture, and this continues today to the defense minister referring to Palestinians as “human animals”. And you think there will be peace when Israel’s laws and policies and people like you deny a whole population’s existence. You are doing so at your own peril, open your eyes and mind. Look in the mirror think about what you are saying. Denialists look at the pictures in Gaza and see animals dying not humans. Until the humanity and rights of both sides are recognized, there will be no peace.
Well said, unfortunately these protestors have very violent intentions…