June 21, 2024
As I write this,
in the last 15 days, Israel has bombed a tent city and a UN school and has
killed 276 Palestinian non-combatants in a mid-day raid to gain the release of
four Israelis being held as hostages.
Almost 400
people were killed in the three actions, with many hundreds more wounded. In
the hostage retrieval, 64 Palestinian children and 57 women were killed.
The UN has
reported that more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war in
Gaza started, with over 38% (about 14,000) being children under the age of 14.
Jeffrey Sachs, a
Columbia professor and one of the most respected foreign policy experts in this
country, in a one-minute, 34-second blast on YouTube said the following:
“Israel has
deliberately starved the people of Gaza. Starved! I am not using an
exaggeration. Israel is a criminal, is in war crime status now I believe, in
genocidal status, and it is without shame, without remorse…” Sachs is a Jew.
Another Jew,
Dave Smith, has a very popular podcast called “Part Of The Problem.” He has
been very critical of the way Israel has treated the Palestinians, both in this
war and in the way Israel evicted hundreds of thousands of them from their
homes during Israel’s founding in 1948.
I have read that
Netanyahu has only a 34% positive rating in Israel, but that 80% approve of his
handling of the war in Gaza. If 80% of Jews worldwide approve of Israel’s war,
this still would leave more than 3,000,000 Jews who do not approve.
After the tent
city bombing mentioned above, the Washington Post reported the “horrific
scenes” and said, “Parents were burned alive in their tents while children
screamed for help. Doctors recounted struggling to treat gruesome shrapnel
wounds with dwindling medical supplies.”
The Post quoted
one man who lost seven relatives in the attack: “We were not able to identify
them until this morning because of the charred bodies. The faces were eroded
and the features were completely disappeared.” Four were children.
The Post
interviewed another man who said “he still heard the screams…” He said he took
a fire extinguisher and rushed to help. “I didn’t know what to do to help
people as they burned… dismembered bodies, charred bodies, children without
heads, bodies as if they had melted.”
Another man
found his brother and three-year-old niece dead, the little girl had been hit
in the head and he said “There was blood everywhere.”
At an
International Medical Corps Clinic, a surgeon said one little girl was asking
everyone if they had seen her parents. The parents were dead. He said the
clinic had run out of even basic medical supplies and said he had tried to save
a six-year-old girl, but she died that night.
After these
latest episodes, even people and countries that had always supported Israel had
seen too much. Canada, France and Germany all condemned the bombings. Spain,
Norway and Portugal joined the 145 other countries that had previously called
for full UN membership for Palestine.
The U.S. finally
supported a UN Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire but is still
sending military aid to Israel. In fact, on June 7, CNN reported Israel’s
latest bombing of a UN school “leaving dozens dead, using U.S. munitions.”
Our national
media has reported that many Jewish students have felt “uncomfortable” on some
college campuses. They should not be treated rudely, but this pales in
comparison to thousands of Palestinian children being killed and thousands more
being starved or losing arms or legs or parents.
I have been a
very loyal, very conservative Republican since I was a teenager. But this war
is not conservative. I am disappointed that only one Republican, Rep. Thomas
Massie of Kentucky, has had the courage to oppose and criticize Israel’s
cruelty in this war. I was pleased that he won 76% in his recent primary even
though huge money was poured in against him.
The American
Israel Public Affairs Committee owns the Congress because of its ability to
steer many millions in campaign contributions from all over the U.S. to
anywhere in the U.S.
Netanyahu funded
Hamas for several years in a strategy that horribly backfired last Oct. 7.
Since then, he has led a terribly lopsided war that has caused the deaths of
many thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
He has been
invited to speak to Congress and the nation on July 24. He will be treated as a
conquering hero. As a man with the blood of thousands on his hands, he should
not have even been invited.
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