“From the river to the sea.”

This is what I saw on a news video of a sign at a pro-Palestinian protest of Israeli brutality recently.  Rhetorical question No. 1: is there any doubt what that means? 

Following close on the heels of Rhetorical question No. 1 comes Rhetorical Question No. 2:  Were Hamas to abandon its call for the destruction of Israel and those Jews in it, is there any doubt that peace would break out within months?  I am not here to argue the justice or injustice of the 1917 Balfour Declaration.  I am not here to argue the justice or injustice of the 1948 Partition.  I am here to argue (and it should be virtually indisputable to all rational observers) that, IF the Palestinian community were to accept the 70-year-plus existence of Israel, there would be peace.  Borders would be adjusted, new settlements would be razed, and Palestinian children would not be wounded or killed by anyone’s rockets.   But that requires a collective will that the Palestinian community has not shown; in fact, it has rejected the very idea of living in peace with its neighbor.  Gaza and the West Bank voted for different leaders, but none of them have explicitly declared their allegiance to allowing Israelis to live in peace without threats from neighbors.   Their regimes, as well as that of Syria, are corrupt and eaten up with hatred. Land for peace was offered and rejected, years ago.

So all these calls for justice for Palestinians, particularly by U.S. liberals, ring hollow.

Rhetorical Questions Nos. 3 and 4:  would you rather be a Jew in Gaza or a Muslim in Tel Aviv?  Would you rather be a homosexual in Gaza or a homosexual in Tel Aviv?  Don’t be silly.  Hamas, Fatah and Hezbollah truths are fundamentally (yes, that word) opposed to such freedom. Sensible people know the answer to these questions. Does Bernie Sanders?  Does Rashida Tlaib?  Or Lamont Jones? 

It’s time to think hard about truth, freedom, and peace, and what we stand for.