Current “Cheerleading” for Gazans is Not About Gaza; It’s About Jew-Hatred

by William Kennedy

Twenty-one years ago, in December, 2003 (“Second Intifada”) a young Jewish DJ was murdered by his Muslim neighbor who later remarked, “I killed my Jew. I will go to heaven.”

There were no less than three-hundred attacks against Jews in France alone during the “Second Intifada.” This was never about Gaza. It was always about Jew-hatred. Anti-Nazi films and books are banned in Gaza and the area now known as the “West Bank.” Of course, these “Free Palestine” chatterboxes were strangely silent when Saddam Hussein was gassing the Kurds, as well as when he persecuted the Yazidi.

The pro-Hamas “activists” at U-M also ignore the fact that Abbas has not allowed elections for fifteen years (unlike Israel) and orders the death penalty for anyone who sells land to Israel. That all gets left out at the pro-Hamas rallies, naturally. Another fact that gets left out of the bullhorn is that Jews were murdered en masse in Hebron (August 23, 1929) and a few days later in Safad (where forty-five Jews were murdered).

Years before the “First Intifada”, on August 29, 1981, a synagogue in Vienna, Austria was bombed. The culprits were not Jains, Tibetan Buddhists, or Taoists. We know who did it and what the motivations were. It is worth remembering that when Pope John Paul II (someone who personally witnessed the evils of communism) met with Israel’s chief rabbis, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (an office that did not exist prior to British rule!), Sheik Ikrima Sabri, refused to meet with anyone even remotely sympathetic to Israel. That shows you where the hate is coming from.

Contrary to popular belief, there was in fact strong Catholic support for Israel and strong Catholic opposition to Nazism. Pope Pius XII demonstrated his care for Jews when he intervened on behalf of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, a couple sentenced to death (the evidence, when examined after the executions, overwhelmingly exonerated Ethal) for allegedly leaking the Manhattan Project to the Soviets. The pontiff was not the only Catholic official to oppose antisemitism. The Austrian Catholic, Dietrich von Hildebrand (editor of an anti-Nazi publication) was forced into exile for his views, and the Hungarian bishop Vilmos Apor was eventually murdered after refusing to hand over those under his protection. 

Hamas’ cheerleaders are especially oblivious to the fact that Jews all over Europe were expelled for centuries, culminating in the Holocaust (Shoah): Crimea (1016), Paris (1182), England (1290), France (1306), Switzerland (1348), Hungary (1349), Austria (1422), Spain (1492), Lithuania (1495), and Portugal (1497). Regarding the inflammatory accusation in a previous letter to the editor that Israel is “destroying cultural monuments,” it is universally agreed (by actual scholars who work in Eretz-Israel) that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have done far more damage, both to Israeli-Jewish cultural artifacts, and non-Jewish cultural artifacts (Samaritan, Canaanite). Further, there is no evidence that Arabs were in Gaza for “thousands of years” as some have claimed.

There were no Arabs in Gaza during the time of Alexander the Great, and the first undisputed Arabic inscription in the Holy Land dates to the Second Century CE.