By Berl Falbaum
An open letter to pro-Palestinian protesters:
You have been very busy these last few months, protesting on campuses, interrupting graduation ceremonies, and making your voices heard elsewhere.
I’ll confess I have not fully understood your value system which defends terrorists that behead civilians, burn some alive, riddle babies with bullets, gang rape women, and then celebrate their mayhem.
I listened to a tape of a terrorist calling his parents on October 7, bragging he killed 10 Jews and the parents blessed him. I don’t know what’s wrong with me not to comprehend such parental pride.
I have also tried to grasp your support for Hamas which uses civilians as shields, firing from mosques, apartment buildings, tunnels under civilian infrastructures, schools, etc.
For instance, I am confused how Queers for Palestine support Hamas when, if they lived under Hamas’s rule, they would be beheaded and under the governance of the Palestinian Authority would serve 10 years in prison for homosexuality.
Then we have women protesters, women who in “Hamasland” would suffer severe restrictions, including needing a male guardian just to travel.
Pardon my intellectual and moral inability to process this. I am a bit ashamed of myself — it has played havoc with my self-esteem — for not being able to process your support of savagery and deadly discrimination in the name of humanitarianism.
I take full responsibility. But, make no mistake about it. I have tried. I grappled and grappled with it in my head to no avail. Again, shame on me!
I also want to acknowledge that given your obsession with Israel, I understand how it might have escaped your attention that, beside Gaza, there are atrocities elsewhere.
After listening to your uncompromising commitment to humanitarianism, I am listing a few to which you might devote some attention. Given space limitations, each is just a brief summary.
We’ll begin with Sudan in northeast Africa.
Millions are facing starvation; women are gang raped daily; children are shot in their beds; ethnic cleansing is the objective of armed forces. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have died; no one knows exactly how many.
“There’s a racist element,” writes Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist. “Arab militias mock their victims as ‘slaves’ and taunt them with racial epithets; the non-Arabs are often darker skinned. The militias seem to be trying to systematically eliminate non-Arab tribes from the area.”
If this does not interest you, try Yemen.
“The country’s humanitarian crisis is said to be among the worst in the world, due to widespread hunger, disease, and attacks on civilians,” says the Council on Foreign Relations.
Adds UNICEF:
“Yemen remains one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, with around 9.8 million children in need of one or more forms of humanitarian assistance.
“After nine years of conflict, the national socioeconomic systems of Yemen remain on the edge of total collapse, while conflict, large-scale displacement and recurring climate shocks have left families vulnerable to communicable disease outbreaks.
“Millions of children lack access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene services, and the country continues to experience regular outbreaks of cholera, measles, diphtheria and other vaccine-preventable diseases.”
That doesn’t appeal to you either? Okay, how about Pakistan?
From Wikipedia:
“In October 2023, the government of Pakistan announced a plan to deport foreign nationals who either do not have valid visas or have overstayed their visa for more than one year.
“The mass deportations affect primarily Afghans who fled to Pakistan after Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. There were 3.8 million Afghans in Pakistan at the time the deportation order was announced. Afghans accounted for 95 percent of the foreign nationals in Pakistan.”
Call me picky and while I lack your commitment to morality, I would think any one of these three deserve some protests. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt and let you choose from other humanitarian disasters in the world, including those in Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Haiti, and Ukraine.
You remember Ukraine? It is in the third year of an unprovoked war launched by Russia which not only has been relentless in its attacks on civilians and guilty of barbarism and butchery, but has kidnapped thousands of children. Ten million Ukrainians have been displaced.
The New Humanitarian, which describes itself as an independent, nonprofit newsroom, observes:
“...[I]t’s important to remember that many...crises...are too easily forgotten by the media and neglected by aid donors [and protesters] – often just because of their complexity or their relative lack of geopolitical importance.”
(“and protesters” is my insert).
Dear anti-Israel activists, if none of the above whets your protest appetites, according to various sites on the Internet, there are 32 countries at war presently. There is no shortage of potential protest sites; there are plenty to choose from.
If you decide to examine other possible targets for your outrage, you don’t have to abandon your Gaza cause. As you sit in your encampments why not divide into groups, each one taking up one crisis.
I am confident the murderers of civilians, rapists and terrorists in countries at war will honor your claims to “freedom of speech” and will look forward to engaging with university professors in debates about academic freedom.
As you choose new sites to protest, invite members of the United Nations, world leaders who share your “values,” particularly those from South Africa who continually levy charges against Israel in the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court but ignore humanitarian crises on its home turf. Apparently, South Africa understands you completely.
Finally, alert the main stream media because, like you, they have suffered from a severe case of political, moral, and humanitarian amnesia.
————————
Berl Falbaum is a veteran journalist and author of 12 books.
An open letter to pro-Palestinian protesters:
You have been very busy these last few months, protesting on campuses, interrupting graduation ceremonies, and making your voices heard elsewhere.
I’ll confess I have not fully understood your value system which defends terrorists that behead civilians, burn some alive, riddle babies with bullets, gang rape women, and then celebrate their mayhem.
I listened to a tape of a terrorist calling his parents on October 7, bragging he killed 10 Jews and the parents blessed him. I don’t know what’s wrong with me not to comprehend such parental pride.
I have also tried to grasp your support for Hamas which uses civilians as shields, firing from mosques, apartment buildings, tunnels under civilian infrastructures, schools, etc.
For instance, I am confused how Queers for Palestine support Hamas when, if they lived under Hamas’s rule, they would be beheaded and under the governance of the Palestinian Authority would serve 10 years in prison for homosexuality.
Then we have women protesters, women who in “Hamasland” would suffer severe restrictions, including needing a male guardian just to travel.
Pardon my intellectual and moral inability to process this. I am a bit ashamed of myself — it has played havoc with my self-esteem — for not being able to process your support of savagery and deadly discrimination in the name of humanitarianism.
I take full responsibility. But, make no mistake about it. I have tried. I grappled and grappled with it in my head to no avail. Again, shame on me!
I also want to acknowledge that given your obsession with Israel, I understand how it might have escaped your attention that, beside Gaza, there are atrocities elsewhere.
After listening to your uncompromising commitment to humanitarianism, I am listing a few to which you might devote some attention. Given space limitations, each is just a brief summary.
We’ll begin with Sudan in northeast Africa.
Millions are facing starvation; women are gang raped daily; children are shot in their beds; ethnic cleansing is the objective of armed forces. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have died; no one knows exactly how many.
“There’s a racist element,” writes Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist. “Arab militias mock their victims as ‘slaves’ and taunt them with racial epithets; the non-Arabs are often darker skinned. The militias seem to be trying to systematically eliminate non-Arab tribes from the area.”
If this does not interest you, try Yemen.
“The country’s humanitarian crisis is said to be among the worst in the world, due to widespread hunger, disease, and attacks on civilians,” says the Council on Foreign Relations.
Adds UNICEF:
“Yemen remains one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, with around 9.8 million children in need of one or more forms of humanitarian assistance.
“After nine years of conflict, the national socioeconomic systems of Yemen remain on the edge of total collapse, while conflict, large-scale displacement and recurring climate shocks have left families vulnerable to communicable disease outbreaks.
“Millions of children lack access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene services, and the country continues to experience regular outbreaks of cholera, measles, diphtheria and other vaccine-preventable diseases.”
That doesn’t appeal to you either? Okay, how about Pakistan?
From Wikipedia:
“In October 2023, the government of Pakistan announced a plan to deport foreign nationals who either do not have valid visas or have overstayed their visa for more than one year.
“The mass deportations affect primarily Afghans who fled to Pakistan after Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. There were 3.8 million Afghans in Pakistan at the time the deportation order was announced. Afghans accounted for 95 percent of the foreign nationals in Pakistan.”
Call me picky and while I lack your commitment to morality, I would think any one of these three deserve some protests. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt and let you choose from other humanitarian disasters in the world, including those in Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Haiti, and Ukraine.
You remember Ukraine? It is in the third year of an unprovoked war launched by Russia which not only has been relentless in its attacks on civilians and guilty of barbarism and butchery, but has kidnapped thousands of children. Ten million Ukrainians have been displaced.
The New Humanitarian, which describes itself as an independent, nonprofit newsroom, observes:
“...[I]t’s important to remember that many...crises...are too easily forgotten by the media and neglected by aid donors [and protesters] – often just because of their complexity or their relative lack of geopolitical importance.”
(“and protesters” is my insert).
Dear anti-Israel activists, if none of the above whets your protest appetites, according to various sites on the Internet, there are 32 countries at war presently. There is no shortage of potential protest sites; there are plenty to choose from.
If you decide to examine other possible targets for your outrage, you don’t have to abandon your Gaza cause. As you sit in your encampments why not divide into groups, each one taking up one crisis.
I am confident the murderers of civilians, rapists and terrorists in countries at war will honor your claims to “freedom of speech” and will look forward to engaging with university professors in debates about academic freedom.
As you choose new sites to protest, invite members of the United Nations, world leaders who share your “values,” particularly those from South Africa who continually levy charges against Israel in the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court but ignore humanitarian crises on its home turf. Apparently, South Africa understands you completely.
Finally, alert the main stream media because, like you, they have suffered from a severe case of political, moral, and humanitarian amnesia.
————————
Berl Falbaum is a veteran journalist and author of 12 books.
