Jesus wasn’t a Palestinian
Brian Henry on aggressive anti-Israel demonstrations in Canadian shopping malls.
I’m delighted to welcome Brian Henry for his second guest article at Canadian Zionist Forum. I hope that you will appreciate this new article as much as I did.
Image: Guest Author Brian Henry
Last weekend, the pro-Hamas protesters in Canada hit a new low. They brought their disruption to the Santa's Village at Bayshore Mall in Ottawa – as if little kids control Israel's policies.
They also protested at the Eaton’s Centre in Toronto, many of them masked (the better to look like the thugs they are), and video from that protest shows a protester threatening to put some hapless shopper “six feet under” – threatening him repeatedly, while Toronto police look on.
These pro-Hamas protesters think you have no right to shop, to celebrate Christmas, or otherwise carry on with normal life while war continues in Gaza.
Decent people tend to differ.
The whole point of Israel’s war is to restore security to the country. Hamas needs to be defeated precisely so that Israelis can shop, celebrate holidays, and return to normal life without fear of terrorism – without fearing they’ll be raped or tortured, murdered or kidnapped. That’s the point of any just war – to restore security when it’s been brutally taken away.
And how pointless – and wrong – it would be for us here in Canada who do enjoy the security that’s been stolen from Israelis, to refuse to enjoy life.
Certainly, I believe we should all look beyond our own neighbourhoods to the wider world – if for no other reason than the wider world will get around to looking our way. For myself, I spend many hours reading, writing, and talking about Israel’s war against the Hamas death cult. I worry about other places, too. Currently, there seems to be an actual genocide in Darfur, twenty years after the last one, and I believe our media, politicians and everyone else ought to be paying more attention.
But I will not try to force you to pay attention. I will not get in your face and try to make you to see the world the way I see it.
As for those pro-Hamas protesters, if you missed them at your local mall last weekend, don’t worry, they’re planning more mall protests for December 23. Why? Because they don’t give a damn about you or Darfur or anything else beyond their own delusions.
Note their chant: "Jesus was a Palestinian." Why chant something so obviously untrue?
It's part of the campaign to justify terrorism. They want to believe (against all evidence) and they want everyone else to believe that Jews have no place in Israel, that Jews have no ties to the land, that only Palestinians belong there.
Short history lesson: Jesus was a Jew (Hebrew name Yeshua) born in the Province of Judea, formerly known as the Kingdom of Judah until taken over by the Romans. The name “Palestine” didn’t come into existence until the second century after Jesus’ birth, when the Romans renamed Judea as Syria-Palaestina.
As for Arabs, they didn’t invade and colonize the land until the 7th Century. That’s about 1,700 years after Jews first established their kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem, and of course, before Jews got around to establishing a kingdom, they’d already been kicking around the area for 1,000 years or so.
Certainly, Palestinians have a place in the land – Arabs comprise 20% of Israel's population for starters, though they mostly call themselves Arab-Israelis (not Palestinians) and want no part of Hamas, Fatah, the PLO, or any of the other Palestinian organizations. Indeed, in the current war, you find Arabs fighting alongside of Jews, with Israel’s Golani Brigade, for example, led by Colonel Ghassan Alian. (You will not find any Jews in Hamas’s ranks, except as hostages.)
And as far as most Israelis are concerned and most people everywhere are concerned, Palestinians are welcome to their own state – provided they're okay with a Jewish Israel existing peacefully alongside. But for Palestinians, that’s always been the sticking point.
I’m a peacenik from way back, but to my lasting disappointment, no Palestinian leader has yet agreed to the notion of two peoples in two states living side by side in peace. Starting 75 years ago when the UN first proposed two states for two peoples and many times since then, Israel has always accepted this solution, while the Palestinian leadership has always rejected it.
The Palestinian side, wants a “Free Palestine” “from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea,” with no Israel in between. We see this desire played out in big ways, as with terrorism, and in little ways, as with this idiotic chant: "Jesus was a Palestinian" – a chant that means "Jews have no place here."
Brian recently wrote a good piece in TheJ.ca on Canada’s wobbly position on the war in Gaza. One day Canada is proclaiming the importance of Israel’s right to defend itself and eradicate Hamas. The next, they are decrying civilian deaths in Gaza. This all came to a dismal head when Canada voted yes to a UNGA resolution calling for a ceasefire. Here is an excerpt from that article in which Brian writes what we would have liked to hear from our Prime Minister:
War is a horrible business, and of all wars, urban warfare is the worst, especially in a situation like Gaza, where Hamas has dug in beneath hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings.
But Israel did not start this war and has no choice other than to win it and to end Hamas as a viable military force.
As it always has, Israel is of course trying to minimize civilian deaths, and despite Hamas urging Gazans to act as human shields, Israel is having considerable success.
As I write this, Hamas says that 14,000 have died in Gaza – a number which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and terrorists nor between those killed by Israeli strikes and those killed by errant Hamas missiles. Nor is there any reason to believe anything Hamas says.
Even so, by way of comparison, the war Canada and its allies fought against the Taliban in Afghanistan killed about 200,000 people – and that was with little close urban fighting of the kind we’re seeing in Gaza.
As the conflict continues, here are a few things to keep in mind:
First, responsibility for all deaths, on both sides, lies with Hamas for starting this war.
Second, remember that wherever Hamas is in control and wherever Palestinians still fear Hamas, it controls every word and image that comes out of Gaza.
Doctors and nurses who work in Gaza hospitals may be enthusiastic supporters of Hamas. For example, Dr. Abu Salmiya (also rendered in English as Abu Selmia), Director of al Shifa Hospital, fills his social media with praise for terror attacks and terrorists – no surprise as his brother was a Hamas military commander until killed by the Israelis. And one guess as to who appointed Selmia as Director in the first place.
Yet the CBC, other media, and the UN’s World Health Organization rely on Selmia as the source for many of their most lurid stories (see here).[i]
Other doctors in Gaza, who aren’t willing channels for its propaganda, live in fear of Hamas (see here). We cannot expect them to say anything to the media that Hamas wouldn’t want them to say.
Likewise, local photographers and stringers in Gaza who supply the news to the international wire services must also answer to Hamas. As for the Al Jazeera network, it has the best access to Gaza for a reason – it’s on Hamas’s side. The government of Qatar funds both of them: Al Jazeera and Hamas.
What’s most important to keep in mind is that, in time, Israel will break Hamas’s grip on Gaza. This war will end, and Hamas will no longer terrorize either Israelis or the people of Gaza.
Pray for that day, may it arrive swiftly, and rebuilding can then begin.
As we enter the 77th day of the war, please remember that Israel is fighting for a just cause against a ruthless enemy. Please continue to speak up for Israel and to reject the false claims that Israel is engaging in genocide in Gaza. Thank you very much to Brian Henry for his passionate writing in support of that just cause and against the many voices propagating libel against Israel and the people who support its cause.
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As one who was raised and educated at schools in Canada, I am really disturbed by all these incidents. I always knew we Jews were a minority culturally, and felt a little different, but was never harassed or a witness to any such disgusting behaviour. Things have gone off the rails there. Does not sound like Canada is Canadian anymore.
Thank you Brian, all true. Here is one of many videos on You Tube on this topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOj3lgLhwAk