Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday he doesn’t know that a ceasefire is possible in the Israel-Hamas war with “an organization like Hamas” involved.
“I don’t know how you can have a ceasefire, (a) permanent ceasefire, with an organization like Hamas, which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos and destroying the state of Israel,” Sanders told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday.
I’m not simply an American who decided to take interest in Israel, I’m Jewish and regularly speak to Israelis. I have heard them openly talking about how civilian deaths are justified and how killing Arabs is ok. Nearly every day I have to suffer through their horrific propaganda. I understand I have everything to gain yet I refuse to gain from the suffering of 9,000 civilian deaths.
That’s good for you. As an American who has spent months in multiple Muslim countries in the Middle East, then let me say this to you.
You and I have common ground in that we would both vehemently and violently condemn the atrocities committed by Israelis. The massacres of Muslims in the past century, attacks by them on their own allies, and the murder and torture of Palestinians by Jewish settlers. Israel has blood on its hands. It’s a failure of righteousness to forget and ignore the atrocities committed by Israel just because they’re an “ally”. Netanyahu, the leadership of Likud, and most of its politicians should be imprisoned for life at the very least.
But, that changes nothing about how ignorant you personally are of history and the situation in the Middle East. I do not have to be an Israeli to read extensively on the history of the region and to understand morality and context. The only morally correct outcome here is a two-state solution. Israel is the the only party in this conflict that has genuinely pursued this solution.
The harsh and vile reality is that some Palestinians have supported peace for decades, but they are ruled over by a majority that opposes peace. There was a geopolitical fork in the road decades ago, and the international community chose the fork where they left “self-determination” up to the violent murderers in charge of Palestine. Israel has an obligation to put the lives of its own citizens over the lives of others; just as you have an obligation to put the lives of anyone you have responsibility for over someone who would take them. It’s tragic that children die. But the greater tragedy is that the UN and other nations could have stopped this decades ago and were too cowardly to do so.
I’m not going to give you a history lesson. It’s up to you to do your own research and come to the right conclusion.