The Squad Is Rooting for Hamas

By David Harsanyi

Thursday, May 13, 2021

 

Ocasio-Cortez, usually a font of half-baked socialist economic ideas, now regularly offers thoughts on the Israeli–Palestinian situation to her 12 million Twitter followers.

 

Here is one.

 

First of all, there are no “expulsions of Palestinians.” Six Palestinian families may be evicted from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in a property dispute — and the Israeli supreme court has delayed a decision — over land that was seized from Jewish families by the Jordanian Army after 1948. It’s a complicated case, brought to the judicial system by private citizens and adjudicated in an independent court. The case has been litigated for nearly 50 years, through the existence of numerous Israeli governments, both left and right. Now, I realize Ocasio-Cortez has little use for independent judiciaries or private property — or history, for that matter — but cases like these are just a pretext for the Palestinian Authority, frustrated by the Abraham Accords and their own failures, to create chaos and deflect blame.

 

Second, the Al-Aqsa mosque was not “attacked.” Israeli police fired stun grenades and tear gas at rock-hurling rioting Palestinians, spurred by rumors of Jewish intrusions into the Muslim holy site. Palestinian leaders have relied on this ugly tactic for nearly a century — even before the idea of Palestinian state had been concocted — to gin up protests and insurgency. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the situation knows the Israeli government has absolutely no interest in controlling or taking Al Aqsa. If they did, they would never have handed administration of the site over to Muslim authorities. If they did, the Israeli military wouldn’t be rerouting Jewish marchers celebrating the reunification of Jerusalem to placate Palestinians.

 

Other Squad members such as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib openly spread blood libel. If you listen to them, you’d think Israelis go around killing Palestinian children for kicks. It’s odious. They’re Jew haters, and there’s no reason to pretend otherwise:

 

To wit.

 

Israelis aren’t dying in numbers that satisfy Omar’s sense of fairness — as if there is any moral equivalence between the actions of a genocidal theocratic terror group that targets civilians and a state that does all it can to protect its civilians. Of course, we don’t know how many Palestinian children have really died because Hamas lies and because around 30 percent of their Qassam rockets land on their own people. Iran’s proxy, moreover, wants its people to die martyrs. They know that useful idiots in the west will use their tragic deaths in public-relations efforts.

 

In reality, Israel shows a preternatural restraint in these situations. Its responses are tactical, aimed at diffusing threats, not at punishing children. If Israel wanted to see suffering, they could instantly shut down electric power and clean water in Gaza long term. And if Israel relied on a disproportionate use of force, as its critics claim, Gaza City would be a prosperous Jewish resort town by now.

 

One can be critical of Israel, just as they can be critical of Germany or Brazil. Israel is an imperfect democratic state, after all. Yet, those who want to deny the Jewish people their homeland, or the ability to defend themselves, are, functionally speaking, peddling the most virulent strain of anti-Semitism. And the fact is that Tlaib wants what Hamas wants: an Arab state from the river to sea.

 

When Tlaib says “Nakba” — or, catastrophe — she isn’t talking about ’67 armistice lines, she is talking about the creation of Israel in 1948. She believes “Palestine” should replace Israel on the map. And before the Corbynization of the Democratic Party, this position would have generated widespread condemnation. Today, Hamas has a booster club in one of our political parties, and no major Democrat dares criticize it.