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I would strongly concur with most of Mitch’s monologue today. Shit-bag Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana’s behavior at the committee hearing earlier this week was an abject disgrace and he should be censored for it. He is the perfect example of someone who does not think clearly due to all of the Outlaw Country Music and Lenner Skynnard (it may be spelled wrong) songs that he listened to growing up.

Also, I have contacted my elected representatives in Illinois close to 20 times regarding the humanitarian catastrophe occurring in Gaza and demanded that they pressure President Biden to halt at least some of the offensive weapons the United States routinely sends to Israel. Unfortunately, it’s always to no avail.

However I was disappointed that Mitch downplayed the atrocities of the Hamas terrorists who murdered, raped, tortured, and abducted 3,500 innocent people at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023, a number of whom were or are American and six of whom were brutally executed three weeks ago by Hamas. In fact, some of the people murdered that day were actually Jewish Israeli peace activists who devoted much of their lives to achieving the two-stare solution. Talk about genocide. These Hamas terrorists, for what it’s worth, who hide like cowards in schools and shelters and use Palestinian civilians in Gaza as shields against the Israeli bombs and missiles in the war that they started are far more cruel and sadistic than Netanyahu, Gallant, and the Settler Hilltop thugs in the West Bank could ever fathom of being. Israel’s actions in Gaza, as appalling as they are, are in response to this depravity by Hamas.

Just as the AIPAC lobby is a bad faith actor on the Israeli side in the United States by working behind the scenes to sabotage the two state solution (quite successfully I might add) there are also bad faith actors on the Palestinian side. When pro-Palestinian protesters call for the genocide of Jews at demonstrations on college campuses or for Israel to be wiped off the map by chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” for example, it promotes the false narrative that all supporters of Palestinian self-determination hate Jews and are hostile to the existence of Israel. Not to mention, this despicable behavior could potentially lead to violent hate crimes and even pogroms against Jews and should be roundly condemned by everyone in the strongest possible terms and not trivialized and minimized by anyone, just like all hate speech.

Nothing does more harm for the cause of Palestinian self-determination than this. The goal of any protest movement is to win the hearts and minds of the people. This repugnant behavior does exactly the opposite. It’s almost as if some pro-Palestinian activists go out of their way to be their own worst enemy.

The American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s ultimately succeeded because its leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the late former Congressman John Lewis were perceived by the American people as great moral leaders, and rightly so. As difficult as it may be at this time, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and their advocates in the United States are going to have to somehow elevate people to leadership positions who the American people regard as having great moral authority, if their movement is going to succeed.

Shabbat Shalom,

David Hurwitz

Chicago, IL

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