Editorial: Progressive politicians lose the plot on fighting terror

Editorial Board, Boston Herald on Oct 11, 2024

Published in Op Eds

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It’s no coincidence that anti-Israel student groups at Massachusetts colleges and across the country called for a “Week of Rage” starting on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas as progressive lawmakers demanded a cease-fire.

The protesters who swarmed Storrow Drive, the “ragers” who reportedly vandalized the John Harvard statue and smashed windows at the university and their marching, chanting ilk nationwide find validation in the words and deeds of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Ed Markey, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others.

The premise: Israel can get hit, but it can’t hit back.

On Monday, as people mourned those slaughtered by Hamas a year ago, prayed for the hostages still held in Gaza and for those killed in captivity, Warren blasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “unleash(ing) unthinkable violence on innocent civilians in Gaza.”

Hezbollah has been launching rockets since Oct. 7 on Israel, and is still barraging civilians with missiles. Has a cease-fire been demanded of them? Where was progressive criticism of Hamas on Oct. 7? Who slammed its leaders for unleashing hell, killing babies, raping women and murdering 1,200 innocents?

On Monday, Rep. Pressley said she was “thinking of” Israelis murdered by Hamas, the Israeli hostages and “the more than 41,000 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military over the last year.”

Is it any wonder that students and other left-wing anti-Israel protesters feel justified in shouting “from the river to the sea,” a tacit call for the end of Israel.

Antisemitism has surged since Oct. 7, and so has violent rhetoric aimed at Israel and Jews.

A pro-Palestinian group at Tufts University marked Oct. 7 with a planned protest urging students to “join the student Intifada” and posting images of assault rifles on their social media account.

As we’ve learned over the past year, those who camp out and march as part of their revolutionary cosplay are largely clueless as to the history of Israel, Palestine, and why calling Israelis “colonizers” couldn’t be further from the truth. So it is doubtful that they know what the “intifada” was and what happened during it.

From 1987-1990 and 2000-2005, Israel was again the site of terrorist acts against its citizens, most notably from suicide bombers. They targeted buses loaded with passengers, bus stations and other sites, leaving death and bloody chaos in their wake.

Calling for a new intifada is not something to be taken lightly. Nor is “death to America,” a phrase which has also reared its head, often accompanied by the burning of American and Israeli flags. Over the summer, a pro-Palestinian demonstrator went viral for spray-painting “Hamas is comin” on the side of a Christopher Columbus statue in Washington, D.C.

These are not just expressions. These are wake-up calls.

We desperately need leaders who can recognize this, who do more than pay lip service to the victims of terror and who fight the ignorance of useful idiots with facts.

Kudos to Gov. Maura Healey for placing blame for the war where it belongs — on Hamas. We may not agree with her on many issues, but we applaud Healey for standing on the right side of history. Here’s hoping more progressives in positions of power will join her.

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