Mis-directed Protests

                                           

 

In 2020 George Floyd, a career criminal, was killed by a policeman while resisting arrest for a minor offense. Almost immediately protests sprang up all over the country primarily in big cities. Parts of these cities were occupied by tent encampments, cars and building were set on fire, and gangs of protestors called for the immediate punishment of the offending police officer. Moreover, they attacked police in general and insisted that police departments be defunded. At the time no one suggested that the police officer's action be put into context.

Fast forward to the present where we find thousands of protestors occupying colleges and universities all over the country in response to the war in Gaza. What are they protesting? On October 7, 2023, a gang of heavily armed young men on motorized vehicles attacked a small town in Israel and murdered over 1200 civilians. Forget for the moment that the victims of this assault were Jewish and forget for a moment the anti-Semitism of the attackers since, more than anything else, this was a crime against humanity, a true hate crime if there ever was one. 

Actually, it was worse than a crime against humanity. The young men who attacked the Israeli civilians were worse than animals. They did not kill in self-defense. They did not kill because they were starving and needed food. It is obvious from their own videos that they killed not just out of hatred, but for the sheer fun of it. Before killing, they tortured their victims, and raped women.

However, at the time there were no protests against the killers or Hamas, their parent organization. Instead we heard voices claiming that the attack must be put into context, that one should consider the slaughter in the light of 80 years of Israeli occupation of Palestine. Even former President Obama joined in the chorus and suggested that in some way all of us were guilty.

I recall saying to my wife last October that we ought to leave the response to Israel, and not get involved in events thousands of miles away. I believed that the Israelis had the intelligence, the will, and the resources to deal with the terrorist attack. They are in close proximity to the attackers, they know their language, their tactics, and their capabilities. They would know best how to respond to this unprovoked attack. 

Sure enough, Israel decided that a military response was necessary not only to punish the attackers, but also to destroy Hamas completely. Incredibly, as the military response succeeded, protests began to grow in this country against Israel. The protests have been directed not at the killers but at the victims. The protests include Hamas flags and slogans like “Death to Israel,” and “From the river to the sea.”, slogans that apparently mean the slaughter of every Israeli civilian. Protestors bemoaning the fate of Palestinian civilians fail to mention that these same civilians have been brutalized and terrorized by Hamas gangs for decades. If Palestinians today live in terror and want, it is because of gun toting Hamas gangs. There is no freedom of speech in Palestine. Do Palestinian women have any rights? Aid shipments to Palestine are routinely taken by Hamas gangs for themselves.

Coincidentally, a furor has just erupted in this country over an admission by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem in her recent book that she had shot one of her dogs. True, it was a stupid thing to put in her book since the 98% of the population that has never lived on a farm or ranch would never understand. But Noem is an experienced animal handler. When someone gave her a dog that was hard to control, she tried to train it, but it was too late. The dog had become a vicious killer. It had plenty of food and was not in danger. Like the Hamas gunmen, it just attacked and killed for the fun of it. It had attacked other animals and Noem’s own children. Anyone experienced with animals would know that there was only one thing to do.

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