Correction of mistakes, again

Correction of mistakes, again

Letter to the editor, by Hendrik van der Breggen

The Carillon, May 9, 2024

EDIT/CORRECTION: My letter was not published in The Carillon (I don't know why). I thought it had been published there (maybe it will appear next week). My mistake. Nevertheless, below is my letter.

 

Rick Loewen in his recent letter to The Carillon (May 2, 2024) continues to accuse Michael Zwaagstra and me of justifying baby killing in the Israel-Hamas war. This accusation is serious—and false—so I feel obliged to reply.

Mr. Loewen fails to realize, as I argued in my previous letter (April 18), that Michael and I are not defending infanticide. Rather, we are discerning that the moral culprit of the death and destruction in Gaza is Hamas, not Israel.

In fact, Loewen’s latest letter completely ignores my point that Hamas started the war on October 7 by murdering 1200+ Israelis (including women and children), injuring many more, and taking 240 hostages. If this isn’t starting a war, what is?!

And Loewen completely ignores my argument that, although the death of Gazan civilians (including children) is a tragedy, for Hamas it’s a strategy. Hamas uses Gazan civilians as human shields (so-called “martyrs”), knowing Israel will inadvertently kill them while targeting Hamas—because Israel is morally obligated to protect Israeli men, women, and children from Hamas.

Why would Hamas do this? It’s because Hamas is a fanatical Jew-hating, genocidal, Islamist-jihadist terror group that has vowed to destroy all of Israel. (I’m not making this up. See the Hamas Charter.)

Instead of acknowledging that Hamas is the moral culprit, Loewen argues that Israel is an apartheid state, as if this alleged apartheid justifies Hamas’s brutal attack. But Loewen is once again mistaken.

Loewen points to the West Bank in which Palestinians and Israelis are, sadly, segregated. But the segregation in West Bank is for security reasons, not apartheid.

The West Bank is a disputed territory of which parts are controlled by the Palestinian Authority and parts by Israel. It’s messy and no doubt difficult for Palestinians, but it’s not racism or apartheid. The segregation and occupation is Israel’s response to past Palestinian attacks and suicide bombings against Israel.

At this juncture, it should be emphasized that the West Bank is not Gaza. We are talking about the war in Gaza, after all. So pointing to West Bank is a dodge. We should maintain our focus on Gaza if we wish to know why Gaza attacked Israel.

Perhaps this brief history lesson will help. Prior to 1967, Gaza was controlled by Egypt. In May of 1967, Egypt and its Arab neighbours were poised to invade and destroy Israel. But in the Six Day War of June, 1967, Israel pre-emptively defeated Egypt and its Arab neighbours. Subsequently, Israel occupied Gaza as a defensive measure against Egypt. But in 2005 Israel completely withdrew from Gaza and allowed Gaza to become its own independent state. The hope was for peace.

Sadly, in response to Israel giving Gaza its freedom and independence, Gazans embraced the genocidal, Jew-hating, Islamist-jihadist terror group known as Hamas. Then, over a period of almost 20 years, Gaza fired thousands of rockets at Israel and constructed a vast tunnel-based war machine to launch further attacks against Israel. This climaxed on October 7, 2023, when Hamas (and Gazans) invaded Israel.

All this to say: Islamist antisemitism, not apartheid, was the reason for Gaza’s brutal attack against Israel.

The fact remains, then, that Israel is a democracy whose minorities, including Arab citizens, have democratic rights. Sure, Israel is not a perfect state (no state is!), but it’s not an apartheid state.

I call on Mr. Loewen to agree to a ceasefire: Please stop spreading falsehoods about Israel, Michael Zwaagstra, and me.

P.S. Perhaps read my book Untangling Popular Anti-Israel Arguments: Critical Thinking about the Israel-Hamas War. It’s available for free (in PDF format) at my blog APOLOGIA or it can be purchased inexpensively (in paperback) at AMAZON.