Reply to Robert Azzi

Via David

In response to Robert Azzi's column on Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS), I must reply.  The Palestinians have been offered a state in the “occupied territories" multiple times.  Each time the offer encompassed all of Gaza, virtually all of the West Bank, and provisions for communication and travel between the two.  Each time the Palestinians said no.

With whom, precisely, should Israel negotiate?  Hamas, whose charter - never revoked or altered - calls for the absolute destruction of Israel?  With Fatah, whose leaders routinely label ALL of Israel as Palestinian territory and which names streets and squares after those who kill Jews?  But let’s walk through recent history.

In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza, completely.  Forcibly removing every Jew there, despite archeological evidence of Jewish history there dating back to the Romans and before, Gaza was granted complete autonomy.  Included in that autonomy were, among many other things, a thriving hydroponic greenhouse business purchased from the Jewish owners and given gratis to the Palestinians to jump start their economy.  And how did they react?

They burned the greenhouses and used the husks to hide the terror tunnels they started to dig almost from Day One.  They lobbed an average of three mortars and rockets into Israel PER DAY.  It was in reply to these attacks that Israel build its walls, and enacted the naval blockade.

But there is more than the governments.  The Palestinian people themselves cheer whenever Jews are killed.  They lauded the Fogel family killers, feting those who stabbed a three-month-old infant to death.  A video showing instructions on how to commit random stabbing attacks on Jews went viral.  And nothing says "We are willing to peacefully coexist" like the mother who, even as her son was receiving live-saving surgery from Jews, hoped her son would grow up to kill Jews.

But by all means let us pressure Israel into ceding territory to those sworn to its destruction, resulting in most of Israel being in missile range, and a scant dozen miles wide along its midpoint and thus a prime target for a concerted attack to divide the country in two in prelude to achieving a second Holocaust.  Apparently, for the BDS crowd including Azzi, six million dead Jews within living memory was not enough.

David Hunt