Defining the Narrative

American streets and college campuses are alive with protesters claiming Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. Those who use this word obviously do not know what “genocide” means. Look it up. You will find “genocide” defined by Merriam-Webster as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.”

If Israel wanted to eradicate the people in Gaza they could have easily done it decades ago. In fact, Israel totally withdrew its security forces, all settlers, and actually destroyed those Israeli settlements so there was nothing for the Israeli civilians to return to Gaza for.

Gaza has NOT been “occupied” by Israel since that time in 2005. Gaza elected Hamas as its governing party immediately after the Israeli withdrawal. It is precisely what the people in Gaza desired; an independent state of self government.

“Genocide”? Israel has demonstrated no desire to eradicate the Arab or Muslim people.

There is no “Palestinian people”. “Palestinian” is a modern political term adopted by political activists forming groups like the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Remember Yassar Arafat? There is no ethnicity or genetic heritage rooting the people to the land-they are Arabs who, for the most part are descended from Egyptian, Lebanese or Jordanian Arab Muslims who moved into the area in the 20th Century to attempt to thwart the migration of European Jewry post Holocaust. (Ask the Jews about genocide.) West Bank was Jordan’s before the “Six Day War” in 1967. After the invasion of Israel by Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, Israel captured all the land west of the Jordan River and has continued to hold it as a “security buffer”. It was during this war that Israel also captured Jerusalem, held the Temple Mount briefly, and then gave it back to the Jordanians to avoid a drawn out, bloody war. The Jordanian Waqf owns it yet today, appointing the Palestinian Authority (PA) administrative authority, while the Israeli Police Force provides security. The PA only allows Muslims to pray on the Temple Mount. Jews and Christians are prohibited from praying there. (However, my friend and I did anyway, knowing that our audience of Muslims don’t realize that Christians can pray to God with their eyes open, carrying on a conversation with God without specific ceremonial physical actions.)

I have walked the streets of Israeli cities. I saw Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Christians and Druze living side by

side in peace, doing business with each other, employing one another. While Israel may officially be a Jewish state it does not preclude people of other ethnicities, religions, or nationalities. How many Jews do you think live in Gaza City? Baghdad? Tehran? Kandahar? They were either removed, or fled long ago.

If Israel wanted to remove the Arab Muslim population from the land why are they not shelling and preparing to invade West Bank? The answer is the attacks on Israel that butchered civilian mothers, decapitated babies, and slaughtered old people did not come from West Bank. They came from the self governing place called Gaza.

“Genocide”? The Charter of Hamas specifically states the objective of the removal of all Jews and the state of Israel from the map. “From the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean) “Palestine” will be free” means the annihilation of the Jews in the entirety of the land. The “Two State Solution” is not an option for Hamas.

Hamas is the one who builds military complexes in, around, and under hospitals, mosques, and residential buildings, launches unprovoked attacks from those areas and then hides behind their own women and children. Gaza is nothing more than a military base intentionally populated with “innocents” in order to exploit their deaths as shahid “martyrs”in the media against Israel.

Now, you decide who wants to commit genocide.