OPINION
(Editor's note: The following opinion column contains descriptions which some readers may find disturbing.)
The usual angry critics and opponents of Israel are demanding a ceasefire as Israel responds to Hamas’ Oct. 7 pogrom.
A ceasefire would give Hamas and its patron Iran a huge victory.
It would be a strategic defeat for Israel, as it would reveal it to be a paper tiger unworthy of respect or even concern.
It would mean that Hamas can wantonly kill more than 1,400 Israelis, record the slaughter and crow about it, and then hide behind civilians and face zero consequences whatsoever.
Hamas would use the ceasefire to rearm, rebuild, and construct new terror tunnels.
It would be only a matter of time before it would strike Israel again. Israelis would come to distrust their government, feel unsafe, and flee the state in droves.
Then again, perhaps that is what many of the critics and haters want.
The ceasefire would entrench and embolden Hamas, the standard bearers of the most vociferous, genocidal brand of Palestinian and Arab rejectionism.
It this rejectionism, not the occupation or settlements or anything else, that is the cause of the conflict.
Palestinians could have had a state in 1937.
They said no.
They could have had a state in 1947.
They not only said no but launched a war against the Jewish population of Palestine and besieged Jerusalem.
Even before this, Palestinian Arabs killed 67 Jews during a pogrom in Hebron.
According to an account provided by Albert Londres in his book "The Wandering Jew Has Arrived," " . . . they cut off hands, they cut off fingers, they held heads over a stove, they gouged out eyes.
"A rabbi stood immobile, commending the souls of his Jews to God — they scalped him.
"They made off with his brains. On Mrs. Sokolov’s lap, one after the other, they sat six students from the yeshiva and, with her still alive, slit their throats. They mutilated the men.
"They shoved 13-year-old girls, mothers, and grandmothers into the blood and raped them in unison."
Sound familiar?
After Israel declared independence in 1948, Arab countries launched a genocidal invasion with the intention of strangling the infant state in its cradle.
They did so for their own territorial aggrandizement, not caring one whit for Palestine or Palestinians, not even recognizing the latter as a real people.
After Israel conquered the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula in a defensive war in 1967, it offered to return the latter two in return for peace, security, and recognition. The response was the three no’s of the Khartoum conference: no peace, no negotiations, no recognition.
The 1993 Declaration of Principles reached between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization called for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and a transitional government for the Palestinians in an interim period to last no longer than five years.
Yasser Arafat told his people that this "peace process" was but part of a "phased strategy" to capture all of Palestine.
For its part, Hamas launched a suicide bombing campaign in 1994 — just when peace seemed within reach.
In 2000, Israel offered the Palestinians 100% of Gaza and 92% of the West Bank, with some land swaps from Israeli territory. East Jerusalem would be Palestine’s capital.
In response, Arafat launched the Second Intifada, a five-year terror war.
One horrific example of the violence: a Hamas suicide bomber blew up a Passover Seder in Netanya, killing 30 civilians and wounding 140.
The Israeli military was forced to return to the West Bank and Gaza to root out the terrorists.
In 2005, Israel withdrew entirely from Gaza, unilaterally and unconditionally. Corpses were exhumed from Jewish cemeteries.
Shortly thereafter, Hamas took over Gaza and began launching rockets at Israel. It made the Strip an enormous military base under and within civilian structures.
Israel and Egypt then implemented a blockade.
The ultimate result of Hamas’ rule was Oct. 7 and the current Israel-Hamas war.
Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas rejected an offer of statehood in 2008.
In that offer, Israel offered the Palestinians 100% of Gaza and approximately 94% of the West Bank, with land swaps.
Israel would withdraw from Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem and place the Old City under international control.
Abbas was not interested.
Neither were those pretending to be pro-Palestinian.
The global community incessantly castigates Israel for not giving peace a chance, to withdraw, to implement a ceasefire.
Israel has done all of those things, repeatedly.
It has demonstrated time and again that it wants peace. It has received nothing but bad faith, terrorism, rockets, hostages, and dead bodies in return.
Gregg Roman is director of the Middle East Forum. He previously served as an official in the Israeli Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense.
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