Reallly? Name ten example wars in which this happened. I’ll wait.

PLO Executive Committee secretary-general Hussein al-Sheikh says Israel’s call on residents of north Gaza to leave ahead of an expected ground offense is a “war crime.”

In a statement, he says that the “Palestinian leadership rejects by all means the Israeli attempts to displace the citizens of Gaza Strip, considers this a war crime added to the series of Israeli war crimes and calls on the international community to intervene to stop this genocidal war in the Gaza Strip.”

Israel says Hamas leaders in the area are using the civilians as cover for their terror network.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/plo-official-say-israeli-efforts-to-evacuate-civilians-from-gaza-a-war-crime/

PLO offical says Israel’s existence is a war crime. Pffft.

US State Dept bugging out. Sundown arrives at ~11:00am edt. The annular eclipse today, as it happens, also begins at roughly 11am.

Through my father, I knew a Palestinian Christian family. The patriarch of the family, who from 1949-1967 worked in the Jordanian civil service, had told his children well before the 1967 Six Day War to get out of the West Bank. He told his children that Muslims in the workplace would never promote a Christian if a Muslim were available to be promoted. Sounds as if he had some experience with that.

As a result, several of his children went to the US for college. They were very bright, very capable: Masters or Doctorate level STEMs. A grandson went to the US for graduate school, got his STEM doctorate, and worked for several decades in the US. He had been in elementary school when the Israelis took over the West Bank. (Recall that the Israelis told King Hussein that if he didn’t declare war in 1967, the Israelis would stay put.) As a result of living a decade or so under the Israelis, he had a much more anti-Israeli attitude than his aunts or uncles living in the US. In his several decades of employment at US universities, he appeared to spend as much time in political activism for Palestine as he did on his work. (I read once online that his daughter had a Jewish boyfriend!)

He eventually moved back to the West Bank.

One irony about his anti-Israeli activism is that one of his cousins on the other side of the family has posted online about Hamas and other Muslim groups harassing Christians. (I knew several from his mother’s side of the family; the aforementioned cousin was from his father’s side.)

The patriarch visited the States in the mid-1970s, and had dinner at my parents’ house. He did not like the Israeli occupation- no surprise there. The last I heard of him, he sent a Christmas card to my mother before she died in the late 1980s. He and his wife were living with a son in Kuwait. Given the Palestinian support for
Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, I doubt that ended well for the patriarch or his son’s family in Kuwait.

I skimmed through the history of Israel going back to the Bronze Age. The history is complex – many wars, conquerors, and movements of people. However, the Jews lived in the area for the better part of 2000 years.

After the area became a part of the Ottoman Empire, life for Jews became much more difficult. They had to wear identifying clothes or symbols and pay a special tax. They were second class citizens. Many moved to other parts of the world looking for more tolerance and a chance to prosper.

After the Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews during WWII, it was decided by the victorious allies that they deserved a home where they could be free and safe. Many Jews had been migrating back to “Zion” beginning in the early 1900s. So, as Aesop Fan mentioned, there were many Jews living in Israel and the Zionist movement was well recognized when the decision was made to create the Jewish state.

As soon as Israel was formally declared, the Arab armies invaded and were repulsed by the Israelis. Israel has been in a constant battle to survive with on and off wars with Muslim armies and terrorist groups since.

The Jews in Israel have persevered and prospered. They have become an example of what can be done with hard work and enterprise.

While the Jews were building a country, the Palestinian refugees have spent their years trying to destroy Israel and have thus languished on the UN dole. Quite a contrast!

That the Jews deserve a place of their own is accepted by people of good will who know the history. Those who think otherwise are either ignorant of the history or as antisemitic as the Nazis.

The outlook, based on the demonstrations today, is for more conflict and the need for steely nerves to stand with Israel and all Jewish people.

I’d be happy if we cut all of our monies to the UN. Starve the beast.