Yesterday, a pro-Hamas rally took place on Red Square at the University of Washington, with the sounds spreading across a large area of the UW. It reverberated in my office.
Speakers at this gathering supported the violent actions of Hamas and called for the destruction of the State of Israel. Their advertisement for the rally celebrates a death-dealing Hamas paraglider:
As many of you know, I am a great supporter of freedom of speech, an essential part of American democracy. But that does not include calling for violence and the deaths of others; thus, what happened at the UW was well across the line and totally wrong.
A young Jewish student was in tears as she asked a UW administrator to stop the Hamas rally. Her statement was heart-rending: “they want to kill ME.” And she was right.
There is a lot of talk about safe spaces on university campuses. For Jewish students, there was no safe space on the UW campus yesterday. Many were afraid. Sitting in my office hearing the proceeding I was highly disturbed.
Let us be clear, the actions of Hamas were barbaric and immoral.
There is no excuse for their actions. None.
Over a thousand people were slaughtered. Babies had their heads cut off. Families were torched. Pregnant women were cut open. Celebrants at a music festival were cut down. Thousands of rockets were sent across Israel to maim and kill. Hundreds of Israelis were taken as hostages and will probably be killed. Nearly two dozen American visitors were slaughtered.
It is the same kind of barbarism done by the Nazis during the second world war. Like the pogroms of Russia in which Jewish families were slaughtered indiscriminately.
No nation in the world would tolerate such an attack on its people and Israel needs to strong backing of the American people to stand up against such barbarism.
