OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to the letter Background of conflict has been 'conveniently forgotten' of May 15.
I wonder if Mr. Lyons worries also for the Uyghurs in China? What about the war in Sudan and the loss of life there? And do the human rights offences against Syrian citizens, committed by dictator, Bashar al-Assad, have him putting pen to paper?
I would suggest the underlying motivation, here, is other than the worry for the “dehumanization” of the people of Gaza.
The State of Israel has gone above and beyond in reaching out in peace to its Arab neighbours, in the 76 years of its existence, while her Arab neighbours have consistently responded with war calls – in 1948, 1967, 1973, and 1982. In May 1948, when Israel declared independence, hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from their homes in Arab States – like, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, and Syria, solely, because they were Jews.
There are 22 Arab States and one Jewish State. Thankfully, Israel welcomed these refugees with open arms.
Fast forward to 1993, Israel again reached out a hand in peace with the Oslo Accords and was yet again subject to terrorist attacks on civilians – men, women and children – on buses, in markets, at restaurants, and at institutions of higher learning.
It is crystal clear, especially after the Oct. 7 massacre, that the Palestinians, in Gaza, as represented by Hamas, have no interest in reaching a sustainable peace with the Jewish people. They were offered land for peace (Israel offered, they refused), Israel retreated unilaterally from the Gaza strip, in 2005, removing all army bases and uprooting Israeli citizens from their homes.
Israel was rewarded with a barrage of missiles into towns bordering the Gaza strip, which killed its citizens.
Israel had opened its borders to Palestinian workers from Gaza, to enter daily, to work to support their families, in the neigbouring kibbutzim – these “workers” provided intelligence to Hamas about their Israeli employees, of which many were brutally massacred on Oct. 7.
One was Canadian Israeli, Vivian Silver who was murdered in her home on Kibbutz Beeri. Silver, for years, had been driving ill Palestinians to hospitals within Israel, so they could receive life-saving treatments not available to them in Gaza. The Hamas terrorists did not spare this peace-loving grandmother’s life.
We choose life – we celebrate life. We mourn over each and every baby, mother, and father – whole families – who were brutally murdered at the hands of Hamas, while Hamas revels and boasts about their deaths. Now, who in this narrative has “dehumanized” whom?
As Golda Meir, Israel’s 4th prime minister said, “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
Chaya Becker
Jerusalem, Israel
(Formerly of Orillia)
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