Letter: From Rashida’s Big Mouth 

Dear Letter to the Editor:

Rashida Tlaib is correct – Palestinian people are not disposable. (From Rashida’s Big Mouth to Fears of Sitting Shiva Boulder Jewish News November 16, 2023) Therefore, if she truly wants Palestinians to have decent lives, she should be urging Hamas to stop using Palestinians as human shields, stop putting command centers in hospitals, stop storing munitions in mosques and other civilian structures, and stop firing missiles at Israeli population centers from Gazan population centers. She should also be admitting that she spoke too soon when she accused Israel of targetting the Al-Ahli Arab hospital and accepted the casualty count reported by the Hamas Ministry of Health.  What had actually occurred was that a missile fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad malfunctioned and crashed in the hospital’s parking lot, where Hamas had stored munitions which exploded when hit by the missile. There was little damage to the building and the death count was considerably lower than that reported by the Ministry.

No Reliable Data on Gaza Death Count (fdd.org)

Of course, Tlaib is not the only Palestinian who has trouble with the truth. The Ministry of Health doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in reporting casualty figures and neglects to mention that Hamas has been known to use child soldiers. Palestinians’ summer camps to kill Jews – JNS.org

While Israel’s enemies have accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians the population in Gaza has increased from 500,000 in 2007 to 800,000 in 2023. (Ed. Note: 1.4 million in 2007 to 2.1 million in 2023 according to census figures)

Hamas leaders claim an Israeli blockade stifled economic development in Gaza. But the “blockade” was actually an “embargo,” an (unsuccessful) Israeli attempt to prevent weapons and munitions from entering Gaza. The truth is that Israel was regularly supplying Gaza with tons of food, medicine, and fuel although deliveries were sometimes stopped because rockets were being fired at the port of entry through which goods were delivered. Hamas dug 300 miles of tunnels under Gaza, using Israeli cement that was intended to repair homes and schools damaged when Israel had been forced to respond to missiles fired from Gaza. The tunnels were built to facilitate the abduction and murder of Israelis and are also used to store munitions and provide shelter for Hamas terrorists (but not Gaza’s civilians).

The most recent exhibit of Hamas’ ungracious attitude toward Israel’s peace efforts has been uncovered only recently. Israel had given thousands of Gazans permission to enter Israel daily on work permits. And those workers supplied Hamas terrorists with information that helped them to gain entry into the Israeli homes where the terrorists committed their atrocities on October 7. Israel’s work permits for Gazans enabled the Hamas attack – JNS.org

Rather than working to build a Palestinian state, Hamas is trying to destroy the nation-state of the Jews. Tlaib, and others like her, are not “pro-Palestinian” as their actions would do nothing to improve the lives of the people living under the (mis)governance of Hamas. Tlaib and her ilk are more correctly labelled “anti-Israel” or “antisemitic.” They hate Israel for what it is (the Jewish state) in an area Islamists feel should be totally under Muslim rule.

Toby F. Block
Atlanta, GA