WANT TO END THE WAR? DEMAND HAMAS SURRENDER

If overseas activists who call for a ceasefire cared about peace – or Palestinians – they would demand Hamas surrender. Why won't they?

If you needed any evidence that so-called "pro-Palestinian" and "peace" activists are neither, simply look at their core demand.

The primary plea of protesters in North America and Europe these days is for Israel to declare a unilateral ceasefire.

But why would they? Israel has an objective: The elimination of Hamas, the terror regime that perpetrated the October 7 atrocities and which has terrorized Israelis and Jews for decades.

Yes, but too many Palestinians are dying.

Correct.

Why, then, do overseas activists not demand the one thing that will end this war and stop more Palestinians from dying?

If we want the war to end, there is one way that could happen immediately. It’s a remarkably simple solution. Hamas could surrender. That would end the war today.

It is particularly bizarre that overseas “peace” activists embolden Hamas with their overseas cheering sections. If these peace-loving “pro-Palestinians” really want to end the war and stop Palestinians from dying, demanding that Hamas surrender is the path forward.

Why won’t they?

Because most overseas activists do not really care about Palestinians. They are more concerned with scoring PR points against Israel. In fact, they have a creepy fixation with Palestinian dead, tallying up the numbers and waving them like trophies in a truly macabre political competition.

For many of these activists, dead Palestinians are not a tragedy so much as they are a tool to bludgeon Israel (and Jews) in the global anti-Israel and antisemitic dogpiling we have seen since October 7.

If the millions marching on the streets in London, Chicago and Vancouver actually cared about the lives of Palestinians, they would demand that Hamas surrender. That, combined with the release of the Israeli hostages, would end this war today.

In their defense, these activists would argue that Hamas is not going to pay attention to the opinions of overseas activists. What they don't seem willing to acknowledge, though, is that Israel won’t either.

Both sides – Israel and Hamas – have their goals. Israel’s goal is to keep their civilians safe, to prevent the repetition of October 7-style mass murder, rape, beheadings, immolations and kidnappings.

Hamas’s goal is to eliminate Israel (and Jews) and institute an extremist, totalitarian, theocratic terror regime from the river to the sea.

Are we really arguing over which side decent, progressive, reasonable people need to be on?

If you are calling for a ceasefire, you’re not on the side of Palestinians, you are on the side of Hamas. And pro-Hamas does not equal pro-Palestinian. It is jaw-dropping how many stupid activists there are around the world who can’t get this core truth into their heads.

If you support a ceasefire, you want to grant Hamas breathing room to regroup so that this war can pick up where it left off – only with greater ferocity – in a few days, weeks or months. A ceasefire, in the long run, means more dead Palestinians and more dead Israelis – not fewer.

This war needs to – and will – continue until Hamas is finished. Hamas can do this the hard way, fighting to the grisly end, or they can end it today, with a surrender.

Overseas activists, for whatever minimal influence we might have on either side in this war, should at least be on the right side.

What overseas activists need to understand is that peace and Palestinian self-determination were never as near as when Palestinians were negotiating with Israel toward a two-state solution and these goals were never further away than when they reverted to violence.

Peace – and Palestinian self-determination – will never come through terrorism. They will come only when Palestinians are willing to negotiate a peaceful two-state solution.[1]

Israel will continue this war until Hamas is defeated. And so it should.

If activists want to end the war, they need to stop demanding a ceasefire. They need to demand Hamas surrender.

Why won’t they? Probably because this was never about Palestinians.

The way activists relish the number of dead Palestinians, wielding that number like a weapon to condemn Israelis (and Jews) is not a humanitarian response to death.

It is a sadistic political maneuver that revels in dead Palestinians because the dead give cover for hate-motivated activists to do what they wanted to do in the first place: condemn Israel (and Jews) as the embodiment of evil.

That’s what this is about.

Don’t believe me?

Then explain why activists from Brooklyn to Baghdad refuse to demand the one thing that would actually stop more Palestinians from dying.

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[1] Oh gawd, here we go again with the “Israelis reject a two-state solution” jabber. I will be addressing this canard soon. In short, though, if Israelis seem to be skeptical (!) about a two-state solution it is because Palestinians have blown it up along with the entire peace process. Of course Israelis want a two-state solution. What alternative do they have? And that will only come through peaceful negotiation. Stay tuned for that one.