Iddan Aaronsohn

I am pro-Palestinian. Some might be surprised by this due to my recent advocacy on @X for Israel, but you shouldn’t be. I am anti-terrorist, not anti-Palestinian. It is not inconsistent to be pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. And my pro-Palestinian viewpoint is not a new one. My pro-Palestinian perspective began more than 30 years ago when I was introduced to the Palestinian community and their plight in the early 1990s. I have invested millions in helping promote Palestinian economic development and peaceful coexistence. We would do a lot more if we could be confident that the funds would be used productively. The crisis in Gaza is largely due to a failure of leadership. The Palestinians elected Hamas in 2006 after Israel withdrew and evicted 9,000 of its own citizens from their Gazan homes. Israel withdrew from Gaza for peace. It was a small scale test of a two-state solution. Rather than building the Singapore of the Middle East over the last 18 years, Hamas diverted funding to build tunnels, rockets and munitions to wage terror and war in an effort to eliminate Israel and kill Jews. Like the Israelis, the vast majority of Palestinians want peace. They want opportunities for employment so they can earn a living wage to support and educate their families so the next generation can build a better life. They want peace, beauty, happiness, health and prosperity as we all do. All of that would have been possible with Gazan leadership which focused on economic development rather than terrorism. Israel and (most of) the world wanted the Gazan experiment to succeed. Israel simply wanted peace. Israel built a fence and created checkpoints to protect its citizens from suicide bombers and other forms of terror. The Egyptians built a concrete wall at their border with Gaza for the same reasons. The need for a fence and checkpoints is made self-evident by the catastrophic impact on Israel when the fence was breached on Oct. 7th. Hamas is in the business of terrorism. Hamas makes money with grift, corruption, and funding from Israel’s enemies who support Hamas to achieve their own anti-Israel objectives. Hamas and those that support it don’t care about the Palestinians. The Palestinians are simply a tool to implement their anti-Israel and/or anti-Jew objectives. Like other businesses, Hamas has a corporate hierarchy where those at the top make thousands of times more than the ‘workers’ at the bottom. Hamas’ leaders have put aside hundreds of millions and even billions for themselves. Hamas uses their ‘culture’ of terrorism, cash, and other incentives to motivate young, brainwashed —often from youth—, radicalised militants to implement death, torture and destruction. Their ‘success’ at terrorism attracts more funding, amplifies Israel’s response, and the cycle continues. Hamas does not care about the Palestinian people. Hamas knew with certainty how Israel would respond to the torture, rape, beheading, and slaughter of Israeli women, children, seniors and infants on Oct. 7th. Hamas’ plan was to hide out in their tunnels and headquarters built under major hospitals, limit evacuations so that Palestinian citizens are exposed to the inevitable Israeli military response, and then rally the world against Israel in a globally coordinated response as innocent civilians die. Israel has no choice but to destroy Hamas. It cannot allow its survival, as Hamas’ existence remains an existential threat. If ISIS invaded our southern border, we would do the same. We would warn civilians to evacuate and then we would go in and destroy the terrorists. We wouldn’t cease fire until they were obliterated. The whole situation is an incredible tragedy. While I have always hoped for a viable and peaceful two-state solution, the Gaza experiment has been an abject failure. Future efforts for statehood for the Palestinians must learn from this catastrophe. As always, I welcome your input, critiques and rebuttal. What did I get wrong?