What does a "permanent cease-fire" mean?

To the editor:

Reading about the vigil by Danbury's City Hall calling for a "permanent cease-fire" in Gaza, I can't help but wonder whether the participants are in favor of the American version or the Hamas version.

The American version is a step towards a real, permanent peace.

The Hamas version is a period during which Israel stops defending its people while Hamas rearms, takes aid meant to help the people in Gaza and uses it to build tunnels underneath homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and United Nations facilities, and prepares to perpetrate yet another, even more barbaric and bloodier atrocity.

There was a "permanent cease-fire" in effect on the morning of October 7. The massacre perpetuated that morning and all the ensuing death and destruction in Gaza is a consequence of the fact that the cease-fire was the Hamas version.

On October 7, Israelis were disabused of the fantasy that a cease-fire could be the American version without the total and permanent defeat of Hamas.

Do those now clamoring for a "permanent cease-fire" also recognize that reality, or are they still living in an alternate universe?

Sincerely,

Alan Stein

The writer was a resident of Connecticut for many years and is a former president of what is now the Jewish Federation of Western Connecticut.

Submitted to the Danbury News-Times March 7, 2024.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hamas disarming? Get real.

Dear Editor: One can only laugh at the report that Khalil al-Hayya, referred to as a top official of the barbaric Hamas terror group, said Hamas would disarm "if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders." That would be about as likely as it bringing back to life the babies it decapitated and incinerated on October 7. And don't the Palestinian Arabs claim there already exists an independent Palestinian state? Mahmoud Abbas calls himself the president of the "State of Palestine" and is recognized as such by most of the members of the United Nations, as well as the UN General Assembly. Would Hamas disarming even make a difference? Would Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah or any of the dozens of other Palestinian terror groups also disarm? Would Hezbollah send its 150,000 rockets back to Iran? Would the Houthis stop launching missiles at Israel? Would the Iranian mullahs stop leading chants of "Death to Israel" and "Death t...
Read more

Reporting on the wrong story in the wrong way

 May 14 marked the seventy-sixth anniversary of one of the most inspiring events in human history. An ancient people mostly dispersed from their homeland nearly 2,000 years before by foreign invaders reestablished their sovereignty and withstood an invasion by five foreign armies. Today, those same people are still valiantly facing enemies bent on the destruction of their sovereign state. Yet rather than producing a program about that modern day miracle, WBUR chose to produce the Here & Now episode "Millions of Palestinians across the world commemorate 'Al Nakba,'" an interview pandering to a descendant of those who tried to prevent that miracle and not just air his lies and distortions but reinforce them. Nowhere did the interviewer correct Beshara Doumani lies and distortions and point out, for example, the Jewish people are the indigenous people of the land the Roman conquerors renamed Syria Palaestina (living there for thousands of years before the first Arabs...
Read more

Give Israel the credit it deserves

Sent to the Boston Globe February 12: To the editor: While getting tremendous pressure, even from its friends, to refrain from going into Rafah because of the dense population, Israel provided graphic evidence of the obvious need to root Hamas from Rafah and its ability to continue to minimize civilian casualties, already evident from the fact that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza has been less than a quarter of that expected by the UN in urban combat. First, Israel revealed the way not only was UNRWA's main headquarters in Gaza City directly above a terror tunnel containing a major Hamas command and data processing center, but provided power for Hamas' facility and Hamas terrorists actually worked out of offices in UNRWA's headquarters! Second, Israel conducted an amazing operation in the heart of Rafah, rescuing two hostages there, killing a number of terrorists and doing it without a single civilian casualty! Without Israel rooting Hamas out of Rafah, Ha...
Read more