Ending Palestinian suffering and instituting a cease-fire are mutually exclusive

Dear Editor:

I find the sentence "Hate and violent rhetoric repel people, no matter how worthy the cause — in this case, ending Palestinian suffering and instituting a cease-fire" in the editorial "Another wave of Gaza protests is likely. Campuses get ready" to be rather curious.

One would hope that people would find "hate and violent rhetoric" repellent, but these days hatred and violent rhetoric targeting Jews, particularly in the guise of supporting Palestinian Arab terror groups like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah, is increasingly popular, particularly on college campuses.

When it comes to the goal of "ending Palestinian suffering," how about ending Israeli suffering? After all, it was Israelis who were the targets of the barbaric atrocities on October 7 launching the war and are now being attacked on no fewer than seven fronts.

Where is the recognition that while "instituting a cease-fire" at the present time may temporarily ease some suffering, in the long run it would greatly increase suffering, since Hamas will never accept a cease-fire that doesn't permit it to survive, regroup, rearm, repeat October 7 and initiate yet another war. The only way to end suffering, by the Palestinian aggressors and their Israeli targets, is to do what President Biden recognized as a necessity: eliminate Hamas.

Sincerely,

Alan Stein

Submitted to the Washington Post August 30, 2024

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