What’s in a Name?

Q: What’s in a name?

A: A great deal.

The current wave of protests on American campuses provides an example: The war in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran is between Israel and its western allies and Iran and its terrorist proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis. Its origin was an unspeakable massacre by Hamas of everyone in the path of thousands of its terrorists who crossed the border between Gaza and Israel last Oct. 7. In addition to murder and rape, these marauders kidnapped over 200 people, some of whom are believed to be buried, dead or alive, in tunnels in Gaza. 

The attack was in the spirit of al-Qaida’s mass murders of 9-11. Israel launched its forces to destroy Hamas in the spirit that the U.S. sought to kill the all the terrorists and their leaders, who were then entrenched in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I recall no protests aimed at saving al-Qaida and its entourage of camp-following supporters. I believe this was the case because, unlike Hamas’ kill-fest, those Jihadists’ mass murder was not disingenuously called pro-anything. It was just what it was — anti-American slaughter of innocents.

Returning to the importance of a name, I ask why the protesters flooding our campuses are called “pro-Palestinian.” They are obviously primarily anti-Israeli; in addition, their actions indirectly (and on some campuses, directly) support and excuse the terrorist methods of Hamas, Hezbollah, and their masters in Tehran. We need a new name for these folks.