Complicity in the wrongful shedding of blood was the theme to the disruptions of President Eisgruber’s address at Alexander Hall and recent landmark vandalisms. This raises, with apology to Florence Reece and her 1930s protest song “Which Side Are You On,” the question, “Which ‘genocide’ are you on?”
According to urban warfare expert John Spencer, in Gaza, Israel “has gone to unprecedented lengths, not seen in the history of modern warfare, to abide by the laws of war and avoid harm to civilians, even when doing so puts the IDF's own soldiers at risk.” Hamas pursues the opposite. The overriding effort of the Hamas Oct. 7 surprise attack from Gaza was to kill, rape, torture, and kidnap Israeli civilians, constituting the deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust. In further perversion of morality, Hamas seeks not the protection of Gazan civilians, but instead purposely puts them in harm’s way and uses these avoidable Gazan deaths for the sake of mendacious propaganda. The Hamas leadership promises more attacks on Israel and seeks its annihilation — “Everything we do is justified,” a Hamas official said in late October.
Princeton Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) issued a statement shortly after the Oct. 7 events that dismissed the meticulously planned military invasion as an “uprising” and never even mentioned Hamas or its goals to annihilate Israel. This SJP statement instead not only held Israel “ultimately responsible” for the loss of life but denied any culpability whatsoever on the part of Gazans or Hamas for the attack on Israel and the ensuing war. In its Reunions briefing package, Princeton Israel Apartheid Divest (PIAD) included an essay by Steve Salaita in which the author denies Israel the right to defend itself, “In short, there is no such thing as Israeli self-defense. It is a categorical Impossibility.” Elsewhere, PIAD proclaims, “We honor every martyr lost to the occupation.”
In their zeal to be pro-Palestinian and their efforts to depict Israel’s efforts of self-defense as “genocide,” PIAD and SJP brazenly ignore Hamas’ goal and actions to annihilate Israel. Symbolically raising their red hands of protest against Israel’s actions, these PIAD and SJP protesters stand morally submerged in the blood Hamas wrongfully sheds.
I stand with Israel. Those Princetonians who don’t should at least condemn Hamas for its atrocities against the peoples of Israel and Gaza.