Patinkin: State House rally for Palestine calls for justice – why no condemnation of Hamas?

I went to the “All out for Palestine” rally at the State House on Saturday.

Impressively, it drew hundreds in a pouring rain.

The energy was high, the chants loud, the speakers pained and passionate.

They came down hard on Israel. And the U.S. for supporting her.

I expected that.

But I was also hoping I’d hear one other thing.

A denunciation of Hamas – a pointed attack on the horrific slaughter of Oct. 7.

It never happened.

In the same way, I heard shouts for an Israeli ceasefire – but not a word about releasing grandmothers and babies held hostage.

There have been pro-Palestine rallies where some got violent, or chanted things like “Gas the Jews.” There was none of that outside the Rhode Island State House. It was a civilized mix of all races and ages, including sympathetic Jews with signs declaring, “Not in our name."

There was understandable anger at civilians killed in Israel’s Gaza bombing. And heartbreak at a history of Palestinian suffering.

I get that. I respect it.

But some of the chants and signs were chilling.

“You say ‘terrorism,’” cried one speaker, “we say ‘resistance.’” Placards said the same.

Really? The Oct. 7 civilian bloodbath was “resistance”?

I came across a video of the kind of atrocities from that day they won’t show on TV, proudly Go-Pro’d by the killers. It was medieval. A semi-conscious Israeli man hacked to death with a garden hoe as he lay on his back. A Hamas “soldier” shouting “Allahu Akbar” as he stabbed a sharp pole into the eyes of a dead Israeli. Decapitated bodies.

Not one word at the rally – or sign – about any of the atrocities. Speakers accused Israel of war crimes, yet said nothing about Hamas murdering – and spitting on – the women they’d just raped, abusing some so brutally pelvises were broken. I guess that doesn’t count.

“From the river to the sea,” was a common State House rally cry. Look at a map sometime. Israel is bordered by the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. What do you think that chant means?

What’s happening now in Gaza, said several speakers, is “blatant genocide.” Dozens of signs said the same.

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I was in Gaza in 1991 writing about the plight of the people there. At the time, Gaza’s population was 700,000. It’s now over 2 million. If the Israelis are aiming for genocide, they’re doing a lousy job of it.

Repeatedly, speakers said Israel is a colonial invader occupying native land. It’s true that some West Bank Israeli settlements are questionable – and not helpful.

But colonial invaders? The Jews are the area’s indigenous people, emerging there over 3,000 years ago, building a civilization until driven out by the Romans 1,000-plus years later, returning in the 1800s as pogroms and then the Holocaust prompted the United Nations in 1948 to create the nation of Israel as one safe place for Jews.

Except it wasn’t so safe on Oct. 7, when 1,400 were butchered.

The death count in Gaza is now over 4,000, maybe 5,000, an enormous tragedy. The images are heartbreaking. You can rightly criticize Israel for that. But no one at the rally named the author of it – Hamas.

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Oct. 7 was the equivalent of 60,000 Americans murdered. Hamas knew how Israel – or any nation – would respond, that it would start a war, with innocent Palestinians paying the price. Hamas wanted that. Where at the rally was the outrage at them?

In truth, Hamas does not represent Palestinians. They rule by force and fear.

Having been in Gaza, I can tell you most folks there are good souls yearning for a decent life. Frankly, Israel needs to do better for them.

Indeed, at the rally, I was moved by speakers with Palestinian roots talking of their ancestral pain. They’ve endured a lot and deserve better.

But it doesn’t help their cause to chant for Jews to be gone from the river to the sea.

And to describe Hamas butchers as honorable resistance.

mpatinki@providencejournal.com

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI Palestine rally calls for justice, needs to condemn Hamas: Patinkin