Newspaper Page Text
(5be Ahuattce The ADVANCE, October 18, 2023/Page 7A
A free press is not a privilege but
organic necessity in a great society.
-Walter Uppmann
COMMENTARY
out of
CONTEXT
A compilation of quotations on a variety of
issues by national, state and regional writers,
well-known personalities, just plain everyday
people and from various publications
collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE.
Quotes for our Times:
Matt Vespa, Se
nior Editor at Town-
hall.com: Biden's se
curity team briefed
US Senators on
Hamas' Israel attack
and drew an unbe
lievable conclusion.
But there's no
direct Iranian link?
The world's largest
state sponsor of ter
rorism, which shares
the goal of destroying Israel with Hamas
and Hezbollah, didn't use money and train
ing to help Hamas plan this sophisticated
land, sea, and air attack on October 7,
Guys, that dog won't hunt,
Tim Graham, executive editor of News-
Busters and director of media analysis for
the Media Research Center: NBC resists
'normalizing' Trump, but not the killers of
Hamas.
NBC and the other leftist networks
should not pretend that these Palestinian
activists on the streets believe in peaceful
coexistence with Israel when they want an
end to Israel. The Left is always screaming
that the media shouldn't "normalize" and
give a platform to Trump. But journalism like
this suggests they're fine with "normalizing"
and platforming Hamas.
Byron York, chief political correspon
dent for The Washington Examiner. The RFK
Jr. wild card.
On the other hand, a certain style of
voter, leaning toward Democrats but dis
mayed by Biden's age and infirmity, and
also inclined to look fondly on the old style
of Democratic Party liberalism associated
with memories of Bobby Kennedy, might
give RFK Jr. a serious look. How many of
them are there in the 2024 electorate?
Maybe not many. But if the race is between
Biden and Trump, an independent candi
date could change the race by attracting
even a relatively small number of voters.
Kennedy has the ability to do just that.
Former Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives Newt Gingrich: Israel vs.
Hamas: There's only one thing Israel must
do now to Hamas.
Hamas has proven it is a culture of bar
barism.
Hamas has proven it will violate the rules
of war and inflict violence, torture, and hu
miliation on women and children.
An organization which takes hostage
a woman who survived the Holocaust is
despicable and should be treated as the
unthinkably evil system it is. Imagine a child
hood surviving the Nazis and in your later
years being captured by a new evil.
Now is the time to focus the world's re
vulsion against Hamas and implement an
explicit strategy of defeating it, destroying
it, and replacing it.
Anything less will simply lead to future
horrors.
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Israel is not a
colonial state
RICH 1
LOWRY
COLUMN |
It doesn’t take long to read
or listen to anti-Israel advo
cacy before the word “colo
nial” or “colonialism” is hurled
at the Jewish state.
After the spasm of Hamas
murder, rape, and kidnapping
over the weekend, the U.S. Pal
estinian Community Network
exclaimed, “Our people are
waging an anti-colonial, anti
occupation, and anti-Zionist
liberation struggle!”
According to an anti-Israel
statement signed by dozens of
student groups at Harvard, Is
rael is undertaking “colonial
retaliation.”
An academic cottage in
dustry is devoted to deeming
Israel a decades-long exercise
in “settler colonialism,” and
Hamas itself is partial to the
term.
The use of the word “colo
nial” in all its forms isn’t meant
to accurately describe reality
or clarify anything; rather it is
a term of abuse wielded to
delegitimize Israel and justify
every means of resisting its
very existence.
The “colonial” smear can’t
survive contact with the slight
est critical scrutiny.
First of all, the original
Jewish settlers in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries
weren’t sent by any mother
country to set up enclaves for
the honor and profit of the
homeland. To the contrary,
they were escaping countries
that, in many cases, didn’t want
them. It would have been per
verse for Jews to have sought,
say, to establish an outpost of
Russia in the Levant, given the
atrocities routinely carried out
against them on Russian soil.
They thought of their ven
ture as a return to a place that
Jews had inhabited for thou
sands of years.
Indeed, the colonialism
charge raises the question of
how an indigenous people can
be colonizers?
The Jewish people have
had a connection to Israel
since Abraham. The people
became fundamentally identi
fied with the land; indeed,
they were synonymous. The
land was a locus of the Jewish
faith — the site of its holy city,
Jerusalem; the place where
many religious command
ments, the mitzvot, were sup
posed to be performed; the
object of yearning after the dis
possession of Ancient Israel
(“Next year in Jerusalem”).
There is a reason that Zi
onists had no interest in set
tling in Uganda, as was pro
posed in the early 20th cen
tury.
On top of this, Israel has
been willing at key junctures,
notably right at the beginning
in 1948, to accept a two-state
solution.
The Palestinians must be
counted among the worst na
tionalists the world has ever
known: They have repeatedly
rejected opportunities to ob
tain a nation-state because
they hate Israel’s legitimate na
tional aspirations more than
they love their own.
In one sense, Israel’s ulti
mate offense is to have won
defensive wars fought against
antagonists seeking to wipe it
from the map.
As for Gaza, Israel ended
its occupation nearly 20 years
ago. It wanted to wash its hands
of the place as much as possi
ble, an understandable impulse
but one that has proved unsus
tainable. Hamas won legisla
tive elections in 2006 and then
expelled the rival Palestinian
group Fatah in a factional war.
In total control, Hamas pro
ceeded to make Gaza a base for
conducting armed operations
against Israel.
Israel’s failing here wasn’t
Please see Lowry page 9A
GRITTY
Enemy of
Palestinians Is
Hamas, not Israel
The last time I
wrote about Gaza
and Hamas was 13
years ago, in 2010.
The point of the
column was the
striking contrast be
tween how Israelis
deal with life’s chal
lenges and how
Hamas leads its Pales
tinian constituents in Gaza.
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005
and turned it over to the Palestinian Au
thority. Within two years, with local elec
tions, Hamas was in charge.
Hamas claims their wish is to build an
independent Palestinian state. They could
have started the process then 15 years ago.
But they did not because although they
say the words, their priority is not a state
for their people but the destruction of
their Israeli neighbors to the north.
In that column in 2010, I related the
story of Israeli settlers who were uprooted
from their homes in the Gaza region when
Israel pulled out. There was resistance
and protests from these families that they
should be forced to abandon their homes,
but they had no choice.
I quoted the late television personal
ity Art Linkletter, who observed, “Things
turn out best for the people who make the
best out of the way things turn out.”
This defines the Israeli mindset. It is a
culture of life, of faith, of going on and
building despite life’s often devastating
challenges.
Most know how Israel emerged from
the ashes of the Holocaust, with Jews re
turning from the four corners of the globe
to build a state in their ancient homeland.
Starting from nothing except their
own human capital and commitment to
build anew, a modern state was built,
which now has a per capita GDP higher
than most European countries.
Regarding the Israeli families that
Please see Star page 9A
By Star Parker
Of Pears and
Pomegranates
From the Porch
By Amber Nagle
We stood
in the sandy
soil of
my mother’s Ohoopee garden
and admired the fruits hanging
from two trees. On one side,
a pear tree’s branches were
loaded down with plump pears
— too many for any one per
son to consume in a year. On
the other side, weird, wonder
ful pomegranates clung to the
limbs of another tree, much
like dangly earrings hanging
on ear lobes.
My nephew’s three chil
dren ran wild in the garden
around us, and we motioned
for them to stop for a minute.
“Will one of you help us
pick some pears?” I asked.
The middle child, Andrew,
volunteered and walked over
to the fence line with Mom and
me. We cautioned him about
watching out for yellow j ackets
feasting on the fallen fruits on
the ground. Then Mom gave
him a demonstration.
“Gently twist it, then pull.
Don’t jerk it off, or other pears will
fall off, too,” she said. “And if it has a
hole in it, just toss it aside.”
Andrew listened and helped us
Lawson, Lydda and Andrew Lanier hold pomegran
ates they picked from a tree in their great grand
mother's yard over the weekend.
fill two large plastic bags with the
greenish gold fruits.
While we worked, I reminisced
about two ancient pear trees that
once stood on the property line at
my Grandmother Jarriel’s house. I
remembered being Andrew’s age
and picking a pear along with my
cousins before taking a bite in the
autumn sunshine. I think Grand
mother called them sand pears, and
they made some of the best
pear preserves ever — the pear
preserves that we spooned into
buttery biscuits and devoured
at breakfast time in Grand
mother’s kitchen. Those are the
pear preserves of my people —
of my dreams.
A few minutes later, we
gathered underneath the
pomegranate tree. I call it
“Johnny’s Pomegranate Tree”
because in the years before my
stepfather died, if I visited in
the fall, he always made sure
I left with at least one pome
granate in my hand. He called
them “plum grannies,” which
is technically incorrect, though
many Southerners refer to the
fruit in that way.
“What are those things?”
Lawson asked, pointing to one
of the crimson and gold fruits.
“Those are Johnny’s pome
granates,” I replied. “They’re a
fruit with sweet and tart seeds
inside that are a little hard to
eat. But it’s worth it, because
Please see Amber page 9A