Applying the Law of War to Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah

Many of the rioters on college campuses and in public spaces appear to be mindless and faceless cowards who have been emboldened by the weak response to their illegal tactics; when they appear on camera they are incapable of coherently explaining exactly what they are protesting and what they are trying to achieve. They are mindless because they chant "From the River to the Sea" even though many of them could not find Gaza on a map; they are faceless because they choose to wear masks to hide their identities, in contrast to legitimate protesters who proudly show their faces. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a famous and glorious dream: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." In contrast, these rioters are working to create a living nightmare world in which Hamas is glorified and Jews are demonized. They hide their faces to avoid being held accountable for their actions until they can eliminate anyone who opposes their fanatical goals.

However, it should be noted that some of Israel's slightly more sophisticated enemies have specific talking points, including the false allegation that Israel is committing war crimes. Upon close examination of that false allegation, it becomes evident that anyone who believes that has no formal legal training, and no foundational understanding of the relevant principles of international law regarding what is permissible during a war.

Professor Louis Rene Beres is a scholar of international law, and he often uses the phrase "International law is not a suicide pact," an apt description of Israel's legally protected self-defense rights.

In a May 30, 2024 article in The Wall Street Journal titled "Israel, Hamas, and the Law of War," attorneys David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Lee A. Casey--both of whom worked at the Justice Department and the White House Counsel's Office--discuss at length the proper application of international law to Israel's wartime conduct in Gaza. In particular, they focus on the principles of distinction and proportionality, noting that international law forbids a country from intentionally targeting civilians and from making attacks resulting in civilian deaths and damage to civilian property that are disproportionate to "the concrete and direct military advantage expected to be gained." 

The required distinction between military targets and civilian targets does not stipulate that any civilian casualties are proof that a war crime has been committed. It is illegal to deliberately target civilians, which has long been the modus operandi for Hamas, culminating in Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel; in contrast, Israel has gone to great lengths to avoid hitting civilian targets, to the extent of putting the lives of Israeli soldiers at risk. It is also illegal to deliberately put civilians in harm's way, which is another war crime committed regularly by Hamas, which utilizes "human shields" both to discourage Israeli attacks and as fodder for propaganda. 

The law regarding proportionality is often misunderstood; media outlets regularly compare the inflated and unverified casualty totals from Gaza with Israel's casualties to imply--or even directly state--that the larger number of casualties in Gaza proves that Israel has committed war crimes. However, international law does not mandate proportional casualty totals; proportionality refers to the lethality of the attack in proportion to the legitimate military goal of the attack. Here, Hamas has vowed to repeat October 7 "again and again and again," which means that Israel legally can take the necessary measures to render Hamas incapable of ever committing such an attack again; to the extent that Israeli operations against Hamas result in civilian casualties, as long as Israel is not intentionally attacking civilian targets those casualties are the responsibility of Hamas as both the initial aggressor and as a party that deliberately deploys human shields.

The article does not specifically mention Hezbollah, another Iranian-sponsored terrorist organization that commits the same kinds of war crimes that Hamas commits--and Hezbollah's forces are more numerous, better trained, and better armed than Hamas' forces. If Israel does not eliminate Hezbollah as soon as possible, Israel will pay a terrible price later--a price that will make October 7, 2023 seem minor in comparison. Permitting Hezbollah to become so powerful is one of the greatest strategic errors in Israeli history; hopefully, it will not prove to be a fatal strategic error. Israel's neglect of the threat posed by Hamas should serve as a lesson and a warning. Just a few days before Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel, I decried Israel's Ongoing Oslo Accords Folly, and I declared, "The core unresolved issue is not 'land for peace' nor is it autonomy; it is the unrelenting quest to destroy Israel that is fomented by various Arab/Islamic states and the terrorist groups (including the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and others) that they sponsor. There is zero chance that Israel giving up land will resolve that issue, and the Oslo Accords are just one example of the folly of assuming otherwise."

The sad reality is that the people who are protesting the loudest about Israel's alleged war crimes do not care at all about the alleged war crimes victims; the protesters hate the Jewish people, and seek to cloak their antisemitism as "merely" anti-Zionism--but anti-Zionism is indistinguishable from antisemitism because Israel is the Jewish homeland. It should be noted that being Jewish does not mean that you cannot be antisemitic, and there are some Jews who hate their own heritage and their own people--in short, they are traitors: instead of expressing concern for the October 7 victims and their families, these traitors give aid and comfort to Hamas' rapists, kidnappers, and murderers.

The Implications of Hamas' Surprise Attack Against Israel

Recently, I wrote about Israel's Ongoing Oslo Accords Folly, concluding, "The core unresolved issue is not 'land for peace' nor is it autonomy; it is the unrelenting quest to destroy Israel that is fomented by various Arab/Islamic states and the terrorist groups (including the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and others) that they sponsor. There is zero chance that Israel giving up land will resolve that issue, and the Oslo Accords are just one example of the folly of assuming otherwise." 

This morning, Israel witnessed and felt the tragic results of decades of believing in the "land for peace" dream: Israel gave up land but never received peace, and now has suffered a massive attack by Hamas, the Iranian-sponsored terrorist group. Hamas launched a surprise, multi-pronged land, air, and sea attack against Israel. The full devastating scope of this attack is still not completely known, but it has been reported that more than 100 Israelis have been killed, more than 1000 Israelis have been injured, and an unknown but large number of Israelis have been captured. Hamas no doubt looks forward to exchanging those innocent Israelis for murderers who are imprisoned in Israel. Israel has a long, pathetic history of capitulating to terrorist demands by participating in lopsided exchanges during which terrorists release a few innocent Israelis while Israel sets free imprisoned terrorists, many of whom have blood on their hands. I agreed with those who called the prisoner exchange that Israel did on behalf of Gilad Shalit "a pact signed in Jewish blood," and I wonder how many terrorists that Israel released in that 2011 deal (and other such deals) directly participated in today's Hamas attack. It is also evident that the weakness that Israel displayed in making such deals emboldened Hamas to escalate its war to kill Jews and destroy the State of Israel.

Hamas attacked Israel on the morning of Simchat Torah, a joyous Jewish holiday celebrating the completion of the annual cycle of Torah reading; on the secular calendar, today is 50 years and one day after Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, Judaism's most important holiday. This dual timing--attacking on a Jewish holiday based on the Jewish calendar, which is (because of the differences between the Jewish calendar and the secular calendar) also nearly the anniversary of a previous major surprise attack against Israel--is obviously not coincidental. 

It should be noted that the strategic depth provided by Sinai, Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and the Golan Heights played a key role in Israel's victory in the Yom Kippur War. Israel gave up much of that strategic depth in a series of treaties, starting with the 1978 Camp David Accords. Even without considering Israel's legal right to retain control of those territories, from a military standpoint it was a huge blunder for a small country like Israel to give up so much strategic depth--and today many Israelis paid the ultimate price for that blunder, as Hamas used Gaza--which should have been Israel's strategic buffer--as a launching pad for attacks deep into the heart of Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should resign in disgrace--not for the nonsensical reasons often cited by the Left, but because he failed in his most important task: protecting the lives of Israel's citizens. Netanyahu did not sign the Oslo Accords--the dead, wounded, and captured Israelis can thank Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and their government for that disaster--but Netanyahu failed to reverse the damage caused by the Oslo Accords, and he compounded the problem by giving up more land. Further, he failed to defeat Hamas, and under his watch the Israel Defense Forces were unprepared to deal with Hamas' massive surprise attack. This lack of preparedness is not only a tactical failure at the operational level, but also a failure at the political level to understand the nature and dimensions of the situation. Netanyahu just declared war on Hamas, which highlights how out of touch he is with reality: Hamas declared war on Israel decades ago, and the refusal of Netanyahu (and far too many other Israelis) to recognize that Israel is at war did not make that war cease to exist. Media outlets often portray Netanyahu as a right-wing extremist but the reality is that he is someone who speaks the language of the right-wing (which is not by definition extremist, even though many media outlets pretend that all right-wingers are extremists) while refusing to enact right-wing policies: a right-wing policy (from Israel's perspective) would involve publicly stating the truth about the full nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict and then governing the nation accordingly. Israel's true right-wingers have been pleading with Netanyahu to do this, but he refused, and we now see the horrific results of his failure.

If Israel intends to survive long-term without facing daily terrorist attacks on her citizens, this war can only have one outcome: complete destruction of Hamas and all affiliated groups, combined with a political restructuring of how Gaza, Judea, and Samaria are governed. It is unacceptable and untenable for terrorist groups to control these areas. Today's surprise attack is a predictable disastrous outcome escalating a war has been smoldering for many years, aided and abetted both by flawed American Mideast policies and the refusal of most media outlets to accurately depict the events on the ground. Israel's failure to destroy Hamas after repeated Hamas attacks against Israel made today's massive attack inevitable.

Unfortunately, Israel will achieve--at best--a pyrrhic victory over Hamas, and that victory will be accompanied by a wave of international condemnation of Israel followed by calls for Israel to trade more land for peace.

The broad outline of events for the next few weeks is sadly predictable:

1) For the next 24-48 hours, America and many Western countries will express sympathy for Israel.

2) After 48 hours at most, attention will shift to Israel's allegedly "disproportionate" response, and both sides--but mostly Israel--will be urged to "act with restraint."

3) Most media outlets will present false narratives about alleged "legitimate Palestinian grievances" that supposedly justify Hamas' attacks. Few people will have the courage to publicly state the truth: 

There has never been a sovereign country called Palestine, nor is there a distinct Palestinian people. If you don't believe me, then consider the words of Zuheir Mohsen, who was a high-ranking PLO leader in the 1970s. In a March 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, Mohsen declared:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

The word Palestine has nothing to do with Arab or Islamic history, but it dates back to the Latin name that the Romans gave to Judea (the second Jewish Commonwealth) after conquering and subjugating the Jewish people (and the Latin name is derived from a Greek word). After destroying the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the Romans renamed the city Aelia Capitolina, and they proudly printed coins bearing the words "Judea Capta." The Roman Empire was long ago consigned to history's dustbin, but the Jewish people are still here and the Jewish people have reestablished their historical state in their historical land. We know when the first Jewish Commonwealth was founded (roughly 3000 years ago), we know its approximate and fluctuating borders, we know that Jerusalem was its political capital and main religious center, we know when that state was conquered by the Babylonians (roughly 2500 years ago), we know when the Maccabees established a second Jewish Commonwealth (roughly 2200 years ago), we know when the second Jewish Commonwealth was conquered by the Roman Empire (roughly 2100 years ago), and we know when the final Jewish revolt against Rome was defeated (less than 2000 years ago). We know that the people in the first and second Jewish Commonwealths spoke Hebrew. 

In contrast, the notion of a distinct Palestinian Arab nation is quite recent, and has no historical basis. The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) was founded in Cairo, Egypt in 1964, with funding and support provided by the Soviet Union. What exactly was the PLO founded to "liberate"? In 1964, Egypt controlled Gaza, while Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria plus the eastern portion of Jerusalem. If the PLO had been truly interested in creating a Palestinian national state in Gaza plus the West Bank then why was the PLO conducting terrorist attacks against Israel, a nation that had no control over the areas that the PLO supposedly wanted to "liberate"? Of course, the reality is that the Soviet Union helped create the PLO to destabilize Israel and thus increase the Soviet Union's influence and power in the region. This was all about oil and about expanding Communism's reach, and had nothing to do with helping "Palestinians" or creating a "Palestinian" nation. That is why the PLO and other Arab/Islamic terrorist groups are still waging war against Israel decades after Israel gave up control of Gaza and of portions of the so-called West Bank: the goal is not creating a "Palestinian" state but rather destroying the Jewish State. The PLO has not even attempted to create a functioning government in Gaza, because the PLO was not created to govern, does not know how to govern, and has no interest in governing. 

This is a tragedy not only for Israel, but also for the innocent Arabs who are not terrorists and who just want to live in peace; being placed under the control of the PLO was the worst thing that happened to those Arabs, but many media outlets would rather blame Israel than examine and explain historical truths.

Until the nations of the world, the U.N., and major media outlets speak truth to power about both Israel and about the Palestine myth, there will never be Mideast peace.

4) In three to six weeks, Israel will declare victory. That victory will result in some form of limited ceasefire or Israel ending major military operations--but Gaza will still be governed by Hamas, and large portions of Judea and Samaria will still be governed by the terrorist organization that calls itself the Palestinian Authority, even though there is no such country as Palestine and the only "authority" that this terrorist organization exercises is waging war against Israel.

You may think that the United States should not care about or help Israel; perhaps you believe anti-Israel propaganda, or maybe you think that whatever happens to a bunch of Jews and Arabs on the other side of the world should not be a policy concern of the United States. It is important to understand that despotic regimes like Iran--and the terrorist organizations that Iran supports, including Hamas--will not be satisfied if they destroy Israel. Iran and her allies refer to Israel as "The Little Satan" and the United States as "The Great Satan." Do not be fooled by anyone who suggests that Iran only hates the United States because the United States supports Israel; this is a war of competing ideologies--Western-style open democracy versus radical Islam--and that war exists on a global scale, even if someone is foolish enough to believe that the war does not exist. Netanyahu just declared into existence a war that has been going on for decades; let's hope that it does not require a similar frontal assault on American soil for the United States to understand the existence (and grave implications) of this war. 

Radical Islamists take a long view of history; they have waged war against Israel and the West for decades, and they will continue to wage this war until they win or until they are defeated. The sooner that Israel and the West acknowledges this stark reality the better.

Israel's Ongoing Oslo Accords Folly

In The Oslo Accords Began Israel’s Folly With the Palestinians (September 19, 2023 The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed; subscription required), Israeli Brigadier General Amir Avivi describes in detail how disastrous the 1993 Oslo Accords have been for Israel. He begins by referencing historian Barbara Tuchman's definition of folly in her 1984 book The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam:

Tuchman defines folly as the pursuit by government of policies contrary to its own interests, whose adverse effects are apparent in real time, with the availability of feasible alternatives. The perpetrators are a group, not a single ruler, whose leadership spans longer than a generation. Israel's implementation of the Oslo Accords, which were signed 30 years ago this month, meets all her criteria.

For reasons that I will explain below, I disagree with Avivi's contention that the very notion of creating Palestinian autonomy is not folly, but I agree with him that--to the extent that any potential path for peace in the Land of Israel exists--the most logical course for Israel is direct negotiation with her Arab neighbors. As Avivi noted, Israel could have dealt directly with local Arab leaders in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza instead of reviving the fortunes of the PLO and its leader Yasser Arafat. Israel's failure to deal directly with local Arab leaders stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the basic historical facts combined with a refusal to recognize that the PLO, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas are not entities focused on Palestinian rights or Palestinian liberation; the PLO, the PA, and Hamas are focused on destroying Israel, and on killing as many Jews as possible as a means to achieving Israel's destruction. The popular slogan "Free Palestine" actually means "Destroy Israel, expel (or kill) all of the Jews, and create yet another Arab/Muslim dictatorship in the Mideast."

It is often asserted that what is variously referred to as the "Mideast Conflict" or the "Arab-Israeli Conflict" is difficult to understand. It may be difficult to resolve--for a variety of reasons--but the basic facts are easy to understand, as I noted in The New York Times Minimizes the Jewish People's Ancient Connection to the Land of Israel:

It is not difficult to find accurate historical information about Judea, Samaria, the pre-modern Land of Israel, and related topics--but such information runs counter to the "greater good" of destroying Israel to create yet another Arab state in the Mideast, so such information is generally ignored by most media outlets.

Here are a few articles worth reading:

Pre-State Israel: Jewish Claim To The Land Of Israel

What Are the Jewish Ties to the Land Where Israel and the Palestinian Territories Currently Exist? 

A Brief History of Israel and the Jewish People

It is interesting that Israel's enemies dismiss any historically accurate material that mentions Jewish ties to the Land of Israel because they claim that such material is from biased sources, yet they accept on faith material from obviously biased sources that provide no evidence for ahistorical antisemitic and anti-Zionist claims. Here are a few questions to ponder when trying to evaluate source materials and claims:

1) When someone asserts or implies that "Palestine" was ever an independent Arab/Muslim country--as opposed to a geographical region occupied by various empires since the Roman Empire destroyed Judea--ask that person when exactly did that country independently exist, what were that country's borders, and when/how did that country cease to exist?

2) If such a country ever existed, why are there no credible historical documents or maps referencing an independent country named "Palestine?" One useful way to understand this is to think about the difference between correctly saying that there is a geographical region within America called the Midwest, and incorrectly saying that there was/is an independent nation state called the Midwest.

3) It is often asserted that Zionists "stole" Palestine and colonized it, with comparisons made to how Americans drove Indian tribes off of tribal land--but maps exist showing when/where various Indian tribal nations existed. When/where did Palestine exist as an independent nation?

Once you understand that there is no such thing as a separate Palestinian Arab nation, then you realize (1) the creation of this fictional national identity was meant to delegitimize and destroy Zionism, (2) the solution to the Palestinian Arab refugee crisis involves the affected people (a) accepting Israeli citizenship or (b) relocating to any Arab/Muslim state that will take in people who decline to be Israeli citizens. The notion that a viable Arab state can or should be carved out of Israeli territory not only lacks legal or historical justification but plainly will not work given the realities on the ground (i.e., the PLO, Hamas, and the nation states that sponsor them are not in the business of solving refugee crises but rather they are in the business of killing Jews and attempting to annihilate Israel).

Successful Mideast policies must be based on understanding and accepting the above historical facts, which is why the notion of Palestinian autonomy is folly (contra Avivi's assertion). The problem is not just that Israel made a disastrous decision to sign the Oslo Accords but rather that any attempt to resolve the "Mideast Conflict" that is not based on understanding and accepting historical facts is doomed to fail. Too many people either deny the historical facts or are afraid to state those facts and base policy decisions on those facts. For example, once one understands that Jordan is an Arab state carved out of the majority of the geographical entity Palestine one also understands that a Palestinian Arab state already exists. Thus, Arabs living in Israel, Judea, Samaria, or Gaza can choose to (1) live peacefully under Israeli rule or (2) live under Arab rule in Jordan (or any of the more than two dozen Arab states in the Mideast--or in Iran, which is not an Arab state but is a Muslim state). 

The core unresolved issue is not "land for peace" nor is it autonomy; it is the unrelenting quest to destroy Israel that is fomented by various Arab/Islamic states and the terrorist groups (including the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and others) that they sponsor. There is zero chance that Israel giving up land will resolve that issue, and the Oslo Accords are just one example of the folly of assuming otherwise.

Many leftists falsely accuse Israel of war crimes and of intentionally harming Arab civilians, but the real war crime--or, to be precise, the real treason--committed by Israel's government in the past three decades is signing the Oslo Accords, which directly led to the slaughter of more than 1300 Israeli civilians. As long as that treason goes unrecognized and unpunished, there will be no justice and no peace in the Land of Israel, because justice and peace cannot be built on a foundation of falsehood and terror. The PLO has publicly stated "Our war is with the Jews," and Arab/Muslim terrorists often chant, "We love death more than you love life." Such a war conducted by people who fervently embrace a death-loving culture will not be resolved by Israel giving up land; indeed, if Israel disappeared, the war against the Jews--and against Western, democratic civilization--would not only continue: it would intensify, fueled by the "triumph" of destroying the "Little Satan" (Israel) and giddy about the possibility of destroying the "Great Satan" (America).

Palestinian Authority's Support for Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Continues the Trend of Palestinian Arab Support for Tyranny

It is not surprising that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine, because Abbas' connection to Russia/the former Soviet Union extends back for several decades:

Abbas has a close personal relationship with Russia that mirrors the historically warm ties between Moscow and the PLO.

In the early 1980s, Abbas studied in the Soviet Union, where he was awarded a doctorate for a dissertation falsely alleging that the Zionist movement was just as culpable as the Nazi regime for the Holocaust during World War II.

In 2016, Israeli researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem discovered a Soviet-era document that listed Abbas as an agent for the KGB spy agency--an allegation the Palestinian leader dismissed as an Israeli fabrication.

The document, confirmed as authentic by the Churchill Archives Centre at the University of Cambridge in the UK, identified Abbas as "Krotov"--the Russian word for "mole." The entry for Abbas described him as "born 1935, origin Palestine, member of the executive committee of Fatah, PLO, Damascus, agent of the KGB."

Abba Eban, Israel's Foreign Minister from 1966-1974, once declared--in exasperation at the Arab refusal to make peace with Israel no matter the terms--"The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." That is a very charitable way of describing the behavior of many Arab/Islamic governments; it would be more accurate to say that the Arab/Islamic nations rarely miss an opportunity to ally themselves with tyrants and terrorists of all stripes. 

Here are just a few illustrative examples:

PLO leader Yasser Arafat was a KGB sponsored-terrorist according to Ion Mihai Pacepa, who served as the chief of Romanian intelligence in the 1970s and thus has firsthand knowledge of the PLO's intimate--and profitable--connections with the Soviet Union, Romania, and other Eastern Bloc nations.

Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat, mythologized as a man of peace, wrote an adulatory letter to Adolf Hitler: 

Dear Hitler: I salute you from the depths of my heart. Though you have apparently lost your war, you are the real winner, for you succeeded in breaking the lines between Churchill and his accomplices. True, you have made a few mistakes by fighting on too many fronts, but you have become an eternal leader of Germany and no one ought to be surprised if you will rise to power again or if the world will see another great Hitler.

Sadat's admiration of Hitler should not surprise anyone, because Egypt provided "a place in the sun for the Nazi elite," and Egypt and Syria have long been pro-Nazi countries that sheltered Nazi war criminals: 

In fact, the list of some habitués of Cairo in the 1950s and the 1960s reads like a who's who of Nazi Germany, featuring as it did the rescuer of Mussolini, Otto Skorzeny; the ace Stuka pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel; the leader of a notorious SS penal unit, Oskar Dirlewanger; and the particularly odious and violently anti-Semitic stooge of Goebbels, Johannes von Leers.

What made the relationship between these former Nazis and the Egyptians and Syrians so successful was that it was a genuinely two-way deal. The Arabs offered the Nazis a haven, as well as a market for all their nefarious dealings in arms and black market currency. The Nazis, meanwhile, were able to provide technical and military experts, as well as the knowhow of establishing the instruments of repression.

However, below the back scratching lay a deep and dark underpinning to the relationship between the crescent and the swastika. That was, of course, a hatred of the Jews, and in particular, a desire to see the eradication of Israel.

That shared exterminationist desire had been born during the war itself, when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husayni, had made his home in the luxurious Hotel Adlon in Berlin in 1941, and had impressed Hitler with his hatred of the Jews. The Mufti lobbied the Nazis hard to kick the British out of the Middle East, and he was instrumental in raising recruits for a largely Muslim unit of the SS called the 13^th Armed Mountain Division of the SS Handschar.

In addition, throughout the war in North Africa, German intelligence had worked closely with the Egyptians, and the Mufti is thought to have been a key intermediary between King Farouk and Hitler himself. If further evidence were needed that the roots of the Nazi-Arab affair were required, then it is worth considering the fact that both Nasser and his successor, Anwar Sadat, had been wartime agents for the Germans.

Widespread Palestinian Arab support for Saddam Hussein is well-documented, as is the unfettered public joy expressed by Palestinian Arabs after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In the early 2000s, Arafat received $2.5 million from Moammar Khadafy's Libya in support of Arab terrorism against Israel. Around that time, Arafat and Abbas played a perverse version of "good cop, bad cop," with Abbas pretending that he wanted peace but was powerless to stop "extremists," when the reality was that Abbas did nothing substantive to stop Arafat from continuing to finance terrorist attacks. 

No, the Palestinian Authority's support for Russian tyranny and Russian war crimes is not at all surprising, nor is it surprising that media outlets and self-proclaimed "progressives" continue to vilify Israel while giving aid and comfort to Arab/Islamic terrorists.