Today in San Jacinto Plaza, more than 200 El Pasoans peacefully gathered to express their support for the 240 hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
Several local leaders of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities contributed remarks while the attendees displayed signs condemning Hamas and anti-Semitism and exhibited the faces of the hostages.
It is important to note that there were no pro-Palestinian protesters present. Apparently there is no one among them who feels strongly enough about the plight of the hostages to express any sympathy in public or to be seen among a crowd of Zionists.
We wish to thank the El Paso Police Department for providing security during the event, on a Sunday.
PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTEST IN AUSTIN
Today at 1pm CST there was a large anti-Israel protest at the Texas Capitol in Austin that was advertised on the Instagram pages of two local groups: Viva Palestina El Paso and El Paso for Palestine. You may visit their pages if you want to see video footage of the event.
DELETION OF OUR POST ON THE NOVEMBER 7 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
For reasons we do not understand, the host of our webpage deleted our post documenting the comments of the 20 people who spoke at City Council on November 7 decrying Israeli “genocide” and “apartheid” and demanding the City sever its sister city relationship with Hadera, Israel. Only one of the speakers bothered to mention the 1,400 who were murdered in Israel or the 240 hostages.
We named all 20 speakers because their identities are a matter of public record. We also named the 3 pro-Israel speakers. We reported what we heard accurately, citing certain comments in quotation marks, and provided our opinion, which we feel lay within the bounds of the First Amendment.
We want to clarify that we fiercely defend the right of the 20 activists to express their views. Free political expression lies at the heart of our Republic. However, we have the right to respond and we would hope the anti-Israel activists would be equally tolerant of our First Amendment rights, even if they feel our views are offensive.
It is a shame that the Palestinians of Gaza do not have the same rights, as they have not been permitted to vote for their leaders in nearly 18 years and risk imprisonment or death for criticizing their government. Meanwhile, in Israel there are 1.9 million Palestinians who have the right to vote and have representation in the Israeli Knesset.
We also want to state without qualification that we truly sympathize with the Palestinian civilians who are suffering terribly as a result of the Israeli effort to eradicate Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, yet we recognize that the tragic loss of life is squarely the fault of the terrorists, who slaughtered 1,400 people and took 240 more hostage, triggering a massive military response.