Bike Protestors for Hamas

Regarding the press release and photos from a bike “protest” by local supporters of Hamas: The protestors’ feelings would be different if they had experienced what Israelis have experienced.

Golan Vach is the leader of Israel’s National Rescue Unit, an organization like Direct Relief, that has responded to catastrophes all over the world. (For instance, in 2021, they helped search for victims amid the rubble of the condo building collapse in Surfside, Florida.) Vach was one of the first people to enter the burned and ruined towns in which Hamas carried out its campaign of torture, rape, and murder on October 7. Here’s how he describes the first thing he saw: “I found a mother lying, protecting her baby. And she was shot in the back. And the baby was beheaded.”

Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in Gaza, proclaimed that the October 7 attack was only the first of many to come, until the Jews of Israel are eliminated. Public opinion polls showed that 75 percent of Palestinian Arabs supported Hamas’s massacre of Israeli civilians.

Those are the people whose flag the bicyclists proudly paraded around Santa Barbara. Perhaps the protestors will say, “We’re not supporting Hamas, we’re supporting the innocent Palestinian people.” No doubt there are such. Hamas likely is using them as human shields, as they have done in the past. Hamas rules Gaza. So how do you propose that Israel respond to the genocidal murderers who killed 1,200 people on October 7? If it were your friends and family that had been raped, mutilated, and murdered, would a cease-fire be a good solution?