Max Burns is a hard-left commentator who mostly writes for liberal and “progressive” venues.
Not surprisingly, therefore, he is staunchly against Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Here is the beginning of his latest commentary, from thehill.com:
President Joe Biden sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, days after an Israeli airstrike killed seven humanitarian aid workers from Chef Jose Andres’s World Central Kitchen. Biden remarked that he was “outraged and heartbroken,” a feeling shared by the hundreds of nonprofit groups and human rights organizations.
Humanitarian organizations around the world are now quietly hoping that Biden’s outrage might lead to a real moment of reckoning about the terrible humanitarian cost of Israel’s war. More than 30,000 Palestinians have died since the beginning of the war, 70 percent of them women and children. Gaza is now the deadliest conflict of the 21st Century, with a truly international death toll.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military strikes have claimed the lives of foreign journalists, photographers, medical staff, religious figures, academics, humanitarian aid workers, Israeli troops and even the Israeli hostages they intended to save. The Committee to Protect Journalists counts nearly 100 reporters and media workers among the dead.
The World Central Kitchen debacle should give the State Department pause to ask whether continued support for Israel’s war advances American interests in the region. Barring that, it should listen to the concerns of the American people, who disapprove of Israel’s wartime conduct by an eye-popping 19-point margin. It isn’t hard to see why.
The war in Gaza is already a scene of uncoordinated carnage even by the standards of warfare. The World Central Kitchen airstrikes happened even though organizers from the group coordinated with the IDF for safe passage. Not only that, but the vans hit by IDF airstrikes were traveling in what’s called a “de-conflicted” zone — an area specifically designed to prevent this kind of fatal mistake.
Uh, Max….
The sad reality is that this is what happens in war.
-This is what happens when hamas, which rules Gaza as a murderous dictatorship, goes on record as being committed to Israel’s annihilation as a state and worldwide genocide of Jews.
-This is what happens when it starts a war by attacking Israel, killing, raping and mutilating 1,200 – 1,400 of its citizens – almost all civilians – in the most unspeakably inhumane ways imaginable and takes 250 more hostage, thus giving Israel no choice but to retaliate.
-This is what happens hamas forces then hide among its own citizens (thus making them human shields), using military tunnels and facilities that have been built under and near hospitals and schools.
-This is what happens when hamas, with full complicity of the United Nations (UNRWA), teaches its children little other than hatred and violence aimed at Jews…while its leaders live luxurious lives in Qatar, using the aid money that was supposed to have helped Gazans/improved their lives.
Funny, you didn’t mention any of that, did you?
You also didn’t mention that if what’s left of hamas were to surrender, the war would be over today and the people you are so concerned about would be out of danger. How come?
What’s more important to you, Max? The safety and well-being of the people you are crying about in your commentary, or the safety of hamas to continue its program of terrorism against Israel,against Jews everywhere – and, in every real sense, against the Gazan civilian population?
War is ugly. Terrible things happen in war. Mistakes are made. Sometimes they cause awful results. No argument about that.
But if you’re looking to blame someone for this, you might want to consider blaming the people who STARTED the war and refuse to do what would summarily END it.
As for President Joe Biden, whose criticism of Israel seems to go in direct proportion to how many votes he thinks it will get him in swing states like Michigan and Minnesota?
Maybe you should be thinking about the same things, Mr. President….assuming that, cognitively speaking, you are still capable of thinking at all.
