Philip Carl Salzman: Why Are We Surprised That Mobs of Hamas Supporters Disrupt Our Lives and Spread Hate?

Commentary As mobs rampage through American and Canadian streets celebrating and championing Hamas and its genocidal anti-Semitism, disrupting university campuses and blocking access to Jewish-owned stores, restaurants, and houses of worship, most citizens and political figures look on in surprise and dismay. Some North American pro-Hamas advocates, including some teachers and others in responsible positions, have torn down the posters of the hundreds of Jewish hostages held by Hamas, and applauded the torture and murder of 1,200 Israeli Jews and some foreigners in the most brutal ways imaginable, including beheading and burning alive of children and families and gang-raping women to death. Pro-Hamas mobs chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free [of Jews],” and “globalize the intifada,” and although they may not be able to identify which river and which sea, they know full well that these chants mean “destroy Israel” and “annihilate the Jews.”...