Dear editor:
Who wouldn’t want a ceasefire? Ending war is always good, right?
Well, no.
Right now, in parliament and across the country, we see people wrapping themselves in the flag of peace, calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. This is a simplistic, smug approach that fails to understand reality.
As we have seen in war after war since Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, terrorists use every moment of peace not to build a free Palestine, but to plot the next attack on Israeli civilians. A ceasefire will not bring peace. It will merely give Hamas time to regroup, replenish its weapons of war and return to kill, rape, behead and kidnap again.
Those who sanctimoniously call for a ceasefire and imagine themselves humanitarian advocates of peace should be ashamed of themselves. Their strategy will not bring peace. It will bring more years of violence and death for both Palestinians and Israelis.
The naïve calls for ceasefire is a symptom of well-intentioned people blundering into atrocities. To use an historical analogy that people would do well to refresh themselves on, we need a Churchill right now, not a Chamberlain.
We do not get to call ourselves “pro-peace” or “pro-Palestinian” when our word and deed grant Hamas the right to continue killing.
Pat Johnson,
Director, Upstanders Canada
