Lindsey Kasmiroski

Alyssa - I hope that you have misunderstood and that your tweet isn't willful. The people you heard want peace. Those who chanted "No Ceasefire" would happily accept a ceasefire if Hamas surrenders and releases all of the 240 hostages they are keeping underground. Here is what they won't accept: - A ceasefire that leaves Hamas in power in Gaza. - A ceasefire that allows Hamas to carry out another act of mass-rape against Israeli women. - A ceasefire that leaves our babies - some less than a year old - in terrorist captivity. - A ceasefire that condemns the elderly to languish further without their medicine, wheelchairs or hearing-aids. - A ceasefire that means Hamas can once again slay a pregnant mother, cutting a baby from its womb while lopping off the breast of another. - A ceasefire that gives Hamas a chance to again rape a teenage girl over and over while forcing her 94-year-old Holocaust survivor grandmother to watch. - A ceasefire that creates another opportunity for Hamas to slay hundreds of young people partying at a peace festival with rockets and RPGs. - A ceasefire that could envision Hamas returning to family homes again, tying up the kids and the parents separately, setting them on fire, their dying thoughts of the loved ones opposite them burning alive. You see, Alyssa, the people in that crowd care about humanity. And not just about the humans from multiple countries who are held captive by Hamas, or even 'just' about the Israeli victims of the barbaric October 7th massacre. They also care about Palestinians. Yes. I live in Israel. We teach our kids to cherish peace and then when they go off to serve in the army (without which we would cease to exist), the first thing they are taught is the 'Purity of Arms' - the ethics of war - how to cherish life even when you must fight. The IDF do everything in their power to avoid harming civilians, even while Hamas deliberately places them in harms way by hiding under them. We do not want war, neither us Israelis nor the hundreds of thousands of Americans that you witnessed yesterday. Far from it. But when faced with the barbaric men of Hamas - who, like ISIS, detest everything all people of goodwill stand for: peace, freedom, minorities and the womens rights you cherish - we must fight. The fire will cease in one of two ways: Hamas will be vanquished. Or they can surrender and release the innocents they have stolen. But until that happens - a ceasefire would be a betrayal of all we - and I believe you - hold dear.

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