Chicago Sun-Times Jewish Columnist: Hamas is Better than Netanyahu

Chicago columnist says he'd rather live with Palestinian Hamas than with war criminal Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg wrote this week that he’d sooner see the world rid of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than the terror group Hamas.

In a recent column decrying the horrors of Israel’s war in Gaza – which he stated are being unleashed by both sides – Steinberg mentioned his belief that Netanyahu is a more destructive force than the terror group that killed or kidnapped nearly 1500 people in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

"If I had a choice between getting rid of Hamas and getting rid of Netanyahu, I’d choose Netanyahu," Steinberg said, recounting a conversation he attempted to have with a member of the Netanyahu administration during the recent Democratic National Convention.

"There will always be another terror group to take Hamas’ place. But I don’t think Israel can ever have a worse leader than Netanyahu," he claimed to have said to the official, who then "spun on his heel and strode away."

"So much for dialogue," Steinberg commented, suggesting that people on both sides of the conflict are unwilling to have hard conversations about the war.

He continued, saying that many people agree with his stance on Israel’s leadership. "I’d be more embarrassed at my rudeness, but obviously am not alone in this opinion, judging from the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who filled the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem this weekend after six hostages were found executed in the tunnels underneath Gaza."

He then noted how both the Palestinian and Israel leadership "are making what is called a ‘category error’ in how they are dealing with one another."

He started with his criticism of Palestinians, writing, "Palestinian leadership traditionally treat Israel as a military problem. An approach which failed spectacularly in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, and that was when they had Arab armies behind them. They’ve been going it alone for the past 50 years, achieving greater levels of failure, leading to suffering, death and a dwindling area of land they actually possess."

He then called out Israel, stating the country "views the Palestinians as a long-term management issue, instead of a pressing moral call to immediate action." Which implies that the Zionists reject the idea of Palestinians as a nation that needs its freedom and its sovereignty.

Steinberg wrote, "That is, rather than solve the situation that fate has left on its doorstep, it blames the Palestinians’ admittedly corrupt and — Oct. 7 notwithstanding — bumbling leadership, shrugs, makes do, and lets another decade slide by."

The columnist argued that "Both sides have a policy of focusing exclusively on their own humanity, decrying their own tragedy while ignoring the tragedy they inflict."

He also chided Palestinians for their "from the river to the sea" chant, saying it hurts them by deluding them into thinking they can take on Israel’s military. "Israel has one of the strongest militaries in the world. Trying to fight their way back to an imagined past, Palestinian leaders lose any hope of an actual future," he said. 

But at yesterday's angry press conference, war criminal Netanyahu showed a map on which there was no West Bank. Palestine was erased from the map, and Israel was shown as the land "from the river to the sea". This alone is proof that Israel's Zionists reject Palestinian nationhood echoed very early on in Israel's existence by Golda Meir's famous "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people". From the start of their colonial invasion in the 1920s, Zionists had planned what is taking place right now: The ethnic cleansing of Palestine of its indigenous population, and it has done so in incremental steps, war after war, in order to completely eliminate the Palestine question out of existence. They think they can kill a good many Palestinians, expel half to the neighboring countries to swell the already teeming refugee camps from 1948 and 1967, and domesticate the remaining US-weapons-terrrorized Palestinians into a "useful" enslaved population to do the menial jobs for their Jewish masters.

Additionally, Steinberg mentioned he believes Palestinians have a "right to resist" Israel, but observed "it hasn’t gone so well."

Towards the end of the column, he lamented the state of things, saying, "The war continues, the blood flows, and the sides seem further apart than ever. I wish they’d finally realize they can’t kill their way or blame their way to a solution." Still, he concluded with a small hope that both peoples have what it takes to find peace.

"At some point, there will be a solution to this. There is one now, waiting, where it has always been: in the hands of the Israelis and Palestinians."