Maria Pia Perez

The days are filled with fall leaves turning color and pumpkin spice lattes.

Question: What could ruin the good spirits of this season? Answer: An unprovoked, barbaric attack, rape, torture, and kidnapping against Israeli men, women, and children, according to Israeli officials. Even worse is the complicity of our “best” academic institutions and members of the “woke” society who — for all their (faux) sophistication and intelligence — cannot and, worse, will not differentiate between good and evil.

Israel was attacked on Oct. 7. Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 people, including babies, women, and men, according to Israeli officials…innocents all. More than 240 Jews, Muslims, and Christians were kidnapped to its underground tunnels/dungeons, including, in a mockery to humanity itself, Holocaust survivors.

Exercising its existential right of self-defense, Israel launched an offensive against Hamas leaders who hide amongst the civilian population in mosques, hospitals, and schools, according to Israeli and American officials. Hamas cynically relies on the West’s abhorrence of civilian casualties to keep them safe from retaliation. 

Israel is fighting for its survival and right to live in peace. Hamas shares NO values with modern Western thinking. It has repeatedly pledged to annihilate Israel and its people, as well as hate-filled speech toward others. It uses billions of dollars of aid not to help Gazans but to propagate war and hate. Proof? Look no further than the existence of an underground city in Gaza in which Hamas hides, plots, and schemes, but not one bomb shelter for civilians, according to Israeli officials.

We of the West highly value freedom of speech. However, Hamas, which surely doesn’t, and its sympathizers have manipulated our very freedoms in a sickening and intellectually perverse way to legitimize hate speech and justify violence. Jewish students are rightly fearful, have been accosted on campuses throughout our great land, and, in Los Angeles, one man was killed. We cannot have this in America. Jewish students and faculty at learning institutions must be afforded the same protections as all minorities, ensuring inclusivity and campus safety for our Jewish brethren as we would demand for all.

As a woman running for State Committee for the 3rd Essex District, which encompasses Marblehead, Swampscott, Lynn, Lynnfield, Nahant, and Saugus, it is my moral obligation to support Israel and the Jewish people in their time of need and hurt, and call out the barbarism of Hamas and the individuals who support these unabashed terrorists. In that vein, I call on the Massachusetts GOP to strongly and in no uncertain terms condemn Hamas and support our ally in its needed efforts to eradicate Hamas once and for all. Then, and only then, there will be a chance for real, lasting peace. I stand with Israel in solidarity with humanity.

Maria Pia Perez is a State Committee candidate for the 3rd Essex District.