WINNIPEG, CANADA – Peace Alliance Winnipeg is transforming one of Hamas’ weapons into a symbol of peace.
The organization is preparing for its annual Walk for Peace and Justice through Winnipeg’s Exchange District during Nuit Blanche on September 26.
It claims that Israel recently banned Palestinian children from flying kites in Gaza and has declared the kite its “primary peace symbol for the walk.”
Following a kite-making event, Peace Alliance Winnipeg posted: “We look forward to ‘flying’ kites for the children of Gaza together at Nuit Blanche on September 26.”
How innocent.
How compassionate.
How completely dishonest.
Under Hamas, kites have been turned into weapons of terrorism.
They have been fitted with incendiary materials and explosives, launched across the Gaza border and carried toward Israeli farms, forests, nature reserves, homes and civilian communities.
During the Hamas-orchestrated Gaza border campaign beginning in 2018, thousands of incendiary kites and balloons were launched into Israel.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, they ignited more than 2,000 fires and burned approximately 35,000 dunams, or 8,500 acres, of Israeli territory.
Wheat fields were reduced to ash.
Agricultural crops were destroyed shortly before harvest.
Nature reserves and forests were scorched.
Wildlife was burned alive.
Israeli farmers lost land, income, and months of work while firefighters repeatedly risked their lives battling deliberately ignited fires.
The United Nations itself heard reports that approximately 8,000 acres of Israeli land had been burned by incendiary kites and balloons during 2018.
Some devices carried explosives. Others landed near homes, playgrounds and kindergartens.
A Molotov cocktail does not become peaceful because it is attached to a kite.
An explosive device does not become harmless because it resembles a toy.
Hamas understood the propaganda value perfectly.
It took an object associated with childhood and transformed it into an inexpensive weapon. If Israel responded, Hamas could produce images of Palestinian children holding kites. If Israel did not respond, Israeli land burned.
This is how Hamas operates.
It weaponizes civilian areas, civilian objects and civilian suffering. It then depends upon Western activists to hide the terrorism and condemn Israel for responding to it.
Peace Alliance Winnipeg is now completing that propaganda cycle.
Its organizers do not tell participants about the Israeli farmers who watched their livelihoods disappear in flames.
They do not mention the scorched forests, destroyed crops, or dead wildlife.
They do not discuss explosive devices landing near Israeli playgrounds and kindergartens.
They simply present Israel as a cruel state attacking Palestinian children for flying harmless kites.
That is not peace activism.
It is propaganda.
The recent Israeli warning concerned drones, balloons and kites being launched from Gaza toward Israel. Israeli officials said they believed Hamas was testing Israel’s response and warned that the launches must stop.
Hamas answered by portraying the launches as innocent childhood recreation.
Peace Alliance Winnipeg accepted that narrative and turned it into a public spectacle.
Its organizers selected the perfect propaganda symbol. The kite allows them to portray Palestinians as entirely innocent, Israel as irrationally cruel, and Hamas as practically nonexistent.
Israeli security concerns disappear.
Jewish victims disappear.
Hamas’ documented tactics disappear.
All that remains is another manufactured accusation against Israel.
When activists knowingly romanticize a weapon used against Israeli civilians while erasing its victims, their message crosses from criticism of Israel into something far uglier.
It becomes the dehumanization of Israelis.
It declares that Israeli children, farmers, and families do not matter.
It becomes Jew-hatred wrapped in the language of compassion.
Peace Alliance Winnipeg could have acknowledged Hamas’ history of airborne arson.
It could have condemned the launching of unidentified objects toward Israeli territory.
It could have recognized Israel’s responsibility to protect its citizens.
Instead, it chose to sanitize Hamas’ methods and turn a weapon of terror into an artistic prop.
These are not kites of peace.
They are kites of propaganda.
They represent a movement determined to erase Israeli suffering, excuse Palestinian terrorism, and condemn Jewish self-defense.
When they are paraded through downtown Winnipeg on September 26, Canadians should understand exactly what they are being asked to applaud.
Not peace.
Not justice.
The deliberate sanitization of terrorism.
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