“The United States has a rich history of aggression and bullying in the region under the pretext of [reported] weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be false.” This was the reaction of the radical left-wing Hadash Party, denouncing the US, British and French strikes in response to the reported use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime in the town of Douma.

In a statement issued by the party several hours after the April 14 attack, the party urged its supporters to protest at the US consulate in the city of Haifa and call for “an end to US aggression in Syria.” Some 100 protesters heeded the call and marched along the city streets, carrying Syrian flags and signs calling for an end to American military actions in Syria.

Not a word was spoken — not in the party’s announcement nor during the protest march — about the reasons for the combined strikes. There was no mention of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons to murder his own people or of the mass killings of more than 500,000 Syrians over more than seven years and the displacement of 5 million others from their homes.

This is not the first such response by Hadash. In April 2017, after some 100 Syrians were killed in a chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Shaykhun in the province of Idlib, the party leadership thwarted a planned denunciation of the Syrian government. The heads of the Arab Joint List (grouping Hadash and three other factions) sought to condemn Assad. But Hadash, the dominant member of this alliance, torpedoed the move. The decision angered some Joint List Knesset members, who said they were ashamed of their colleagues’ automatic backing of Assad and forgiveness of his sins.