We are not OK...

This is the longest post I’ve ever written but in a world of catch phrases and short attention spans, nuance and facts are more important than ever.

We are not OK and we are hurting… a deep guttural hurt that echoes through the ages of persecution and that I did not think I would feel in my lifetime.

Lots of people have stated that they want to learn more about the situation in Israel and affecting Jews around the world. There is a lot of misinformation out there so will keep it bite sized for everyone but I will state upfront that I abhor the purposeful loss of civilian life outright.?

I, like many Jews and Israelis, hope for a two-state solution if it will bring about peace. Unfortunately with Hamas in power that seems impossible when their charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of Jews around the world.

With that being said, many “peaceful” protests under the guise of being pro-Palestinian quickly devolve into protesters chanting ‘Gas the Jews’… so with the massive rise in antisemitism around the world and in the US I felt some facts needed to be shared.

MYTH 1: Justification

• There is none.
• Regardless of the macro political situation nothing justifies Hamas, a world recognized terrorist organization from illegally entering Israel, killing and torturing 1,200 civilians, raping and murdering women and children, and kidnapping over 200.?
• It is like saying Sept 11, 2001 is justified because the US had been meddling in Middle East for decades, or that the school shooter was justified because they were bullied.
• There is no justification! Period!

MYTH 2: Hamas are freedom fighters

• Holding a gun to a child’s head, decapitating a baby in their crib, throwing a grenade into a bomb shelter where 20 civilians cower in fear, kidnapping people in wheelchairs and who are autistic… that is not fighting… that is cowardice... that is mass murder.
• Hamas gets over $2B in aid and donations annually… where is that money going? Not to the Palestinian people. They instead dig up clean water pipes and take construction material to make rockets and tunnels.?
• And all of their leaders don’t even live in Gaza. They are sitting with net-worths over $300M in the Kuwait and Qatar where their children go to private schools.?
• Watch the video of captured Hamas terrorists talking about killing civilians indiscriminately and the apartment they would get if they kidnapped hostages.
• https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/activity-7122504079846572032-Lh9N/

MYTH 3: Apartheid

• Israel’s population is 9M.
• Of that 2M (+20%) are Arab-Israelis. They are citizens. They hold government office, they are on the Israeli Supreme Court, they are law makers, police officers, doctors, teachers, they serve in the army (IDF), and they have equal rights under the law. There are also big Christians and Druze communities living equally in Israel.
• Here is one of those stories from Sophia Shramko, Arab-Israeli.
• However in all of Egypt, out of 80,000 Jews, only 30 remain. There are no Jews left in Syria, down from 100,000. In Lebanon and Jordan, no Jews remain. No Jews in Iraq. No Jews in Gaza. So who exactly has practiced ethnic cleansing?

?

MYTH 4: Genocide

• Since 1948, the Palestinian population of Gaza has increased 6X fold.
• From 1948 to 1967 Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip (not Israel), and since 2005 Israel unilaterally and on it’s own volition pulled out all military installations and settlements.
• The Israeli government dismantled military bases and removed Israeli settlements from Gaza.
• In 2006 the people of Gaza elected Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization as their governing body.
• When Jordan captured and controlled Jerusalem from 1948-1967 they expelled all the Jews from our holiest city. They burnt synagogues, desecrated and destroyed cemeteries dating back 2,500 years, and would not allow Jews any access to holy sites.?
• Under Israeli rule, everyone from every religion is permitted access to Jerusalem. They even ratified it in a 1967 rule in Israel called the ‘Protection of Holy Places Law’.

MYTH 5: Israel bomb indiscriminately

• The IDF takes great measures to minimize civilian casualties.
• I, like many others have friends and family that operate as lawyers in the IDF. After the troops on the ground have spend hours calling inhabitants to evacuate as they are about to bomb the building, effectively alerting the targets they are coming and how, after hours of announcing it over a megaphone, after hours of dropping pamphlets in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, they call the IDF lawyers to ask if under the Geneva Convention, they can strike.
• Does Hamas operate similarly???
• Colonel Richard Kemp, a world-class and highly decorated soldier that led the British forces in Afghanistan describes how the IDF focuses on protecting civilian lives.

MYTH 6: Israel doesn’t want a Palestinian State

• Well Israel has offered this over 5 times in the recent past, and all have been rejected with violence.
• Read a book, learn about the history, look up the Balfour Declaration (1917), the British Mandate of Palestine by the League of Nations (1918), the San Remo conference (1920), the Peel Commission (1936), or the agreement Chaim Weizmann (head of the British Zionist Federation) and the Emir Faisal ibn Hussein (head of the Arab delegation to the Versailles peace conference) signed in 1919 of cooperation between their two peoples.
• In it, Faisal, representing the Arab nation as a whole, accepted the terms of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which the British government committed itself to “establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people.”??
• Understand that all of those events led to the Israel's declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, and that on May 15, the very next day, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, together with the Palestinian Arabs at the time attacked Jewish towns and installations.
• However Israel won that war of provocation and in doing so captured land. This is called 'defensive conquest'. New borders were similarly drawn and recognized after the Vietnam war and the Korean War.
• Learn about the Oslo Accords (1991) and the Camp David Summit (2000) - in each Israel offered 98% of all the land being asked for, with Jerusalem being an international city… each time throughout history the Jewish or Israeli representatives offered or accepted these proposals, and each time they were rejected but the leaders representing the Palestinian or Arab lands of the time, and without fail in each instance instead they attacked Israel.

Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula in a war of provocation and aggression enacted on them, and though by international law they did not need to, they gave it back to Egypt for peace. They also gave the West Bank to Jordan… all for the hope of peace with Israel's neighbors.

These are FACTS. Not feelings or conjecture or opinions. Historical facts with associated documentation and artifacts.?

I do not blame the Palestinian people for the actions of Hamas nor do I think Hamas represents all Palestinians, many of whom like Israelis want peace… but I do blame any person who leans into criticism and fuels anti-semitism or islamaphobia today without actually understanding the facts about what is going on.

I do blame anyone who justifies the purposeful killing of civilians because of some reductionist and revisionist history of the last 5,000 years, or the last 75, or because they are just too lazy to actually know what they are talking about.?

I do blame those who were quick to lambast Israel for a hospital bombing in Gaza without any proof, only to say nothing when it was proven to be from a self-inflicted rocket attack from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The same people who demanded proof from body bags in Israel that babies really did have their heads decapitated.?

I blame everyone who is willingly pouring gas on the flames of anti-semitism around the world through their actions or their silence. This is not hyperbole! Jews are being attacked and killed in London, LA, Detroit, NYC, and Paris...

Scale:

• There are approximately 2.4 billion Christians (almost 30% of world population) and there are 158 predominantly Christian countries.
• There are approximately 2 billion Muslims (almost 25% of world population) and there are 49 predominantly Muslim countries.
• There are 14.7 million Jews in the world and there is only 1 predominantly Jewish country.
• Jews are 0.18% of the world population. The land mass of Israel is 0.00004% of the world’s land mass.?

Yet of all countries, the only one whose legitimacy is challenged, is the tiny speck of a country called Israel – the only Jewish majority country in the world. Surrounded by 4 of the 49 predominantly Muslim countries – and 2 Palestinian territories whose mission in life is to destroy Israel.

Yet, the UN General Assembly from 2015-2022 adopted 68 resolutions against all the countries of the world... and a whopping 140 against Israel. The institution that helped create the state of Israel in 2022 alone adopted resolutions against North Korea = 1, Venezuela = 1, Afghanistan = 1, Iran = 1,... and Israel, the only free democracy in the Middle East = 15.

When you cry “from the river to the sea Palestine shall be free” you are calling for the elimination of the only Jewish country in the world. Look at a map to see what’s between that river and that sea, it’s a bunch of civilians who want peace and who were tragically slaughtered on Oct 7 as they danced at a music festival, slept in their beds, or woke up for Saturday morning breakfast and cartoon.?

The world is a dark place right now… let’s not make it darker through ignorance and silence.

For those that want to learn - I invite you to watch this short historical series:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0ed8kmlimbptNpoK1-v5LYqeKLu4Kl7y

And read Bassem Eid (Palestinian Human Rights Advocate) Newsweek: “I'm a Palestinian in the West Bank. Hamas Alone Is Responsible for Any Bloodshed in Gaza” https://www.newsweek.com/im-palestinian-west-bank-hamas-alone-responsible-any-bloodshed-gaza-opinion-1835360

And listen to Jared Kushner on Lex Fridman’s podcast talking about the Abraham Accords and this Hamas terrorist attack:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3dBSFK4GVMmRvIWsNMUIm4?si=n11-3VO0R_upr2ssxjneSA