It Feels Like 1938

Jews around the world just finished celebrating the Passover holiday which commemorates being taken out of bondage from Egypt and brought to Israel as a nation 4,000 years ago. At the Passover seder the story is retold with prayers and song. The lyrics of one song are “in every generation there are those who will rise up against us, but we will be saved”. Since October 7 this generation has been witnessing the truth of that song. On that date the world woke up to the news of atrocities in Southern Israel. Hamas had infiltrated the border and over 7 hours brutally murdered, tortured, burned alive, and raped 1,200 Israelis (including Israeli Arabs and foreign workers), and kidnapped 240 men, women and babies. It was the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Jews mourned, hoping the world would mourn with them. They naively did not expect the immediate gleeful response and the swift sentiment around the world that “Israel deserves it,” support for a terrorist group akin to ISIS, and the massive increase in antisemitism that followed (antisemitism in the US alone has gone up 337% since October 7[1]).

The past few weeks has brought Jew-hatred to a crescendo, as Jews watch with horror the antisemitism that is occurring on college campuses, as student “activists” and outside agitators chant antisemitic/anti-Israel slogans, threaten, and, in some cases, physically assault Jewish students. These not-peaceful protests are reminiscent of 1938 pre-Holocaust Austria when Jewish university students were barred from attending classes. The student leader of the Columbia faction, Khymani James, has stated for the record that he feels a responsibility to kill all pro-Israel Jews and spouts hate via lies, gaslighting, and misrepresentations about Israel and Jews.

It is understandable for people to see the devastation in Gaza and feel for them. But to do so while ignoring horrors that were inflicted on innocent Israelis (and other countries), and to ignore the 132 hostages that are still living in hell in Gaza, is to lose your moral compass. To do so the definition of antisemitism.

The desire to remove Jews from Israel “by any means necessary” has a history going back a hundred years. Lies and propaganda started in the early 1900s are now quickly propagated in consumable one-minute tik-tok videos and reels, or stated in social media posts, including local West Orange Facebook groups.

Those who do not want the Jews to live in their ancestral homeland tell themselves stories to justify their hate. Israel was not created by white colonists on stolen land, as an outgrowth of the Holocaust as they would have you believe. Jews have been living in Israel since before the time of King David, as is evident by archeological evidence. The land of Israel is inextricable from Judaism (26 of the 613 biblical commandments can only be done in the land of Israel). After WW2 the Ottoman Empire was broken up into states, giving the peoples living there the right to self-determination. The Arabs were given four states: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan (which constituted 80% of British Mandate Palestine, later to be renamed Jordan). The Jews living there consisted of families who had been living there for generations as well as refugees escaping the pogroms of Eastern Europe (today, most Israelis are descendants of Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Africa). The remaining 20% of British Mandate Palestine was to be given to the Jews, as set forth in the Palestine Mandate by the League of Nations (precursor to the UN) in 1922. But the Arabs did not want the Jews to get any land and revolted. British delayed creation of a Jewish state. When WWII broke out, to appease the Arabs the British closed Palestine to Jews, which directly resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Jews[2].

After WW2, when the UN (finally) approved creation of a Jewish state (in much smaller borders than originally intended), the Arabs responded by invading the new country. The Arabs call the creation of Israel the Nakba, the tragedy, not because Arabs were killed and many displaced but because they were not able to destroy Israel. Every war waged on Israel by her Arab neighbors since then has had the goal of wiping Israel off the face of the earth. To this day Palestinians and many other Arab countries will display maps that do not include Israel. Their goal is not to create a two-state solution, but a one-state solution with the Jews removed. The slogan “from the River to the Sea Palestine will be free” means the destruction of Israel. That same slogan translated into Arabic is “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab”. Palestinian Arab children are told from the moment they are born that Israel stole their land, and they are raised to believe that one day they will rise against the Jews and destroy them[3].

On October 7 Hamas began a war by infiltrating Israel. They knew that Israel would have to respond without caring that their citizens would be killed and wounded. In fact, they want deaths so they can garner the sympathy of the world. Haters are claiming that Israel is committing genocide. Genocide means the deliberate targeting of an entire people. This is not happening. Hamas, which is a terrorist entity, hides amongst its people, using [4] homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques as military bases. In response, Israel does more than any army in history to move civilians out of harm’s way. They text, email and drop flyers before entering an area to alert the civilians and give them time to move out of the way. Hamas often impedes them from leaving and has even been known to shoot people as they leave. In Urban warfare the average civilian to military casualties is estimated to be about 9:1 (for every militant killed, about 9 civilians are killed). Hamas initially claimed 32,000 were killed which would put the ratio at about 1: 1½, for every militant killed, about 1.5 civilians are killed[5]. The UN just stated that the numbers have been inflated and is much lower than what was initially reported. To the contrary, Hamas infiltrated Israel on October 7 with the stated goal of committing genocide in Israel.

Israel is fighting a war she did not want but knows she must win to keep her citizens safe. She is trying to kill the cancer Hamas without killing the healthy cells (innocent Gazans) as best as she possibly can. It is fair to criticize how Israel is going about the war, but it is not fair to claim that they do not have a right to defend herself or that Israel should allow Hamas to perpetrate many more October 7ths, as they have stated they will do. Anyone who is truly concerned with the plight of the Arab Palestinians should demonstrate against Hamas and the Palestinian leaders that are impeding the peace process. Hamas has the power to end the war this minute. If they would return the hostages and surrender, the war would end immediately.

[1] https://www.adl.org/resources/...

[2] https://www.yadvashem.org/arti...

[3] https://www.jewishvirtuallibra...

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/30/human-shield-israel-claim-hamas-command-centre-under-hospital-palestinian-civilian-gaza-city#:~:text=Israel%20has%20cited%20what%20it,City's%20Dar%20al%2DShifa%20hospital

[5] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/apr/18/israels-war-against-hamas-posts-lower-civilian-to-/