I have had a very difficult few days, between paying a Shiva call (visiting the home of someone whose loved one passed away) at the home of a family member whose son was murdered trying to rescue people from the massacre in Israel and hearing firsthand the stories of the bloodbath that occurred there, and then reading online the reactions to the heinous attacks on Israel.
I have read the comments and outright justification of these attacks on my posts and the posts of others that praise their actions as if we, the “Jews,” somehow “deserved” this to happen.
People who don’t reside in Israel tend to base their viewpoints on information they receive from the very organizations that are carrying out the attacks or the media or otherwise antisemitic organizations that support them. They have no idea what living under the threat of annihilation 24/7 means. They believe the orchestrated academic propaganda and justify the crimes and devastation that we experience whenever they are successful at carrying out their attacks.
I now realize that people with Western culture and values cannot understand what it means to be surrounded and threatened on an ongoing basis by terror groups, radical Islamic Fundamentalists whose slogan is “From the River (Jordan) to the Sea (Mediterranian)- which actually means, annihilate all of the Jews living in Israel.
Hamas, Hizbullah, ISIS, and others, and fundamentalists in most of the countries around us all have the same goal- for Israel to cease to exist, to annihilate all of the Jews in the world, and to eliminate Western Culture.
They are terrorists who sanctify death, not life. They are the terrorists who blew up the Twin Towers and carry out attacks around the world. And they are the terrorists who celebrated when the bloodied victims of their attacks were paraded in the streets.
They are the terrorists who plan to destroy every group of people who do not live according to their values, and they pose a serious threat to humanity.
They have massacred the people of Israel, Jews, Moslems, Christians, and others since the day statehood was declared. They have brought death and destruction to their own people as well, and they will destroy anyone who has a different agenda from theirs.
As an American, I could not grasp this concept. As an Israeli, I have been forced to understand it.
I also understand that what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. This is a war on Western civilization as a whole, and if they are not stopped, the entire world is in danger.
To learn more, watch these animations by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks that explain the connection between antisemitism, anti-Zionism, the rights of the Jews to live in our homeland, and how this affects the world.
Rabbi Sacks on the Connection Between Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, Judaism & Israel
Rabbi Sacks on The Mutation of Antisemitism
I must also ask you to ask yourselves: if this was happening to any other minority group, would you remain silent or seek to justify these atrocities?
