I LEARNED THAT PEOPLE THIRST FOR JEWISH BLOOD
Every time there is a terrorist attack in Israel, crowds gather in the Palestinian Territories to hand out candy. Though disconcerting to me, that much I was used to. That was nothing new.
What was new to me was the response of the left in the west following the bloody October 7 massacres. They were thrilled! This, said people based out of Brooklyn, was decolonization. What else could we expect from people who just broke out of a concentration camp, but rape, mutilation, and immolation?
Black Lives Matter Chicago posted an image in support of the murderers. A huge rally was held in New York — on October 8 — in celebration of the terrorists. The list goes on and on. People were ecstatic. It was harrowing. Dystopian. And enlightening. I thought that making a gleeful spectacle out of genocidal antisemitism was an outdated phenomenon limited to the pogroms in Nazi Germany or the Russian Empire. I guess I was wrong.
Today, people might be denying the horrors of October 7, but on October 7, the message was loud and clear: not only did we deserve the massacre, but it was cause for celebration.
I LEARNED THAT PEOPLE FIND JEWISH LIVES EXPENDABLE
The ceasefire discourse has made this all too clear.
#1 on October 7, Hamas, a group whose foundational charter calls for the genocide of Jews, commits the single largest antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust.
#2 that very same day, people start calling on Israel to ceasefire.
#3 on November 1, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad states: “We will do [October 7] twice and three times.”
#4 on November 8, top Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya says that the purpose of the October 7 massacre was to “create a permanent state of war.”
#5 on November 24, a temporary ceasefire begins. Hamas violates it every single day. The world says nothing.
#6 on November 30, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and architect behind the October 7 massacre, Yahya Sinwar, states: “October 7 was just a rehearsal.”
#7 on December 1, Hamas fires rockets, ending the ceasefire. The world says nothing. When Israel fires back, the world is outraged.
#8 on December 21, Hamas declines a ceasefire in exchange for 40 hostages. The world keeps demanding a ceasefire from Israel and Israel only.
Hamas has shown that it fully intends to continue slaughtering Jews. And yet, it is Israel, time and time again, that is demanded to ceasefire. People don’t actually want a ceasefire. They want Israel to cease and will happily see Hamas continue to fire. Why? Because Jewish lives are expendable to them. They are rightfully devastated by the loss of Palestinian life, but when Jewish lives are on the line, they couldn’t care less.
I LEARNED THAT PEOPLE CANNOT STAND TO SEE JEWS AS VICTIMS
The left has long cemented a narrative regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Jews, or “Zionists,” are the oppressor settler colonists, and Palestinians are the oppressed natives. Thus, Israeli Jews had it coming when anything bad happens to them, whereas Palestinians bear no responsibility whatsoever when they do something bad or when they face consequences for something bad they did.
I’ve learned that people are much more comfortable seeing Jews as aggressors than as victims. If something happens to us, surely it must be our fault.
This is not at all a new phenomenon. White supremacists have long blamed Jews for the Holocaust and for our expulsion from hundreds of countries. If it happened, it’s because we had it coming, they say. It’s unnerving to see the western left carry the same narrative.
Consider the instances of sexual violence on October 7. There is no conceivable universe in which rape is an acceptable tool of war or of “resistance.” So now, despite the preponderance of forensic evidence, eyewitness testimony, and perpetrator testimony, Jews are accused of fabricating allegations of rape with the intent of sowing fear about brown men.
When the power went out in Gaza, I saw people I considered friends assert — with absolutely no evidence to support their claims — that the IDF had turned the power off to “commit war crimes in the dark.” The immediate assumption that the IDF was about to do something nefarious with zero proof is in itself antisemitic. The worst is always assumed of Israel, of the IDF, and of Jews because we have been pigeonholed into the position of aggressor.
I’ve learned that people are eager to accept any and all news that makes Israel and Israelis look bad, but anything that makes Israel look good, or Hamas look bad, will be met with never-ending skepticism.
BUT I ALSO LEARNED THAT PEOPLE CANNOT STAND TO SEE JEWS THAT FIGHT BACK
I’ve learned that if there’s anything that people hate more than a Jewish victim, it’s a Jew who fights back.
For 2000 years, the world got a little too used to the Jew who didn’t fight back. Now that we have the means to defend ourselves, we are demonized to no end.
Let me make this clear: if October 7 had happened to literally anyone else, and they had the means to, they would respond no less aggressively than Israel has. In fact, they would likely respond much, much more aggressively. We know this is historically true: after 9/11, which was nowhere near as destructive to American society as 10/7 was to Israeli society, the United States engaged in decades-long campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, targeting groups who weren’t actually even responsible for 9/11. The civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio in the battle to eradicate ISIS in Mosul was 3:1, and the civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio in Afghanistan was between 3:1-5:1. If Hamas figures are to be believed, the civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio in Gaza is 2:1, despite the fact that Gaza is a much more difficult urban warfare environment than the others.
Self-defense is our right. Self-defense is not tit-for-tit, nor death-for-death. Self-defense means eradicating the genocidal threat against us so that 10/7 never happens again.
I LEARNED THAT PEOPLE ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH SUPPORTING JEWS PUBLICLY
I’ve learned that whatever support we got publicly — if any — always came with qualifiers and disclaimers. “I don’t support the Israeli government, but…” (massacring Jews is wrong). “You can be critical of the Israeli government, but…” (gang raping Jewish women is not great).
What does one thing have to do with the other? Why does your solidarity with innocent civilians — the elderly, children — have to come with a disclaimer?
I’ve learned that condemnations of antisemitism must always come with condemnations of Islamophobia on the side. This despite the fact that antisemitism and Islamophobia function completely differently and that antisemitism has skyrocketed exponentially more than Islamophobia has in the aftermath of 10/7.
I’ve learned that the few friends that sent me texts of support will never, ever share fundraisers for the Jewish and Israeli communities, though they share fundraisers for Gaza daily — even though most of the funds will surely be diverted to Hamas, as they long have been.
I’ve learned that lots of people “silently agree” with me but are too afraid to voice public support for fear of being targeted or shunned by their peers. But having the option to remain silent is a privilege Jews do not have.
I LEARNED THAT MOST PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE CLEAR MORAL CONVICTIONS
#MeToo? Doesn’t apply if the victims are Jewish. Black Lives Matter? Doesn’t apply if the victims are Jewish. Fuck all billionaires? Doesn’t matter if they are billionaires who kill Jews. Resistance is justified? Oh no, it doesn’t apply to Jews who resist. Journalistic integrity? Not if they can vilify Jews.
I’ve learned that self-identifying “progressives” are not so progressive after all. I’ve learned that most self-identifying “anti-imperialists” are not anti-imperialist at all — they are just anti-west, which is actually not the same thing at all. I’ve learned that white saviors are really, really racist. I’ve learned that people are so eager to project white sins onto Jewish people, to absolve themselves from their generational guilt.
I’ve learned that people are much more likely to go along with the narrative of their peers than to question how they really feel about things.
I’ve learned that the “punch a Nazi” crowd and the Nazis are not so different after all. I’ve learned that the same people who chastise white supremacy for rewriting North American history are all too happy to rewrite Jewish history themselves.
I’ve learned that “anti-racists” are some of the most Americentric, western-centric people I’ve ever come across, and that they have no problem speaking over marginalized and Indigenous Middle Eastern minorities.
I’ve learned that people hold Palestinians to absolutely no moral standards while holding Jews to absolutely impossible standards.
I LEARNED THAT I WAS WRONG
In previous rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas, sometimes I thought it unnecessary to bomb Hamas’s military arsenal, given Israel has the Iron Dome. I thought that the risk of casualties was not worth it, seeing as the Iron Dome, though not 100 percent effective, is mostly impenetrable. Now I see that I was wrong. Hamas built up a rocket arsenal with the intent of overwhelming the Iron Dome, as they did on October 7.
I used to think the Jewish community was way too insular, and though antisemitism very much still exists, I doubted that, except for some fringe cases, it was anything like the explicitly genocidal antisemitism of the 1940s. Now I see that I was wrong.
I used to think that the blockade was maybe much too harsh and unnecessary, and that if Gazans were given more economic relief, things might calm down. Now I see that I was wrong.
I used to think the IDF could protect us from almost anything, that there no longer was an existential threat to Israel. Now I see that I was wrong.
In the immediate aftermath of October 7, I thought the world would support us after seeing the barbarity of those we are dealing with. Now I see that I was wrong.
I used to think that Hamas, while a terrorist organization, was nowhere near as bad as ISIS. Now I see that I was wrong. They are actually worse.
I LEARNED THAT AM ISRAEL WILL ALWAYS BE THERE FOR EACH OTHER
On October 6, Israeli society — and by extension, Jewish society — was deeply politically divided. On October 7, we learned that, no matter what, at the end of the day, we are a family, we are one nation, and when push comes to shove, we will drop everything to take care of each other.
No Israeli has come out of this unscathed, and yet, everyone has kept putting one foot in front of the other in order to help however they can. For example, many people are sharing their homes with the 500,000 Israelis who have become internally displaced refugees. Israeli musicians are visiting survivors and released hostages in the hospitals, singing for them to raise their spirits. Residents near Re’im, where the Nova festival massacre took place, painstakingly recovered abandoned items such as clothing to return to the survivors, the hostages, and the families of the victims. Even survivors themselves are helping, despite their trauma; for example, the Nova massacre exhibit at the Tel Aviv expo was hosted by Nova survivors. The purpose of the exhibit was to raise funds for the mental and physical healthcare of the survivors.
Shockingly, 2000 Haredi Jews with no military experienced volunteered to the IDF in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack. The Haredi exemption from mandatory IDF service has long been a sore spot in Israeli society.
The tremendous sacrifice of Israeli minorities also cannot be overstated. Druze, Bedouin, other Israeli Arabs, and more have come together to support their fellow citizens, despite suffering heavy losses themselves.
The Jews in the Diaspora were quick to take action as well. In the first month of the war, American Jews raised on billion dollars in aid money to help Israeli victims and survivors.
Our ancestors once said that “All of Israel is responsible for one another,” and now, I know that this is 100 percent true.
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