Mark Treinkman has felt compelled to advocate for support of Israel in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks and kidnappings by Hamas-led militant groups.
ATHENS-To consider the proposals in Ramsey Demeter's letter, a responsible, honest, and objective reader must be willing to put in the work to contemplate the most complex geopolitical issue of our time (and possibly of all time).
As a Jewish American Zionist with friends and family in Israel and deep spiritual ties to the region, I find that most often the proponents of an arms embargo lack the required knowledge and context to make informed statements and decisions that would actually work in service of the Palestinian cause.
As is usually the case with such arguments, Mr. Demeter's opinions are emotionally formed from poorly sourced information.
That is not to say Mr. Demeter is ill-intentioned. A desire for peace and an end to this war is a yearning every Zionist I know shares.
However, using the words "by any means necessary" - a common antisemitic taunt frequently chanted at pro-Palestinian rallies that causes Jews to shudder in fear - is not the way to get there.
If one truly favors an end to the immediate and wider conflict, it's necessary to accept that an arms embargo will have the opposite effect of the intended consequences.
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Israel is on the front line of a war with extremist jihadists who seek Islamic subjugation and the destruction of Western-style society. It is a war Israel cannot lose, because doing so means the end of her existence, which is indeed a stated goal of terror groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, under direction of their benefactor, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Denying the world's only Jewish state the means to defend itself while surrounded by a sea of hostile Muslim-majority countries would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe many times worse than what we are currently witnessing.
If you don't see Oct. 7 as an indication of the intention of Israel's enemies, nothing will convince you. Not the thousands of rockets fired from Hezbollah on Israel's northern border meant to provoke a multi-front war. Not the massive attack by Iran in April directed at civilian targets. And not the murder of 12 Arab children from Israel's well-integrated Druze community while playing soccer last month.
All of which the pro-Palestinian crowd conveniently fail to protest or condemn.
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The descendants of the Arab-Muslim refugees who fled present-day Israel deserve our help, hope, and sympathy.
But in order to do so, we must be honest about the history of the region, the misinformation campaign launched by a modern axis of evil, the events immediately preceding the ongoing war in Gaza, and the reality of a populous, vibrant, and established democracy that exists in the land.
In service of the Palestinian cause, do acknowledge:
• Jewish settlement of the region predates Arab conquest and has been undeniably proven by a myriad of archaeological evidence.
• There has been a consistent and unbroken Jewish presence in Israel since biblical times.
• The Al-Aqsa mosque is built atop the ruins of the Second Temple, the holiest site in Judaism, with security controlled by Israel, yet with restricted Jewish access in order to appease Muslims worldwide, because they consider us dirty.
• In 1947, by order of United Nations resolution, two years after the Holocaust, the world agreed to the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland alongside a Palestinian state, which was promptly rejected by the 22 Arab League member countries who proceeded to start a war by attacking the young nation - and lost.
• To spare their lives, many of the 700,000 Arab refugees created by the war were encouraged to flee by the surrounding Arab and Muslim nations, which anticipated a violent and decisive victory over the Jews which never materialized. Families who stayed now comprise over 20% of the Israeli population, enjoy full rights and citizenship, and overwhelmingly wish to continue living in Israel.
• Referring to the death toll in Gaza as "genocide" - a term of the International Court of Justice with precise legal meaning - an infinite number of times will not make it true. To date, there has been no ruling concluding as such.
On the contrary, the world's foremost military experts in urban warfare are of the opinion that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is in fact the most moral military on the planet and is in the midst of conducting perhaps the single most successful counterterrorism operation in history, with an incredibly low civilian-to-combatant ratio.
• The Palestinian population has ballooned from under a million in 1948 to over 5 million today.
The Palestinian government provides a financial incentive for violent attacks against Israel through its "Pay for Slay" program, which provides a stipend for the families of suicide bombers.
• The group Jewish Voice for Peace is not particularly Jewish, nor for peace. Rather, the name is an intentional misnomer chosen to stoke division and create the illusion of widespread opposition to Israel amongst Jews, when in fact the majority of us support Israel in the war.
Furthermore, the inclusion of Jews in the group does not absolve them of antisemitic actions.
Jews, like all groups of people, have diverse thoughts and beliefs, some of which are antisemitic. If your views require you to "prove" you are not antisemitic due to your alliance with some Jews, it is time to adopt a less-controversial stance.
• The consequence of violent pro-Palestinian rhetoric is felt deeply and widely within the Jewish community, who have experienced a surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes and are on the receiving end of over 60% of all religiously biased offenses, despite being only 2.4% of the American population.
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The quickest way to prevent dialogue between the two sides is to falsely accuse us Jews, Israelis, and Zionists, and our supporters, of being "pro-genocide," denying our connection to the land, or shouting "intifada" and "from the river to the sea[" in our faces.
That only hardens our hearts and cements our view that once again Jews are the world's scapegoat and that a modern-day blood libel is being espoused by an extremist, fanatical, American-flag burning mob.
Mr. Demeter, Israel is far from perfect. But when your political views align with those of radical Islamic fundamentalists and not with a democratic ally of the United States, where freedom for women, LGBTQ people, and people of all faiths and ethnicities is woven into the fabric of society, perhaps it is time to start getting your news from somewhere other than TikTok. Or did you say it was Instagram?
And if you do, you will come to realize that by removing Hamas, it is Israel alone that is actually working to free Palestine.
This Voices Response was submitted to The Commons.
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