A Plea For Help

As very few people read this blog, I've decided to send the following message via email to most of the people I know. Please feel free to share it. The days and months ahead will be brutal, and the casualties will be numbing. It is incumbent on every lover of Israel to reach out to as many people as possible, especially those with no direct connection to the situation.

I need your help.

I am sitting in my office here in Israel, 9 days after the barbaric attack on Jewish communities in the south. I am writing to you so that you can share our story. I watch international news and am appalled by what I see. I watch the anti-Israel protests and am sickened. I see the silence of most of corporate America and the grotesque support on college campuses. I see the silence of some of my friends and family.

First, let me tell you what has happened. I am not sure that you understand the full extent of this horror. We do not parade our dead for propaganda purposes as our enemy does. We respect those who have been slaughtered and their families. The next few lines may be hard to read, and I would understand if you were not able to:

1. Entire families were slaughtered in their homes—men, women, children, infants, and the elderly. Israel has now found copies of the Hamas orders to their men, and this is what was planned.

2. Children under the age of 10 had their hands tied behind their back and were shot in the head in front of their parents.

3. Infants were beheaded.

4. Whole families were dismembered, their bodies strewn in the street.

5. Women were raped next to the bodies of their dead friends.

6. A 90-year-old woman who survived the Holocaust was tied up and shot in the head. Her killers then uploaded the murder to her Facebook account so her family could see.

7. Those who managed to go to their safe rooms were burned alive.

I could go on, but I won't. It is too hard to think about, let alone write. 1200 innocent people annihilated with a barbarity not seen in modern times.

Yet when I turn on the news, the majority has shifted to the plight of the Palestinians. Not Hamas, but those stuck in Gaza that Hamas is hiding behind. Trust me when I say no one here relishes the idea of the death of civilians. Unlike the Palestinians' reaction, none of us will be dancing in the street and giving out candy. In fact, the Israeli army has not started a ground invasion precisely because they are trying to save as many Palestinian civilians as possible. Even if you do not have a military background, you can understand that every hour that goes by gives Hamas more time to dig in and will cause the death of more Israeli soldiers. Israel has not invaded Gaza fully, even though they knew Hamas was getting stronger, to avoid civilian casualties. Yet Hamas is telling people not to leave. They are saying that it is a Zionist trick to get them to leave their land, like in 1948. Their real purpose is to show the world the barbarity of the Jews when civilians die. This was the plan from the beginning. This is always the plan with Hamas.

A few facts: Gaza is not occupied territory. Israel moved every troop and settlement out of there in 2005. In 2007, Hamas was elected to run Gaza by the Gazan people. They did this knowing that the Hamas charter calls for the elimination of Israel and all the Jews (for some reason the latter is never mentioned). Some will say that Gaza was in effect occupied because of the strict blockade that Israel imposed. The fact is the blockade was attempted by Israel and Egypt, never Israel alone, another thing never mentioned. It was clearly not effective. If it was, would Hamas have been able to secure all the weapons they have? Would they have been able to build miles and miles of underground tunnels? They could have used this cement to build schools, hospitals, or bomb shelters. Was this done? Some say that they needed to protect themselves. From who? Israel had no intention to reconquer the Gaza Strip. When Israel left, the Palestinians were given a choice. They could build a free society, schools, hospitals, etc., or they could prepare kill Jews to free Palestine because, for them, Palestine is not what is outlined in a two-state solution, Palestine is Israel.

Israel has been accused many times of dealing a heavy hand to the Palestinians by imposing a cruel and inhumane occupation. We have been called Nazis. We have been accused of genocide, apartheid, and war crimes. In fact, the UN Human Rights Commission has only one standing agenda item for a specific country, and that is Israel. Israel is the most inhumane country in the world.

I was once asked by someone why the Jews need their own country; why can't it be for everyone? I asked him if he knew his grandparents. He replied that he did. I told him I never met mine; they were thrown in an oven. The Palestinians have done everything they can to take Jewish national trauma and turn it on its head, but I have never heard of Israeli death camps. I have never heard of the murder of millions of Palestinians. On the contrary, the Palestinian population has grown faster than almost any on earth. If this is what Israeli genocide looks like, we obviously are not good at it.

Yes, the Israeli occupation has been harsh, but unlike the rest of the world, we knew what we were dealing with. In 1929, 1936, and 1948, the Palestinians raped, murdered, beheaded, and mutilated Jews. We knew if given the chance, they would do it again. So after Israeli independence, we made sure it couldn't. We lost part of our humanity to stay alive. The Palestinians have been offered peace on seven occasions, and they have turned it down each time. The last time was in 2008; they were offered more than 95% of the territory taken in 1967 and a capital in East Jerusalem. This was rejected because Israel would not give in on two points. One was the right of return. This calls for all Palestinian refugees to be able to return to their ancestral homeland. Unlike any other refugee group in the world, only Palestinians have generational refugees, sometimes up to the 5th generation. This means that there are currently over 5 million Palestinian refugees when only 700,000 left in 1948. If granted the right of return, Israel would cease to be a Jewish state. Even knowing this, Israel offered, as a symbolic gesture, to have 100,000 Palestinians return.

The second issue is Jerusalem. Sharing Jerusalem was not enough they wanted all of it including west Jerusalem which is entirely Jewish. A few quick facts:

• Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran.

• Jews have been praying to return to Jerusalem for over 2000 years.

• The Koran recognizes that Israel was given to the Jews.

For the Jews, Jerusalem and specifically the Temple Mount are the holiest places on earth. When Israel conquered these areas in 1967, what did they do? Did they bar muslim prayer? Did they build a third temple? No, They prevented Jews from praying there and gave the authority of the Temple Mount to the Muslim Waqf.

What we in Israel know is that the Palestinians will never accept anything less than our destruction. They have said so, poll after poll confirms this. Not a poll of Hamas members, a poll of Palestinians..

I am asking everyone I know to try to help. If you know people who are cheering our raped and dismembered, I hope you can now explain to them why this is not the same as occupation. The idea that anyone would support these heinous crimes is unfathomable, and yet we see this happening all over the world. Join rallies in support of Israel. In the coming months, we will need all the support we can get. When the photos of dead civilians from Gaza and Lebanon (yes, I think that will start soon) start pouring over the media, the pressure on Israel to stop will be relentless. Remind people that Palestinian resistance is only accomplished when every Jew in Israel is dead, and the days of us going like sheep to the slaughter are gone.

This time, Israel will not stop under international pressure. We will continue until Hamas is destroyed because the alternative is that we will be destroyed. We are being given the choice between our children or theirs. A choice that they have thrust upon us. A choice that no one will rejoice in, but we know what we must choose.

If anyone would like to discuss this further (as long as you can civilly) or would like any proof of some of the things I am saying, please let me know. If you think that you know some people who may not truly understand what is going on here, please feel free to share this, and if you feel that you just want to delete this email and move on, I understand. You think it is not your fight. I hope you are smarter and understand that ultimately it will be.