O pinion
Truth Is, Israel Has Right to Exist
BY YONI ARI
LAST WEEK DOZENS of
rockets exploded above my head
as I was lying on the asphalt,
face-down, covering my head
with my arms. Less than a mile
away, a rocket smashed down
on a less fortunate Israeli. He
died on the spot as deafening
sirens screamed all around the
city. When you feel the fear, you
truly understand the right of
Israel to defend itself.

I came to Israel two weeks
ago to visit my daughter, who
decided to enlist to the IDF.

She started basic training, and
my plan was to go back to
Philly the following week. My
flight was canceled, and I was
in a war zone.

Fortunately enough, I was
staying north of Tel Aviv. In my
case, I had 90 seconds to get to
the bomb shelter. Others not as
fortunate had only 15 seconds.

I had to get to the bomb shelter
five times with my nephews,
who are only 3 and 5 years old.

To see them wakening up terri-
fied to sirens in the middle of
the night was horrifying.

Ido Avigal was a 5-year-old
Israeli who lived in Sderot.

Eleven days ago, Ido and his
family managed to reach
their bomb shelter within 15
seconds of hearing the sirens,
but it was not enough. The
rocket hit the building next
to his, and shrapnel pierced
through the safe room, killing
Ido, and wounding his mother
and 7-year-old sister.

Over 11 days, the terror
organization Hamas launched
over 4,000 rockets at Israeli
cities and civilians; 4,000
missiles and mortar shells were
sent to kill Israeli civilians,
both Arab and Jewish.

I am not writing these
words to elicit pity. If you know
Israelis you know we are strong
people. Unfortunately, we have
been through worse, and these
attacks only bring us closer
together. I am not writing to
explain the attack in Gaza,
either. Israel is a sovereign state
with a responsibility and moral
obligation to defend its citizens
from attacks and threats.

I am writing these words
because I see so much misin-
formation. People who call
themselves influencers use this
“power” to dehumanize my
fellow Israelis and me. They
try to hide the truth of the
vicious methods and goals of
our attackers.

Yes, the situation in the Gaza
Strip is bad, really bad, not only
during the last few days, but for
many years. The density, the
poverty, the corruption and the
entire way of life are gruesome.

The vicious cycle of fighting
has brought only misery to the
Palestinian people living in Gaza.

With all that being said,
rockets fired into Israel cannot
be white-washed into an act
of righteousness. There is no
justification for blind attempts
to murder civilians. As an
Israeli who has lived through
this conflict, I understand the
pain and despair, but blind
terror cannot be justified.

This is the time for the
Jewish community to come
together and support Israel’s
right to defend itself and to
exist. Last week, more than
200 people came together
to rally for unity and peace
in Israel amid barrages of
rockets fired at Israeli civil-
ians. They marched from the
Philadelphia Museum of Art
to the Holocaust Memorial
Plaza, organized by the Israeli-
American Council in a day. It
began with the distribution of
“Israel is Under Attack” and
“I Stand with Israel” posters,
Israeli flags and stickers. This
week, with the support of so
many organization and 700
people, we stood under the
Israeli flag, standing for Israel
and against antisemitism.

The American-Jewish
community has to actively
counter false information from
social media and mainstream
news. The IAC has tools to
educate all ages about the
conflict, antisemitism and
how to take an active role in
defending Israel.

A week ago, while I was lying
flat on the asphalt trying to
avoid being struck by a rocket,
millions of Israeli citizens
were in shelters. Others, like
Ido Avigal z”l, were killed or
wounded. A lot of loss, suffering
and destruction simultaneously
happened across the border in
the Gaza Strip.

Now, as in the past, I hope
for more peaceful times and a
time where people share more
optimism and opportunities
for us to connect instead of
dehumanizing and promoting
hatred. I hope to see the Jewish
community stand up for Israel
and share the truth without
fear. l
Yoni Ari is regional director of
Philadelphia’s Israeli-American
Council. How Could Rabbinical Students Ignore Israel’s Right to Defend Itself?
BY RABBI EREZ SHERMAN
I WAS AGHAST to read a letter
signed by close to 100 rabbin-
ical students — future leaders
of the Jewish community who
will serve in pulpits, on college
campuses and within Jewish
organizations — which shame-
fully ignores Israel’s right, let
alone duty, to defend her citizens.

16 MAY 27, 2021
As a rabbi who sat in those
houses of study both in New
York and in Jerusalem, it pains
me greatly to see the lack of
support and understanding
of Israel from these students.

I would like to address their
points directly.

You claim that our tears
must be directed to injustices.

But where are your tears for the
millions of Israeli civilians —
Jews, Muslims and Christians
— who have been huddled
in bomb shelters because
a terrorist group has rained
nearly 3,000 rockets on them?
Where are your tears for
the residents of Kibbutz Aza,
Netivot and Sderot, who have
been terrorized by those same
rockets ever since Israel evacu-
ated Gaza more than 15 years
ago? Visit their communities
where for years balloons have
floated over the border for
children to run after, soon to
find out the string was attached
to an explosive to inflict harm.

Instead, you seem embar-
rassed that Israel has been forced
to have an army strong enough
to defend its inhabitants. Here is
the simple truth, quoting Rabbi
David Wolpe, that you blatantly
ignored: “If Hamas stopped
raining rockets on Israel, it
would be over. If Israel stopped
defending and retaliating, it
would be slaughter.”
You ask that when we teach,
we should teach about the
“human beings who didn’t ask
for new neighbors.” For this I ask
you to return to your classrooms
and review the dates of 586 BCE
JEWISH EXPONENT
and 70 CE, when the Jewish
Temples of Jerusalem were
destroyed. Rather than being
a “new neighbor,” the Jewish
presence in Israel is ancient.

Please also review your modern
Israeli history, with momentous
dates of 1929, 1948, 1967, 1973,
1982, 2007, 2009, 2014 and 2021,
when our presence as an ancient
neighbor was not just a nuisance
but a necessary evil to uproot.

And please review the
multiple offers of peace which
were not only rejected without
counteroffers, but were met
with more death and destruc-
tion, bus bombings, stabbings
and other violence against the
Jewish people.

You ask that when we vote,
not to vote for leaders who
fund violence. Please review
once again that it was the
bi-partisanship from both
sides of the aisle that funded
the modern military miracle
of the Iron Dome, which has
saved thousands of lives.

You ask how we as Jews
who were involved with racial
reckoning in our communities
this past year are not using our
voices now to implicate Israel
with racist violence. Racist?
From the one country in the
Middle East that has embraced
more than 100 different nation-
alities and where Muslims have
the most amount of freedom,
rights and educational oppor-
tunities in the region? Where
Israeli Arabs sit on the Supreme
Court and in the government
See Sherman, Page 24
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



O pinion
Jewish Americans Deserve
Hate Crime Protection, Too
BY DOV ZAKHEIM
ON MAY 20, President Joe
Biden signed the COVID-19
Hate Crimes Act, which had
been passed overwhelmingly
by both houses of Congress.

The act was a forceful response
to the disgraceful attacks on
Asian Americans by bigots who
blamed them for the COVID-19
pandemic, which had originated
in China. In passing the act,
members of both parties in the
House and Senate demonstrated
that they can do the right thing,
at least once in a while.

Nothing of the sort appears
to be contemplated in response
to the attacks by Palestinian
sympathizers on Jewish-
American persons, synagogues
and restaurants during and after
the latest Israel-Hamas conflict.

In Los Angeles, pro-Palestinian
attackers threw punches and
bottles at diners at a kosher
sushi restaurant. In New
York’s heavily Jewish Diamond
District, Palestinian supporters
threw fireworks at Jews from a
car amid a violent street alter-
cation. Hamas supporters also
beat a Jewish man in New York’s
Times Square, sending him to
hospital with severe injuries.

They threatened Jewish residents
in a heavily Jewish Miami neigh-
borhood. Video surveillance
at Chicago’s Persian Hebrew
Congregation, which was
defaced by attackers, captured
two people, one carrying a stick
and another holding a sign that
read “Freedom for Palestine.”
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM In each of these cases, and
others, the pro-Palestinian
attackers had no idea whether
their Jewish targets were
supporters of Israel. Indeed,
polls have shown that a majority
of Jewish Americans support the
creation of a Palestinian state
alongside the state of Israel. No
matter. Those who support the
Palestinian cause attacked their
victims merely because they
were Jews. In so doing, they
confirmed that their hatred of
Israel extends to all Jews every-
where, as indeed, Hamas has
made clear in its own charter.

All told, the Anti-Defamation
League has reported at least 200
possible antisemitic incidents in
the United States since the onset
of the fighting between Israel and
Hamas. Nevertheless, despite the
ongoing upsurge in attacks on
Jews, especially against so-called
visible Jews — that is, bearded
Jews who dress in black suits,
or merely Jews who will sport a
small yarmulke or wear a star of
David necklace — the leadership
of the Democratic-controlled
Congress has done little more
than issue sympathetic tweets.

Congress has done virtually
nothing to condemn the attacks,
much less legislate against them.

One reason for Congressional
inaction is that the pro-Pales-
tinian attackers have the support
of the so-called progressive
Democratic Left. Democrats
in the House have a five-seat
majority, while the ultra-Left
“squad,” which is blatantly anti-Is-
rael and pro-Palestinian, now
boasts six members. While U.S.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at
least has tweeted her condemna-
tion of anti-Jewish attacks, several
of her squad colleagues have not
even gone that far. Not surpris-
ingly, therefore, Speaker Nancy
Pelosi cannot afford to alienate
these progressives by pressing for
legislation that would bring into
sharper focus attacks on Jews by
Palestinian sympathizers.

Another reason
for Congressional inaction is that
Democrats are reluctant to criti-
cize some of their own progressive
legislators, even when the likes
of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar issue
blatantly antisemitic tweets.

Indeed, in the aftermath of one
such tweet, the House actually
did consider a draft measure
to condemn antisemitism.

Nevertheless, under pressure from
progressives, the Democratic
House leadership watered the
measure down so that in its final
form it included not only antisem-
itism, but also Islamophobia and
discrimination against Latinos,
Asian Americans, Muslims,
Hindus, Sikhs, Pacific Islanders,
Native Americans, immigrants
and the LGBTQ community. That
the resolution had been rendered
entirely meaningless is evidenced
by the fact that despite its having
included Asian Americans,
Congress recognized the need for
separate legislation geared solely
toward anti-Asian bigotry and
hate crimes.

Democrats are fond of
pointing out the cowardice
of those of their Republican
colleagues, who slavishly support
Donald Trump and all that he
stands for. They are right to do
so. On the other hand, it is high
time that Democrats showed
some courage of their own.

They should put an end to their
own cowardly appeasement of
an increasingly belligerent left,
and finally pass legislation that
would severely punish those who
would verbally and physically
abuse their fellow Americans
simply because they happen to
be Jewish. l
Dov S. Zakheim served as the
undersecretary of defense and
chief financial officer for the
Department of Defense from
2001–2004 and as the deputy
undersecretary of defense from
1985–1987. He is vice chairman of
the Center for the National Interest.

JEWISH EXPONENT
KVETCH ’N’ KVELL
Israel Must Preserve Conditions for Future
Two-State Solution
IN RESPONSE TO Curtis Pontz’s thoughtful op-ed in the May
13 edition, you had me at “Peace a Dream Until Palestinians
Accept Israel’s Legitimacy.” You express confidence “that once
the Palestinians accept the Jewish people’s right to their own
nation, which means agreeing to share the land of Palestine with
the Jews, the great majority of Israeli Jews will fall in line with
Palestinian aspirations for nationhood ...”
For many years, I expressed the same point of view, describing
such acceptance as the Palestinians’ version of former Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat’s transformative trip to Jerusalem in
1977. To be honest, though, today I also worry about Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s often-repeated pledge
that a Palestinian state will never arise so long as he is in power.

His Likud Party, the dominant political force in Israel today, is
officially opposed to Palestinian statehood. Shouldn’t acceptance
of national legitimacy go both ways?
And what of the settlement project, which has relocated
hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews into the heart of the West
Bank (Judea and Samaria)? I am concerned that if the Palestinian
Sadat moment comes — whether next month, or next year, or in
another generation — there will be no land on which Palestinians
will be able to realize their aspirations for nationhood.

That is why I strongly believe Israel would be well served
to preserve the conditions for a future negotiated two-state
outcome. Without a change in its settlement policy, Israel’s
character as a majority Jewish and democratic state is gravely
at risk.

Martin J. Raffel | Langhorne
Hamas’ Goal: Forcing Israel to Respond
No commentator has remarked on the idea that Hamas is
responsible for the deaths in Gaza, but here’s a thought: Hamas
knows that with their first rocket aimed at Israel there will be a
massive response, as Israel has a right to defend itself, and the
only way to stop the Hamas rockets it to retaliate.

If Hamas knows that Israel will respond with aircraft and bombs,
Hamas could choose to refrain from sending rockets to Israel. By
sending rockets, Hamas invites the Israeli aircraft to come to
Gaza. Hamas shares responsibility for the deaths in Gaza. l
David Broida | Bryn Mawr
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