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by: Dr. Bill Adams, BFP Writer
Knowing something of the Israeli people’s pain and longing for peace, my heart yearns to comfort, but also to confront—with truth—the plethora of falsehoods and fabrications Israelis are forced to endure.
I was writing an article aimed at debunking anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slurs crowding the social media platforms. I counterattacked with all the objectivity I could muster against the arrogance of those who posture out of their ignorance and misguided sense of justice.
And yet, while putting the final touches on that article, I realized my factual rebuttal had a fundamental flaw…
Facts don’t persuade; feelings do.
Sobered by that realization, I penned this closing paragraph…
“While the merit of these facts should persuade, they are yet unlikely to sway the ardent activist committed to the false narrative that drives their anti-Israel rants. Armed with the facts, truth-lovers might influence more by confronting with a question…
Why do you want to blame Israel?”
There it is—the poisonous fruit of the anti-Semitic root: An insatiable desire to blame the Jews for the world’s problems. It is as evil and ancient as it is irrational. Anti-Semites feel no particular need for the facts when their feelings create the false reality in which their blame game thrives.
And so, contrary to my nature, I appeal here to the reader’s emotions by exploring the feelings of the peace-loving Israeli people in the hope that how they feel might persuade at least a few hardened hearts where the facts have failed. Consider with me, then…
How does it feel…when your countrymen are massacred and your nation is widely denounced for its decisive and precision military response that is only intended to protect you and your fellow citizens from further harm?
when after momentary sympathy for the mass slaughter of your people, world leaders pivot to condemnation for going “over the top” in defending yourself by (finally) removing a terror threat that no nation on earth would tolerate on its border for 19 years?
when one minute you’re waiting tables in Jerusalem and the next you’re plunged into urban warfare against an ISIS-like enemy that hides behind the women and children you’ll be blamed for harming if you make one mistake?
when as a schoolkid you grew up learning songs to mitigate the trauma of running to your school’s bomb shelter because of incoming missiles from your Hamas neighbors?
that as a girl you survived the Nazis and now as an old woman you wonder if you’ll survive the rocket, mortar and tunneling incursions by Hamas and Hezbollah?
to be a Jewish kid growing up to learn that there is a social hatred so endemic that it warrants its own technical term, “anti-Semitism,” and it’s all about your existence?
How does it feel…to be labeled a colonizing oppressor when you are an indigenous citizen of a law-based, justice-seeking, rights-defending sovereignty that in no way is an “apartheid state” as heinously alleged?
when your business that provides gainful employment with full benefits to Palestinians is boycotted internationally because it operates in so-called “occupied territory?”
that your 4,000-year-old homeland, biblical Judea and Samaria, was renamed the “West Bank” by an illegal occupier, Jordan, and yet the misnomer is used in every media broadcast and every academic lecture hall?
to live in a peaceful and productive Israeli community on land “from the river to the sea” that elitist activists worldwide call “Palestine” and assert “will be free,” and you know that is actually a cry for your annihilation?
when as a young wife you suddenly become a widow as your husband becomes one of the hundreds of IDF soldiers who has made the ultimate sacrifice?
as an 18-year-old soldier who bears the rigors of war, bodily wounds, mental scars, death of friends, privations, fears of ambush and the dark terrors of clearing those endless tunnels?
when you know the way things work in the Middle East—that the Islamist jihad (war with unbelievers) only respects overwhelming force and will exploit any weakness shown through compromise and negotiation—the very thing world leaders demand that you do?
as a military commander to have presidents and pundits across the globe involve themselves in your tactical planning as though they know better how to engage in intense urban warfare while taking extraordinary measures to protect civilians?
that in every “unfiltered” video compilation of October 7 there are still certain atrocities that no one can bear to include, nor even speak about?
when in 2023 your country’s rating dropped from 4th to 5th happiest in the world? What…? With all this, Israelis could feel happy? Oh yes, despite war, and despite being the most misunderstood, maligned, and delegitimized people on the planet, Israelis consistently rank among the happiest people in the world.
Why…? Maybe because they have a God-given sense of their purpose…
Not only to survive, but to live.
Indeed, as the most-aired song of this present conflict eternally declares…
Am Yisrael chai…the people of Israel live!
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