On January 19, 2025, three young Israeli women who were held in captivity in Gaza for 471 days were released in exchange for 90 Palestinian Arabs held in Israel. Among those Arabs were Khalida Jarrar, a convicted member of the Palestinian terrorist group, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who was involved in several plane hijackings; Nawal Abed Fatiha, who stabbed a 70-year-old Israeli man in a 2020 attack in Jerusalem; and Ibrahim Zamar, who shot two people near the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in 2023.
The gross inequality of the exchange in QUANTITY (but not quality) raised the eyebrows of the media, questioning the thirty-to-one ratio of people, while ignoring the equivalization of civilian women torn from their homes to convicted terrorists.
New York Times noting the “uneven exchange” of numbers while minimizing the qualitative difference of civilians for terrorists
But that is the story of the Middle East.
The Jewish State, is a liberal democracy which is roughly 76% Jewish, with 7.2 million Jews. It sits amongst 450 million Muslims in its immediate vicinity (about 62 times as many Muslims as Jews), in countries which are autocracies and almost completely Islamic. Just past those neighbors are another 500 million Muslims, some of whom have called Israel a “cancer” which must be removed from the planet.
The Israeli women who were freed – Romi Gonen (24), Doron Steinbrecher (31) and Emily Damari (28) – were simply living their lives when an estimated 3,000 Palestinian Arabs from Gaza stormed into Israel, killing their friends, family and pets, and then abducted them. That is in sharp contrast to the Palestinian Arab terrorists released by Israel who were waging a war of ethnic cleansing to rid the region of Jews when they were taken prisoners.
The media’s framing of the story whitewashes the difference in the nature of the exchange of innocents for criminals, asserting that they were just “accused of terrorism.” It calls out the numerical difference as rational, even while it vilifies Israel for the difference in the number of dead in the Hamas-initiated war.
New York Times describing Palestinian prisoners as simply “accused of terrorism”
The qualitative symbol of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is Neta Sorek, a Jewish feminist peace activist slaughtered by Palestinian terrorists as she walked in a forest in 2010. The quantitative symbol of the broader Jewish-Muslim Conflict in the Middle East is the grossly uneven exchange of 2025.
President Donald Trump once again turned to the Orthodox community to give a benediction on behalf of American Jewry at his inauguration. Yesterday, it was Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, President of Yeshiva University, a modern Orthodox institution. At his last inauguration in 2017, Trump called upon Rabbi Haskel Lookstein who had overseen the conversion of his daughter Ivanka, leader of Kehilat Jeshurun, a modern Orthodox synagogue in New York City, and Head of the Ramaz School, a modern Orthodox K-12 school. Liberal alumni of Ramaz objected to Rabbi Lookstein participating in the inauguration so the rabbi backed out, and was replaced by Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, also an Orthodox rabbi.
Trump’s selection of Orthodox rabbis stands in sharp contrast to every other president who chose non-Orthodox rabbis. In 2021, during Joe Biden’s inauguration at the height of the pandemic in a virtual ceremony, Sharon Brous of IKAR in Los Angeles and Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York City spoke. The two female rabbis are on the far-left of the religious and political spectrum, with the latter being married to Randi Weingarten, the powerful far-left leader of the American Federation of Teachers which only backs Democratic politicians.
The divide between Orthodox and non-Orthodox streams of Judaism is now beyond the confines of keeping kosher and Shabbat observance. There is a clear divide politically and about Israel as well.
According to a May 2021 Pew Research poll, Orthodox Jews preferences for the Republican and Democratic parties were 75% and 20%, respectively. Conservative and Reform Jews tilted towards the Democratic Party by a mirrored amount. An incredible 81% of Orthodox Jews approved of Trump’s job performance, while a similar percentage of non-Orthodox Jews disapproved of Trump’s performance.
These sentiments are echoed in the divide in the Jewish communities’ feelings about a range of issues including Israel and the treatment of American Jews. The majority of Orthodox Jews approved Trump’s handling of immigration, the environment, Israel and his treatment of Jews in the United States, while non-Orthodox Jews were much more split.
These polls were taken well before the October 7, 2023 massacre by Palestinian Arab terrorists of civilians in Israel, and the horrifying cheers of jubilation from the socialist-jihadi alliance on American campuses and in Congress. Since then, even Conservative Jews have begun to migrate towards the Republican Party (now almost one-half from just over one-quarter 3.5 years ago), while Reform and unaffiliated Jews remain entrenched with Democrats, according to an October 2024 poll by the Manhattan Institute.
It should not come as a surprise to see Trump invite an Orthodox rabbi to Washington, D.C., even while they make up a small percentage of Jews in America. It will be interesting to see if the Jewish Conservative movement continues to shift away from the Democratic Party and become a fixture in Washington during the Trump Administration.
As the ceasefire between Palestinian terrorists and Israel begins today, the 2.2 million stateless Arabs (SAPs) in Gaza are clamoring for support. They seek to return to homes and rebuild neighborhoods. They seek food, clean water, and medications that were difficult to obtain when Arab gangs looted supplies during the war.
The United Nations has long maintained that its agency, UNRWA, is the sole group that can address the needs as a humanitarian organization with established operations in the strip for decades.
But UNRWA’s mission is NOT to care for Gazans but only a subset of them; those who are descendants of Arabs who left Israel in 1948. The SAPs who are descendants of people who have long-lived in Gaza (whose grandparents didn’t move there in 1948) are not entitled to UNRWA’s largess.
Do non-“refugees descendants” have to stay hungry? Do they have to pay to rebuild their homes while they watch their neighbors’ houses get rebuilt with global donations? Will aid organizations build houses only for “refugee descendants” and leave other Gaza residents to fend for themselves?
Around 73% of Gazans are entitled to services from UNRWA, according to UNRWA in December 2020. Is the United Nations planning on ignoring the needs of the other 27%? Had UNRWA’s Gazan wards only accounted for 10% of the population, would the situation be different whereby the UN would not profess unique capabilities and not attempt to swoop in to address all of Gaza?
The UN has deliberately deceived the world to imagining that all Gazans – indeed all Palestinians – are refugees, entitled to global support. It uses “Palestinians”, “refugees” and “Gazans” interchangeably, in an attempt to continue to expand and extend its mandate, even though it was always conceived as a temporary agency with finite tasks. At this moment in time, it is advancing a power grab despite its gross and institutionalized failures.
UNRWA has long abused its mandate, and this is a moment to allow a different organization to address the humanitarian needs of ALL Gazans, not just UNRWA wards, and permanently shut down UNRWA in Gaza. Whichever group assumes governance of Gaza – perhaps a Palestinian Authority stripped of all members of Hamas in its parliament – should assume control of reconstruction efforts.
The signing of a ceasefire agreement in January 2025 must have been welcomed news for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Over the past fifteen months, it has watched its various proxies in the region get decimated.
Hamas’s leadership was killed and a majority of its fighters killed, injured, or captured, while Gaza has been largely destroyed.
Hezbollah’s military was soundly defeated, its leader killed, and a new non-Hezbollah aligned Lebanese president was elected.
Syria’s Iranian-backed government was routed, and the country’s armaments were destroyed.
And Iran’s defensive capabilities were eliminated by Israeli attacks, after Iran launched hundreds of missiles at Israel which caused little damage.
Over the course of the Iranian Proxies – Israel War which started on October 7, 2023, Iran went from being a regional power to an impotent joke. The ceasefire was really a call for the “mercy rule” in which one party was so decisively decimating the counterparty that third parties jumped in to save the stubborn vanquished from complete annihilation.
And yet.
The delusion of unique heavenly blessings have deeply intoxicated and blinded radical Islamic jihadi rulers. The chief cleric of Iran, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei praised the resistance of the Palestinian people” and defeat of the “Zionist regime” upon the announcement of the ceasefire. He fashions himself “leader of the Islamic Revolution,” not just in Iran but around the world, to defeat infidels everywhere.
Much like Monty Python’s delusional defeated Black Knight in the film Holy Grail, the deranged leader cannot admit his utter defeat, and yells as the world passes by.
The lunatic had company.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards said “The end of the war and the imposition of a ceasefire… is a clear victory and a great victory for Palestine and a bigger defeat for the monstrous Zionist regime.”
Hamas’s Khalil al-Hayya said “The ceasefire agreement is the result of the legendary steadfastness of our great Palestinian people and our valiant resistance in the Gaza Strip over the course of more than 15 month. The agreement to halt the aggression on Gaza is an achievement for our people, our resistance, our nation, and the free people of the world. It marks a pivotal stage in the ongoing struggle against the enemy, paving the way toward achieving our people’s goals of liberation and return.”
The Palestine Chronicle tried to rewrite history that there were “Global celebrations” for the “Victory of the Resistance.”
In the United States, Nerdeen Kiswani, the leader of Within Our Lifetime wrote on X that “Gaza has won, Palestine has won, resistance has won. Imperialism and Zionism has lost,” and then threatened the United States.
There is no negotiation possible with such lunacy. It is probable that the Iranian nuclear program must be destroyed with impunity rather than dismantled with discussions in the global community.
The sad truth is that radical jihadists who despise Jews are in the majority of the Middle East, as shown in repeated ADL polls. Coexistence will only be a reality under the “wings of democracy,” with jihadi groups and countries stripped of weaponry and capabilities to destroy religious pluralism.
The interactions of political opponents have gotten frostier through the years, as bipartisanship has been cast as evil. That dynamic is playing out amongst the spouses of politicians as well.
The New York Times chose to reframe that issue as really being about its perception of Republican racism.
Two particular incidents unfolded in Washington, D.C. in January 2025, as a new president and Congress were being sworn in. One included a Democratic Black female political spouse disrespecting a Republican White male politician, and the other had the mirror image of a Republican White male political spouse disrespecting a Democratic Black female politician.
The stories were covered under the Times’ theme of White male Republicans being racists.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama issued a press release that she would not attend the inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20. Her actions were rationalized that she believed that Trump was sexist and racist, who was scared of educated, hard-working, successful Black people. There was no Times commentary that many people criticized her snubbing of Trump.
The Times used very different language when it wrote about Sen. Deb Fischer’s (R-NE) husband not shaking the hand of Vice President Kamala Harris during a swearing in ceremony. It cast Harris as doing her job in difficult circumstances while being disrespected by a White man. The Times wrote about the criticism online of the snubbing, calling the White male Republican’s actions racist and sexist.
As politics become more polarized, The New York Times fans the flames of division that its readers are the resistance against racist and sexist White male Republicans. It is crafting a bleak world that is no longer about policy differences and compromise, but a battle between good and evil.
And it is doing so in the aftermath of an election that saw more minorities vote Republican – with a Black female presidential nominee! – than ever before, seemingly marketing itself to a rapidly shrinking audience.
The Times is not just airing left-wing biased reporting but attempting to become the vanguard of progressive causes built on a foundation of smears and apologies for the woke-christened evil and noble, respectively.
On the heels of such actions in the international arena, Hamas’s normalization of mass-scale atrocities and rank antisemitic genocidal aspirations must be forever quashed in the holy land. Therefore, the United States should greenlight Israel’s development of the area known as “E1” just east of Jerusalem, all the way until the town of Ma’ale Adumim.
The region has gone through many paradigm shifts since the end of the Ottoman Empire. The October 7, 2023 massacre by thousands of Palestinian Arab terrorists, the support for the terrorists, their aims, and their continued insistence on perpetuating the war by not surrendering the hostages is another reminder that the end of the conflict will require the decimation of the terrorists and guardrails against an ability to accomplish their objectives.
The “Al Aqsa Flood’ in which the genocidal jihadists sought to ethnically cleanse Jews from their holiest city could be extinguished with the building of homes throughout E1, protecting Jerusalem from malevolent actors.
Jerusalem as seen from Hebrew University (photo: First One Through)
There is probably no greater example of a failed state in the world today than Syria.
A bloody civil war killed an estimated 600,000 people and displaced many millions internally and around the world. Headed by a ruthless leader who gassed his own people, backed by a leading state sponsor of terror in Iran, the Syrian government fell quickly to a US-designated terrorist organization, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). In its wake (and before), many actors took over swaths of Syria.
The United Nations Security Council met to address the failed Syrian state on January 8, 2025, to consider how to stabilize the situation.
Geir O. Pedersen, Special Envoy of the U.N. Secretary-General for Syria, spoke to the committee about the various parties who are operating in Syria beyond HTS including: the Syrian Democratic Forces and YPG, a US-backed Kurdish militant group, who operate in the northeast; the government of Turkey which has taken over much of northeast Syria along the border of Turkey; a U.S.-led coalition which is fighting ISIL in the northwest; and Israel which has been taking out military sites and chemical weapons in the south.
During his review of the situation, Pedersen only cast Israel as a bad actor, both in “violating the 1974 disengagement agreement,” (with a government that no longer exists), and in “using live ammunition against civilians,” echoing a theme of the U.N. that Israel is seeking a genocide of Arabs in the region.
Tom Fletcher, Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator also addressed the council. He similarly spoke of challenges in Syria and only highlighted Israel as a rogue actor harming civilians.
Tom Fletcher report to UNSC highlighted Israel impacting “civilians, including children”
Other countries weighed in, including Syria, Iran and Russia, which took aim at Israel and the United States. No one mentioned Turkey’s seizing land and killing Kurds in Syria.
Syria at the UNSC points finger at the US and Israel only
Turkey addressed the Council even though it is not a member and leveled attacks against Israel, the Kurdish army and ISIS.
Israel did not address the council.
In a failed state with a terrorist group in charge, many terrorist groups operating openly, and several foreign governments with military personnel fighting in Syria, Israel was the spotlight at the U.N. for harming civilians and children.
In the 1970s, the United Nations was seized with the notion that Zionism is racism. Today it is awash in the belief that Israel is a genocidal state. It will most certainly distract the global body from addressing root causes of instability and death in Syria and beyond.
When President-elect Donald Trump announced that “hell will break out” if Hamas doesn’t return the hostages that it brutally seized from Israel, this site pondered whether the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority and Hamas-affiliated-UNRWA will be targets of the United States. It stands to reason that the media companies and sites of Qatar-owned Al Jazeera and Palestinian run-Wafa should be shut down in the United States under the same principle.
Al Jazeera has long been a mouthpiece of Hamas. Saudi Arabia shut down the media operations in 2017 stating that “the move comes after Al Jazeera promoted the plots of terrorist groups, supported the Houthi militias in Yemen, and tried to break internal ranks with Saudi Arabia by and harming its sovereignty.” Israel decided to shutter AJ’s operations in May 2024, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying “the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel.” Even the Palestinian Authority, perhaps looking to curry favor from the incoming Trump administration, decided last week to shut down Al Jazeera in the West Bank.
Al Jazeera has been fanning the flames of antisemitism in the Muslim world for years, claiming that Jews are “storming” the Al Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem. This is an echo of the Palestinian news site Wafa which continues to attempt to enlist the Muslim world to demand a Jew-free Temple Mount. The New York Times picks up on the propaganda and spreads it to its global liberal readers, cementing the socialist-jihadi alliance.
Even today, Wafa calls all Jews who are in Israel “colonists” who “storm the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque”, just by visiting Judaism’s holiest site, insisting that the only worshipers be Muslim.
It is highly probable that Trump will reverse course of the Biden administration, and ban Al Jazeera from the White House briefings. It will be interesting to see if the ban will cover all U.S. operations, and extend to Palestinian media as well.
President-elect Donald Trump issued a warning to the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas to release the 101 hostages it stole from Israel on October 7, 2023, or “all hell will break out” for them and the region. He would not comment further on what that meant for Hamas or its allies but reiterated that it would be severe.
Below are some thoughts on what actions the Trump administration might take, which fall into two principal categories: military and non-military.
Military
Trump’s first term in office did not see much activity in the way of American forces and action. While he did increase spending for the military over the Obama administration, his actual use of force was targeted and limited to particular strikes, such as the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and missile strikes on Syria for using chemical weapons. It is possible that Trump would order targeted attacks on Hamas operatives as well.
The general argument against this is that Israel has already pulverized Hamas in Gaza and there is little else that the U.S. could do. That is not true.
The United States has several things that Israel doesn’t have: massive bombs; incremental intelligence; and global influence.
At various points of the Hamas-initiated war, the Biden administration withheld some armaments to Israel, fearing it would harm civilians. Those bombs and other tools of warfare could be used against Hamas and its allies. Hezbollah tunnels in Lebanon and Iran’s nuclear program could be eviscerated with advanced weaponry, whether given to and launched by Israel or used by American forces directly.
U.S. intelligence and reach spans beyond the immediate actors. One of Hamas’s leaders, Khaled Mashal lives openly in Qatar, where the US has its largest military base in the Middle East. The Trump administration may give Qatar the option of green-lighting the elimination of Mashal and his associates or watch the US move its over 10,000-person force to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the administration advances the Abraham Accords with a normalization agreement between Israel and KSA.
Non-military
The United States power can bring the world to pressure Hamas through political, economic and judicial actions. This is the opposite approach of the Biden administration and the world which put pressure on Israel to the detriment of the hostages. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted as much that “every time we put pressure on Israel, Hamas backed off from the hostage deal.”
The initiatives start with a simple order: label every government, agency, business or person associated with Hamas a terrorist entity.
The Palestinian Authority‘s parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council, is led by Hamas. The PA would immediately become a designated terrorist group unless it fires every member of Hamas. All members of the PA would be subject to arrest and no organization would be permitted to send material support to the PA. Every US charity that sends money to the PA would lose tax-exempt status and/or be shut down.
The United Nations considers Hamas a legitimate political Palestinian party and its main agency in the region, UNRWA, closely coordinates with Hamas. UNRWA offices in the United States would be closed and the US would push allies to similarly halt funding to UNRWA and close its offices. UNRWA would not only lose all US funding and standing, but possibly the United Nations as well, if the organization continues to legitimize Hamas.
In addition to the “axis of resistance” of the Iranian proxies already on the terrorist list, Qatar and Turkey would be forced to chose between the United States and Hamas. Each would see its economies and regional aspirations quickly collapse should they side with terrorists. Ramifications could include not only moving all US assets out of Qatar to Saudi Arabia, but also supporting Israel and Cyprus to all energy claims in the Mediterranean Sea which Turkey covets.
In the United States, people who provide material support to not just Hamas, but the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA would be committing a criminal act. People would go to jail for up to 20 years or be deported. Entire groups, or perhaps just senior leadership of organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America, Students for Justice in Palestine and others could be impacted, depending on their level of support.
In April 2024, Congress enacted the Hamas and Other Palestinian Terrorist Groups International Financing Prevention Act which requires the executive branch to impose sanctions on foreign states or persons that provide certain types of support to Hamas, and other Palestinian terrorist groups. Trump’s version of “hell” for Hamas supporters will be to not only enforce the will of Congress but to expand its targets by capturing the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA as Hamas affiliates.
Henri Dunant (1828-1910) was a humanitarian who created the International Red Cross in 1863 which helped lead to his selection as the first winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. He is also known (although such mention has been stripped from Wikipedia) for being a strong Christian Zionist, as far back as 1866 when he advocated for “the re-settlement of Palestine by the Jewish people.” His advocacy led Theodore Herzl to invite him to the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897.
The dream of Jews returning to their homeland gathered momentum in the second half of the 19th century, despite the Ottomans making it hard for Jews to move to Palestine. In 1800, Jews made up about 3% of the region of Palestine, growing to 8% by 1882 and nearly 14% by the close of the Ottoman period in 1914.
Jews have moved to the land of Israel in far greater percentages than either Christians or Muslims since 1800
This predated the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when the British government appreciated the Zionist Federation’s appeal to reestablish their national home in Palestine.
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
Despite Zionism being about the GOAL of creating a Jewish national home in Jews’ historic homeland, the term continues to be used decades after the modern State of Israel was established in 1948.
Gil Troy, a historian and author of “The Zionist Ideas,” explained that Zionism has three principle components: that Jews are a nation; that Jews have ties to their particular homeland in the land of Israel; and that Jews have a right to establish a state in that homeland, much like other people have rights to their own country. The first two principles are simple facts while the third is a matter of rights, not aspirations. Such definition makes Zionism an ongoing principle rather than that a mission which was accomplished in 1948.
Pro-Israel books using “Zionist”
The view of Zionism as a relevant reality or historical ideology arises in the national anthem, “Hatikvah”, written in 1877 as the Zionist movement gathered initial momentum.
“As long as within our hearts / The Jewish soul sings, / As long as forward to the East / To Zion, looks the eye / Our hope is not yet lost, / It is two thousand years old, / To be a free people in our land / The land of Zion and Jerusalem”
Today, some object to the lyrics speaking of Israel from a purely Jewish perspective when 25% of the population is not Jewish. Others do not like the fact that it has no religious foundation and only speaks of being “free” in the land. I would add that the text is inherently dated with words like “our HOPE” and “TO BE a free people” when Israel has long been a reality.
Israeli flag at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem (photo: First One Through)
Significantly, discussions around “Zionism” have continued in political fora as if the world is still debating the FORMATION of Israel.
In November 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed Res. 3379 which stated “zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” by lumping it into a category of trespasses including “colonialism and neo-colonialism, foreign occupation, apartheid and racial discrimination.” The resolution was rescinded in 1991 through the efforts of the United States.
Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general and one-time member of Congress once said “Zionism, the ideological undergirding of Israel, is a debatable political philosophy,” making the foundation of the Jewish State a questionable endeavor.
Linda Sarsour, a member of the anti-Israel Democratic Socialists of America said that “nothing is creepier than Zionism,” invoking the old UN resolution that Zionism is a form of racism.
Steve Erlander wrote in The New York Times that “Zionism was never the gentlest of ideologies. The return of the Jewish people to their biblical homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty there have always carried within them the displacement of those already living in the land,” repeating the stale U.N. slander.
Israel’s enemies continue to call it a “Zionist entity”, refusing to mention the name of the country, as if to do so recognizes its existence or right to exist.
The continued use of the word “Zionism” today by anti-Israel agitators is not a theoretical review of Jewish aspirations to return to their homeland in the 19th century and early 20th century, but a concerted effort to demonize and/or destroy Israel today.
For starters, by attempting to define Zionism as a form of racism, people mark Israel as a racist and apartheid state regardless of its actions. While it is the most liberal country in the entire Middle East, if Israel’s underpinning ideology was built on “colonialism” and “racial discrimination,” then its existence is a continuation of the racist ideology, permeated by original sin.
Secondly, if Israel is not viewed as a functioning liberal and democratic reality but merely a vehicle of “Zionism,” its existence entails the continued “displacement of those [Arabs] already living in the land.” When Rep. Rashida Tlaib introduced a resolution in Congress about the “Ongoing Nakba,” she was not discussing 1948 history but a belief in the “ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians for illegal settlements.” She imagines the entire history and ongoing reality of the reestablished Jewish State as a “catastrophe.”
Further, anti-Israel people believe that when JEWS use of the word “Zionism,” it means that the goals of the Jewish State are far from completed. Not only does Israel seek the land east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL/ “West Bank”) and Gaza, but it seeks “Greater Israel” encompassing “the area from the Nile to the Euphrates,” as speakers at the United Nations contend. It means Jews want to see a third Temple built on the Temple Mount in place of the Dome of the Rock.
In short, when anti-Israel people use the term “Zionism,” they are discussing more than a philosophy but an evolving reality. Anti-Israel activists seek a future which resembles 1947 or 1917, when there was no Israel and no international support for a Jewish State. When those same people hear Jews use “Zionism,” they believe that Jews want a future which looks like 2,000-plus years ago, with a Jewish Temple and sprawling Jewish kingdom.
In other words, Zionism is not just a highly charged word for some, but conjures up the perception of ongoing goals as opposed to actual present facts.
The facts are that Israel is the most pluralistic society in the Middle East where Arabs have more rights and a higher standard of living than in neighboring Arab countries. Israel has shown its willingness to SHRINK its borders for peace. Israel has proven that it can create a viable, functioning economy and society, despite regional actors refusing to accept its existence.
The plain truth is that Israel is a model state to be replicated, while cast as a Zionist ideology to be terminated.
Zionism was a dream and Israel exists. The transition was marked in the last line in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, “the realization of the age-old dream – the redemption of Israel.” Israel supporters should acknowledge Israel’s declaration and stop calling themselves “Zionists” as it enables anti-Israel fanatics to whitewash their desire to destroy the Jewish State.
A proud “Zionist” woman at the Celebrate Israel parade in New York City in 2019 (photo: First One Through)
People are pro-Israel, anti-Israel or Israel-ambivalent today. Do not let those who seek the destruction of Israel to hide behind a “debate” about the “political philosophy” of Zionism.
First One Through 