November 1, 2023
Golda Meir said over 50 years ago and her words are no more fitting now, “If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.”
I’d like to think that not all pro-Palestinian supporters are Jew haters.
That they wouldn’t chant “from the river to the sea,” calling for Israel’s annihilation. Or burn Israeli flags. Or attack Jewish students on college campuses. Or hunt Jews coming off a plane at an airport. Or deface property with swastikas. Or call for the extermination of Jews. Or tear down “Bring Them Home” Israeli hostage flyers. Or support a terrorist organization.
You know, the “nicer” ones, who really care about human rights for all people, including Jews. Are there any of those? For the sake of civilization, let's hope so.
Vocal Palestinian supporters spew so many lies about Israel and the Jewish people. If they cared to read a history book from a reliable source, they would learn that it was not Israel that created the Palestinian refugee crisis; it was corrupt Palestinian leadership.
They would learn that Israel is not an apartheid state; there are over two million Arab Israeli citizens living in Israel who have the same rights as Jews. It is actually the Palestinians that have an apartheid territory against Israel. No Jews are allowed in.
They would learn that Israel is not committing genocide on the Palestinian people. Gaza’s population has grown 6X from 350,000 in 1967 to 2.2 million today. If Israel is committing genocide and ethnic cleansing, they’re failing miserably. In contrast, the Jewish population of today is still below pre-Holocaust numbers from 1936.
How did Jew hatred become so mainstream at our universities, social justice movements and in the media? Is it just easier to rewrite history to fit the narrative?
Despite irrefutable evidence, Palestinian supporters on social media are denying what happened on October 7. The terrorists literally live-streamed their crimes for the world to see, yet millions of men, women and children continue to be brainwashed. Students learn history through TikTok. Anti-semitism has been legalized.
Universities have been becoming radicalized for years with Saudi Arabia and Qatar pouring over half a billion dollars into Middle Eastern departments and putting anti-Semitic teachers in place. Educators across the country rewrite history and teach that Jews are oppressors and villains. Social justice movements that liberal Jews supported, like BLM and Women's Rights started shifting their narrative years ago against Israel and socially-conscious Jews were getting pushed out.
It’s documented, although not widely known, that children in Gaza are taught to hate Jews. Palestinian textbooks have math problems that go something like this: “If you kill five Jews and two escape, how many Jews do you have left to kill?” Children’s television shows, run by the official Hamas channel, feature antisemitism, Islamism and anti-Americanism.
For example, on the show Farfour, a Mickey Mouse-like character with a high-pitched voice simulates shooting an AK-47 and throwing grenades. And on Assoud, a rabbit character explains how he will finish off the Jews and eat them. On Pioneers of Tomorrow, children are encouraged to punch Jews and turn their faces into tomatoes in order to liberate Palestine.
Hamas is notorious for indoctrinating children against Israel not only in the classroom and on TV, but also in youth movement summer camps for little terrorists in training. There, the children learn to wear uniforms, shoot guns and are trained in military tactics. This all might sound exaggerated to Americans, but it’s true. (see links at end of article)
It’s not surprising that a culture who teaches hatred is unable to be a partner in peace. The Palestinian leadership offers a monetary reward and an apartment upgrade to Palestinians who kidnap or kill Jews. This is a society that hands out candy and cheers after suicide bombings against Israelis and glorifies terrorism by naming streets and public places after terrorists. It’s hard for westerners to comprehend these things, because it is so anathema to our culture.
To further anti-Israel propaganda, there is also something sardonically referred to as Pallywood. Unlike Hollywood or Bollywood, Pallywood "actors" create short choreographed videos used to win the media war of sympathy. Palestinians have used this public relations stunt to win empathy from the west for years.
Examples since the October 7 massacre include a video of a man in Gaza rushing a baby wrapped in blankets to the hospital after it was apparently wounded by an Israeli attack. Fellow Palestinians assist him. When the “baby” was revealed to be a doll through close-up photos, news outlets like CNN still used it in their footage, perhaps not knowing it was a sham.
Another example was a video of Palestinian women caught applying make-up “gashes” on their faces to look like they were hit by shrapnel and then claiming their injuries were from Israeli war crimes. Yet another was a morgue scene, where “dead bodies” were lined up on the floor shrouded in sheets, (until one of the dead bodies moved to adjust himself).
Perhaps you saw a news clip showing a “wounded” Palestinian man wrapped head to toe in bandages laying in the hospital "due to" an Israeli airstrike. That same man was on social media the next day running around the streets of Gaza without a scrape. This is not to say there aren’t civilian casualties—of course, there are always unwanted casualties in war—but the dishonesty and irresponsible reporting only leads to more hate.
For instance, let’s not forget the headlines that caused outrage across all news outlets when Israel supposedly struck the Al Ahil Arab Hospital in Gaza City last week, and it was immediately reported that 500 innocent civilians were killed. Once it was proven that it was not, in fact, Israel, but Palestinian Islamic Jihad who was responsible, the number miraculously went down to 100. You must understand, all information coming out of Gaza is through Hamas, not a credible source.
While rabbis, reservists and volunteers in Israel have worked around the clock to identify murdered Israelis, they have yet to come up with a final count due to the barbaric mutilation of bodies. Yet Hamas seems to always know instantly how many Palestinians are killed in an attack. How did they know five minutes after the hospital bombing that 500 civilians were killed? Reporters don’t question it. They’re eager to spread word of Israel’s “atrocities” to the world.
Furthermore, a good number of casualties are not innocent civilians, but members of Hamas. Are these civilians the same ones that ran with bloodthirsty glee to mutilate the body of an Israeli hostage dragged through Gaza on October 7?
Palestinian supporters are calling for a cease-fire. Do they realize that there actually was a cease-fire until Hamas broke it on October 7? It is unlikely that the pro-Palestinian mobs bringing hate to the world have ever even been to Israel, because they know absolutely nothing of which they speak.
The reason Israel and Jews worldwide can stand with their heads held high is because they know they are none of the things they are being accused of. No other people has contributed more to the world in proportion to their numbers than the Jewish people.
For the sake of humanity and civilization, it is incumbent upon Palestinian activists and supporters to seek the truth before it’s too late.
If you’ve never heard of Kasim Hafeez, his personal story needs to be told. Kasim grew up in England to Muslim Pakistani parents who were not extremist in any way. They only wished for a good life for themselves and everyone—everyone, that is, except Jews. Despite having never met a Jew, they hated them because of what they’d been told. His father would praise Adolf Hitler. They “knew” that Jews were living on stolen Muslim land, occupiers involved in genocide against the Palestinian people and that Israel was an apartheid country. Their hate was justified. All their Muslim friends believed the same. Hating Israel was a badge of honor.
Kasim grew up and eventually became drawn to radical groups and he embraced anti-Israel and antisemitic ideas. As a student at Nottingham University, he joined the Islamic Society, where, he says, images of death and destruction perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians were regularly screened at meetings. The images were never contextualized or interpreted, serving merely to fuel preexisting hatred.
He became radicalized and prepared to drop out of college and join a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, but fate intervened. Kasim happened to come across Alan Dershowitz’s The Case for Israel in a bookshop. The title itself infuriated him. “I told myself that I would read his arguments, easily refute them, and that would be that.”
But what he read challenged everything he “knew” about Israel and the Jews. Refuting Dershowitz's arguments proved to be difficult for Kasim. Following months of intensive research on the history of Israel and the conflict, he was so emotionally distraught that he had to leave his work and his studies.
He was furious. He had to see how racist and oppressive Israel was with his own eyes to prove Dershowitz wrong and have his previous ideas validated. Kasim travelled to Israel in 2007 to see the reality. But what he saw in Israel had a life changing affect. He describes this in the Israeli newspaper Y-net:
"I did not encounter an apartheid racist state, but rather, quite the opposite. I was confronted by synagogues, mosques and churches, by Jews and Arabs living together, by minorities playing huge parts in all areas of Israeli life, from the military to the judiciary. It was shocking and eye-opening. This wasn't the evil Zionist Israel that I had been told about."
Instead of hate, he saw acceptance and even compassion.
Here are some more Arab voices you need to hear:
Bassem Eid is a Palestinian living in Jerusalem who comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and works as a political analyst for Israeli TV and radio.
Yoseph Haddad is an Arab-Israeli advocacy activist for Israel, journalist, social activist in the Arab-Israeli society, social media influencer and CEO of the 'Together – Vouch for Each Other' association that works to connect the Israeli-Arab society to the broader Israeli society.
Mosab Hassan Yousef (Son of Hamas) is a Palestinian who was born in Ramallah. His father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, was a Hamas leader who spent many years in Israeli prisons. In 1999, Yousef converted to Christianity, and in 2007 he moved to the United States under political asylum.
Mohammad Tawhidi, also known as the Imam of Peace, is an Australian Shia Muslim influencer and self-proclaimed "Imam". He currently serves as the Vice President of the Global Imams Council, headquartered in the Islamic Seminary of Najaf, Iraq.
Khaled Abu Toameh is an Israeli Arab journalist, lecturer and documentary filmmaker. Abu Toameh writes for The Jerusalem Post and for the New York–based Gatestone Institute, where he is a senior distinguished fellow. He is a producer and consultant for NBC News since 1989. His articles have also appeared in numerous newspapers around the world.
Kasim Hafeez is a British citizen of Pakistani heritage. He is a speaker, writer and pro-Israel activist who now lives in Canada.
Links to watch:
https://www.memri.org/tv/children-memorize-and-recite-antisemitic-messages-egyptian-islamist-channel
