Misguided Support Of Hamas Is Increasing Antisemitism Among Westerners

Imagine your home country being surrounded on every border by nations, groups, and organizations whose main goal is the annihilation of your government, you, and your family – based solely on your race and religion. 

Your people have struggled since the time of the Old Testament to establish a lasting home in the land of your ancestors. After a wait of thousands of years and the genocide of millions of your people, you and your family finally settle in this land and are legitimized as a nation on the world stage. 

What follows are multiple wars, instigated by those bent on your destruction. Through all of it, you emerge victorious and set about to live peaceful lives with your brethren and neighbors in this land. 

Yet despite that tenuous peace, you must remain vigilant, because you know that at any moment those who despise you may strike again. This is the daily reality for Israelis. Their enemies are always at the gate and despite their offers of land, economic incentives, and peaceful cohabitation with the Palestinians, their magnanimity has been met yet again with violence. 

On 9/11, Americans experienced terror that we previously only viewed from afar – a type of warfare we considered limited to faraway lands came to our door. Our nation did not hesitate to respond with overwhelming force against those responsible, as it should. Every nation has the right and duty to defend itself from attacks that it did not instigate. 

The terror visited upon Israel by Hamas was horrific and unjustified in every sense. The rape, torture, hostage-taking, and murder of innocents demands a commanding and swift response. Make no mistake, Hamas and other terrorist organizations are funded and supported by governments opposed to the existence of Israel and the United States. 

Hamas is known to use their own people as human shields.  The accuracy of Hamas’s casualty reports is, and should be, widely questioned as a method of spreading false information in order to gain sympathy from the public around the world. 

More Jews were killed in the Hamas attack than in any event since the Holocaust. Most Israelis know someone who was killed over the last few weeks in the Hamas attack on Israel. Yet, instead of having time to mourn their losses, they and Jews around the world find themselves in the unfortunately historically familiar position of having to defend their right to exist and offer proof of the horrendous acts perpetrated on their people. 

Why, if Hamas sympathizers and pro-Palestinian groups are simply protesting the retaliatory actions of the Israeli government or the Palestinian position of claim to Israeli land, is antisemitism on the rise at alarming rates throughout the world? One need look no further than American University campus demonstrations or the streets of Houston, London, DC, and New York to substantiate that reality. 

Academic studies identify eight steps on the path that ultimately results in genocide. Hamas has shown that it is primed to execute genocide on Jews.  Western supporters of “Palestine” have quickly moved through the first two steps to the third, “dehumanization.” 

Activists shouting for a “free Palestine” deny the humanity of Jews by associating them with inherent societal ills, thereby resigning them to a subhuman category deserving of violence or extinction.

These protestors and activists are quickly escalating to step four - “organization.” Genocides are always organized – whether by states, militias, or hate groups. Protestors of Israel are not, in this instance, merely expressing their displeasure. They are actively organizing hate groups to denigrate and attack Jews in Israel and around the world, and they are not subtle in expressing this goal. 

All loss of innocent life is devastating. Issuing any statement of support of blatant terrorist activity will only perpetuate the loss of those lives. For Americans and any others who desire to preserve democracy and prevent devastating attacks and future genocides, our time is now. The moment upon which history and our children will judge our actions is upon us. 

This is our “never again.” We must stand to promote peace and defeat antisemitism and terror in all its forms.

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