Last month, as rocket fire from Gaza began raining down on the Israeli civilian population, social media memes, insults, horribly antisemitic statements and even blood libel on the cover of The New York Times began raining on the world’s Jewish population. The only difference was that Hamas’ rockets largely stopped as the IDF fought back. The onslaught on Jews on social and traditional media has turned from a trickle of rude statements into a waterfall of anti-Jewish hate.

Now, Jews know that hate needs to be fought, in every generation. We have been here before. The question is how, and with what tools.

We’ve been approached in recent weeks about how the average Jewish Link reader might respond to the shocking onslaught of hateful statements and outright lies about Jews, Judaism and Israel. And you know what? It’s a really good question. Is it possible to overcome outright, bald-faced lies with facts? Is it even possible to respond to people sensically when they are spewing hate? Will our views even be heard? What if there is a kernel of truth in a hateful statement, and that truth has then been twisted or morphed into something truly horrific?
For those of us who aren’t embroiled in the fight for Israel’s existence every day, our facts and history might be rusty. Perhaps we all could use a refresher.

We turned to an organization that knows about the Middle East, and it fights to share truths, devoid of opinion, every single day.

We are pleased to offer as a new feature in The Jewish Link a message each week from FLAME: Facts and Logic About the Middle East. For over 25 years, FLAME brought the truth about Israel and the Middle East conflict to the attention of an American public that is mostly uninformed and misinformed about these matters. The media—both print and broadcast—are, today, with few exceptions, biased against Israel. FLAME‘s purpose is to provide “the research and publication of the facts regarding developments in the Middle East and exposing false propaganda that might harm the interests of the United States and its allies in that area of the world.”

FLAME’s goal is to acquaint the American public with the truth about Israel, the enormous pressures to which the Jewish state is subject, and the great dangers—existential dangers—it would face if it were to yield to these pressures.

We at The Jewish Link are proud to present FLAME’s feature each week, this week on page 70. We invite you to study it, acquaint or reacquaint yourself with the facts and use them to fight for the truth.