As the old adage goes, the key to a great defense is a good offense. However, when it comes to arguing the case for Israel, Zionists around the world have forgotten about the importance of offense. Because we have been hated and blamed for everything over the last two millennia, we have internalized the idea that we must defend everything about ourselves, including the modern State of Israel. I am about to suggest something appalling, stop defending Israel.
Stop defending Israel and instead go on the offensive.
If you are reading this article, you probably know all the responses needed to justify Israel. You can list everything from the historical record to the legal record, and the religious record to the military one. But let me tell you the dirty secret of this war that we are fighting, and losing, it’s this: None of those arguments matters. None of them.
No matter what Israel does, people hate Israel. That is the status quo. People hate Israel. So much so that they invert our history. They take the darkest parts of our history, and they use it against us.
Genocide? The word was coined for the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. Colonialism? We’ve been shrugging off colonizing entities since, literally, before the time of Jesus. Apartheid is not ours, but we knew dhimmitude in Jerusalem, in shtetls in the Pale of Settlements and in the ghettos in Poland.
Those who use our history against us are not honest brokers. No amount of King David tunnels under Jerusalem or 2,000-plus-year-old religious scrolls in the same language that we use to pray today, or history or legal theory will ever convince people like that that we have a right to Israel. So, stop trying. None of it matters.
Rather than scaring you, this thought should be liberating. If Israel and Israelis have no right to the land, then nobody does. Therefore, stop defending Israel and start attacking everyone else. None of their arguments holds any sway if Israelis cannot lay claim to Israel.
You want to discuss colonialism? Beautiful. Let’s have a deep dive into the geographical explosion that was imperial Islam and the colonialist edifice that is the Dome of the Rock. Fancy a conversation on apartheid? There is nothing more pleasing to the ears than detailing the explicit ways that the Palestinian Authority’s hypothetical state would have rampant anti-Jewish apartheid while also subjugating women and killing gays. You think Israel doesn’t deserve to exist? I know a state like your hypothetical Palestine doesn’t deserve to exist.
Instead of defending Israel and imploring the world to finally agree that Israel has a right to exist, switch to southpaw, cut off the ring and make them go on the defensive. Stop playing this game by their rules. Stop fighting battles on the ground of their choosing. Have pride in your Jewish and Israeli history; do that by learning everyone else’s history.
Why don’t I feel the need to defend Israel? Because I know how terrible Lord Jeffrey Amherst was to Native Americans. I also know that slaves were taken on the Trail of Tears, and how Africans were kidnapped from inland Africa and taken across the Atlantic Ocean in the first place.
How about the way those fancy stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar were built through the efforts of forced laborers?
It is great to know that Hernán Cortes slaughtered the Aztecs, but it is even more interesting to think about how the Aztecs used the Tlaxcalans for their human sacrifices. Let’s talk about how the Chinese have imprisoned Uyghurs in concentration camps and how the Japanese were, somehow, as evil as the Nazis in World War II. How many Zionists know about Imperial Japan’s Unit 731 and the horrors Shiro Ishii committed on its prisoners during World War II?
With all that knowledge, why does anybody feel the need to defend Israel? No. Before we get to Israel, let’s talk about your country first. Let’s talk about your people and your culture. There is no crusade in Jewish history. There is no jihad. Islam started in Arabia and then spread to Jerusalem where it retconned Judaism, as well as Christianity, which previously retconned Judaism.
So, no. No more defending Israel. Israel does not need to be defended. Stop losing this war because you fight where our enemies want. Fight on new terms. Fight offensively.
Jake Donnelly is a former sports broadcaster and American-Israeli citizen who works in the Jewish nonprofit world with the goal of fixing the broken Jewish activism system.
