To my liberal Jewish friends whom I love dearly:
Our people are used to blood libels. We’ve endured them for millennia. Nothing new there. But something has changed in this generation. Our liberal Jews, Jews whom I respect and admire, many who are my closest relatives, neighbors and friends, now believe these blood libels. That’s a tough pill for me to swallow.
It appears as if the climate today for Jews is similar to that of 1939 in Nazi Germany. But it’s not at all the same if you probe deeper. The Jews in Europe never believed the lies that the Nazis fabricated that we were vermin and subhuman. We understood that everything they promoted stemmed from good old-fashioned antisemitism. We never believed the tropes that the SS manufactured. We knew we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys. Today’s new antisemitism is a lot more insidious, one that is cloaked in a new outfit, fooling our liberal Jews Big Time.
Many Jews believe the lies that are being generated about Israel — that it is committing genocide, that Israelis are colonizers and baby killers. And of course Benjamin Netanyahu is the new Adolf Hitler. One thing that most of my American liberal friends don’t know is that the Israeli government today is a unity government. If Bibi resigned and Ganz or Lapid took over, they would do exactly what Netanyahu is doing. They would go into Gaza and eliminate the Hamas threat and then go into Rafah to finish the job. And the overwhelming majority of Israelis are in favor of doing this. It’s a matter of survival.
At the core of my liberal Jewish friends beat hearts full of compassion. They are good, kind-hearted people. But they are only presented with half a picture of what’s really going on in Israel. If all you hear is CNN and CNBC, and watch TikTok and X videos, it’s no wonder that you believe what you believe.
All you hear all day long is that Israel is a monster. All you see are pictures of dead Palestinian babies and children. Naturally, that can be very demoralizing to watch if you have a heart. But you need to realize that Israel is being demonized.
I’m not here to change minds or to present compelling arguments to sway you otherwise. Maybe another time. What I’m asking you to do is to give Israel, a country that is full of compassionate, fair-minded, kind liberal Jewish people just like yourselves, the benefit of the doubt. Check other news sources, sources that come from Israel directly or from relatives or friends living in Israel. Take what they say into account before making judgments.
Jews need to stand together now. There’s a smear campaign going on that is originated by Hamas and carried on very gleefully by the world press. Don’t buy into it. Open your eyes and ears to other sources of information. Do your due diligence. You are open-minded people, so be open- minded. Don’t believe the lies that are being perpetuated by the media. That the Jew haters believe those lies is no surprise. But that Jews are buying into them is very disturbing. So before you take them at their word, please do some fact-checking. You owe that to your family who loves you and holds you dear.
Am Yisrael Chai!
