Earlier this year, the issue of Sheikh Jarrah gripped the headlines as false pretenses inflamed explosive conflict, not just in Israel, but abroad. This was not a conflict as we tend to know conflicts. This was a one-sided attack consisting of one side relentlessly attacking the other, and the other defending itself. The world believed the conflict was about Palestinian tenants facing eviction, but that was never the case.
Israel’s 2021 war with Hamas was a culmination of a multi-pronged assault on Israel that has damaging effects that are being felt right now. From politicians to journalists to social media influencers to late-night talk show hosts, disinformation about Israel spread like wildfire with scarce water to put it out.
The disinformation has not ended, and neither have the attacks. In less than one month span, two separate attacks on Jews in Jerusalem have taken place. November 21st, a South African immigrant named Eliyahu David Kay was shot and killed in Jerusalem by a Hamas gunman. The murderer was able to injure four others before being killed by Israeli police. Not three weeks later, an Israeli woman named Moriah Cohen was stabbed in the back in Jerusalem while walking with her five young children. She was stabbed by a 14-year-old Palestinian girl.
Jews’ blood is being spilled on their most holy of cities, and not only has the worldwide response been inaudible, but activists have also ramped up their Jew-hatred. Executive Director of the San Francisco Bay Area Council of Arab Islamic Relations (CAIR), Zahra Billoo gave an anti-peace speech as she was clear and concise in labeling her enemies. In her speech, she says:
"We need to pay attention to the Anti-Defamation League. We need to pay attention to the Jewish Federation. We need to pay attention to the Zionist synagogues. We need to pay attention to the Hillel chapters on our campuses because just because they are your friends today, doesn't mean that they have your back when it comes to human rights.
"So oppose the vehement fascist, but oppose the polite Zionist too. They are not your friends. They will not be there for you when you need them. They will take your friendship and throw your Palestinian brothers and sisters under the bus. Oh! You get along because you are all in Girl Scouts together? Talk to them about what is happening in Palestine, and see how that conversation goes.”
Billoo went on to list anyone who advocates for a two-state solution as an enemy as well. Therefore, according to Billoo, the agenda should be to erase all of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Billoo also continued the 50+ year-long campaign of Palestinian exploitation of the Black community stating, “the police officers in the United States who kill unarmed Black men, women, and children, are trained by the Israeli military.” This is a blood libel against Israel and Jews, and a complete distortion of Israel’s role in training law enforcement from around the world in counterterrorism.
Huwaida Arraf, a congressional candidate in Detroit, Michigan, is the most recent one to echo Billoo’s sentiments. In a recent speech, Arraf stated that she opposed any talks of peace or a two-state solution with Israel, but was more interested in “dismantling colonialism and apartheid policies.” This echoes a friend of Arraf’s named Linda Sarsour who tweeted that American Muslims should not ‘humanize’ Israelis. Like Sarsour, Arraf has tweeted on multiple occasions that Zionism is built on “Jewish Supremacy.” One can only assume that by colonialism and apartheid, Arraf is not referring to Arab colonialism of North Africa, or apartheid policies being practiced on Christians and Black Africans in Mauritania. In fact, we can be certain of this given her history of opposing Israel’s existence. It was Arraf who organized a flotilla of ships to the Gaza Strip and was the lawyer for a Palestinian terrorist who murdered two Jewish teens.
All this is happening while willing, anti-Israel pawns are engaging in a high-stakes trolling game. This includes making wildly fallacious claims like Jesus, born in Israel and from the tribe of Judah, was somehow a Palestinian, even though there was no area named Palestine in all of His lifetime. While those types of distortions of Jewish history may seem silly to some, they are part of a broader, deadly effort to delegitimize the Jewish state of Israel.
None of this is happening in a vacuum and it would be unwise to pretend as though it is. All of this is by design and a part of a long-term strategy against Jews and the Jewish state that dates back to the 1960s. Beginning in 1969, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat, successfully convinced much of the world that he was a freedom fighter for Palestinian human rights. His campaign was diabolically genius considering he constantly trampled on the human rights of Israelis and Palestinians, and was not even Palestinian himself. Arafat was born and raised in Egypt and trained by the Soviet Union’s KGB. The PLO itself is a KGB invention started in 1964.
The endgame to this decades-long onslaught against the only Jewish state is to destroy it, along with the US and the rest of the West. In congress ‘the Squad’ continues to grow in number with more members who show no real concern for their constituency and are disproportionately fixated on Israel. And these same people who have no real care for the people they represent in the US, have locked arms with Palestinian leaders who work against the interests of the people they lead. This is why we will not see any condemnation of the recent murder and stabbing of Jews in Jerusalem. The ones who are silent applaud the attacks. The ones who continue to erase Jewish history with lies are happy to see a Jew killed. The ones who continue to push false narratives and half-truths about Israel despite being challenged time and again, know they are wrong. They don’t care. Being correct is not their goal. Peace is not their goal. Coexistence is not their goal.
Their goal is to rid the world of Jews. When we come to terms with this truth, our fight becomes much more effective.