from des moines

6-point test for those who blame only Israel

Posted

Anti-Semitism test:

1. Does the person commenting on the Israeli-Gaza situation insist that only if enough Israelis die first, can Israel justify using force to stop Palestinians trying to kill Israelis.

2. Does the person commenting insist that these are non-violent protests even though militants using explosives and, on multiple occasions, gunfire, have approached the border fence to try to breach it while others throw Molotov cocktails to set people on fire and launch burning kites to set fields on fire?

3. Does the person commenting argue that Israel does not need to stop people pledging to kill any Israelis that they encounter, once they cross the border into Israel, from crossing the border into Israel?

4. Does the person argue that because Israel has fighter jets that it is not allowed to defend its citizens against people who want to blow them up with homemade bombs?

5. Does the person cite the ages of those killed by Israel but offer no criticism of Hamas for involving them in a dangerous violent protest or even encouraging them to endanger their lives by trying to breach the border?

6. Does the person totally ignore the meaning of “March of Return,” which is so named to indicate a desire to invade en masse what organizers claim as Palestinian territory — all of Israel — overwhelming Israeli defenses and destroying the Jewish state?

• • •

Israel has two options — use whatever means is necessary to stop those who want to kill Israeli civilians, or allow them to do so. Israel can either stop them from breaching the border, resulting in deaths only of those involved in the attempt, or, failing that, Israeli soldiers and civilians will face hostile mobs including terrorists charging into their communities and will need to consider all of them an immediate threat. The result would be far more bloodshed and involve far more civilians on both sides.

This is an awful situation, friends, it is. It is horrible that so many people are dying and so many of them too young. But if you simply blame Israel for all of this, you are engaging in unfairly blaming Israel and almost certainly in promoting Jew hatred. And if you are doing so because your news network or media source has portrayed the situation much as I described above, it says quite a lot about your media sources.

David Jay Kaufman is spiritual leader of Temple B’nai Jeshurun (Reform) in Des Moines, and co-founder of We Are Israel (Centrist Advocates for Realistic Peace). Published at Facebook.com/DavidJayKaufman