Why do you care? You're not Jewish?

This is why

Very little has shaken me in my often turbulent life more than the past 11 months since that horrible day in October. Nothing can prepare you for the feelings of betrayal of witnessing lifelong friends, who you believed shared the same values as you, suddenly start cheering for a genocidal terrorist group. I went to an event recently where a large group of my ‘friends’ were, and it became glaringly obvious that some were avoiding me, unable to look me in the eye – and to be honest I felt the same way.

Since the horrific events of October 7, I have felt compelled to speak out. Regardless of the history of the conflict, of who was there first, of what really started it, endless noise and indignation – there is absolutely no justification for the personalised brutality, sexual violence, and pure unadulterated joy that the murderers took while they slaughtered any living thing in their way. Elderly, children, babies, families, pregnant women, dogs, it mattered not – Hamas militants and Palestinian civilians were not there to try and get land back, they were there to kill Jews – as many as they possibly could. It bears mentioning that 71 foreign nationals from all over the globe who happened to be in Israel were slaughtered too – I guess you could call them ‘jewstitutes’.

“But why do you care? Your not Jewish?” No Im not Jewish, but I am a human being that is unwilling to stay quiet when I see gross injustice in the world.

The first sign that I was missing some key piece of information was when I inadvertently joined a facebook post conversation involving a group of women that I had known for more than two decades. These were women had proudly marched at the ‘Me too’ protests, and were vocal advocates for women’s rights. They were lamenting the plight of the Palestinians, and I made the ‘mistake’ of mentioning the horrific events of October 7. I was met with a barrage of self-righteous anger and abuse, and aggressive denial that there was any rape or sexual violence of Israeli women that took place. I was beyond shocked. I even had a DM from a woman I barely knew condescendingly telling me that although I’m not a bad person, I am horribly uneducated, and if I was only a bit smarter I would realise that Israel deserved to be slaughtered, raped and abducted (well it didn’t go exactly like that, but it may as well have).

So I have taken it upon myself to research the history. As much as someone can who lives thousands of miles away. I have read books by Palestinians, by Muslims, listened to Podcasts by Geopolitical experts, by experts on Urban Warfare, watched documentaries on the Intifadas, read United Nations reports and read about the history of the region, listened to Israeli politicians, audiobooks by former Jihadists, peacemakers and more. But here is the tea – nothing that I have learned has so far convinced me that the unfathomably cruel and evil slaughter perpetrated on Israelis on October 7 was justified.

At this point I must add the compulsory caveat that of course I mourn for the loss of innocent ‘Palestinian’ lives. But I place the responsibility of their deaths firmly in the hands of the extremist Islamists who have purposely withheld the hostages, hid like cowards behind civilians, and in schools and hospitals, and scampered like rats into the network of tunnels under Gaza, while the civilians of Gaza suffered. Collateral damage does not equal murdering in cold blood for sport. Not now, not ever.

And with that knowledge comes responsibility. I refuse to stay silent. I refuse to be complicit in the passive participation of the suffering of Jews. I can’t do much, but I can use my voice, as small as it may be to speak the truth. There is no use after the fact in saying “I was with you all along.” I will not look the other way while protestors wave the flags of Islamic Jihad, or call for the annihilation of the Jewish Sate, or tear down posters of babies that have been abducted from their homes. I will not stay quiet when influencers equate Zionism with Nazism, when they tell their huge audience ‘not to talk to Zios’, or to blockade Israeli products. I will not be a bystander and watch while facts are twisted and perverted to demonise Israel, God knows they have suffered enough. Israel is facing an existential threat from an extremist genocidal ideology that may start with the Jews – but it never ends with them.

You see friends come and go. People move in and out of your life all the time, but I need to be able to live with myself. I need to know that when evil infiltrated the hearts and minds of vulnerable youths in school campuses, weak politicians who knew the danger but were scared of losing votes and ‘well meaning’ idiots who were too lazy to look past the lies and propaganda that they ate up without a second of thought or doubt – that I stood up for what I believed in. I can afford to lose friends. I will not lose myself.