Emma Watson, Sally Rooney, and Roger Waters are only three of a long list of actors, musicians, authors, and artists of every kind and creed rooting for the Palestinians and calling for the boycott of Israel. How come they are all blaming us, Israel? Have we not stretched out our hand to them in peace countless times? Have we not offered to retreat from all the territories occupied in the 1967 Six Day War? Indeed we have. Did it help? No, it didn’t. Would it help if we gave up the land in its entirety? No, it wouldn’t. After all, they butchered Jews in 1921, 1929, 1936, and whenever they could before, in between, and after those dates of riots. What’s more, the Palestinians’ “best friend” was Adolf Hitler.
So why does the world care for the Palestinians and not for us? The answer is simple, yet counterintuitive: The world cares for them and not for us because we don’t care for one another. The world will care about the Jews when the Jews care about each other, and not a moment sooner.
We say that we want peace with the Palestinians, we sing about peace and pray for it, but we are not taking one step closer toward each other. Among ourselves, we are at each other’s throats, fighting for superiority and imbued with a sense of entitlement and righteous indignation against our brethren.
As just stated, we have tried every kind of peace offer possible, yet we have been turned down every time. Therefore, despite our inner divisions, it is time we examine what we are doing wrong toward each other instead of blaming the other side for not accepting our generous offers.
If we look into ourselves, we will find that the problem truly lies within us: It is the hatred among us. We cannot be in brotherhood with the Palestinians, and they will not want to be in brotherhood with us, until we are in brotherhood with one another. But once we are as brothers, the rest of the world will relate to us accordingly.
I realize that it may seem as though their sole wish is to drive us out of here, and I realize that they, too, feel that this is their true wish, but the Jewish people are unwanted everywhere they go not because they are trespassers, but because they are not true to their calling. The sole purpose of our existence is to serve as a model nation—a nation whose people rise above their rifts and form a union that transcends all divisions. When we achieve this, and there were times in our past when we did, we are the world’s darlings. When we fail to achieve it, and we usually fail, we are the world’s pariahs.
Therefore, we should not even try to break a crack through the world’s wall of hatred for the Jews; we will not succeed. Our efforts should focus solely on fostering good connections among ourselves. If we succeed, we will crack open every wall in the heart of every person in the world.
We can stop trying to “explain” our position, to prove that we are right, to claim that we, too, have a right to a sovereign country. No one is listening. But when we bond with each other, we will not need to explain anything to anyone; our merit will grant us everything we are currently demanding to have. What’s more, we will not need to explain it; it will be obvious to everyone, and everyone will befriend us.
Our books, our history, and our sages from every generation tell us that our only hope is unity. It is time we listened.
For more information on the merits of Jewish unity, look up my book The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism.
#antisemitism #israel #Boycott
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