It’s hard to know what to say at a time like this. I’ve seen wars up close. I’ve fought nose to nose with the depravity of religious extremism. For two decades, I’ve witnessed the depths of human evil in all its shameless, celebratory colors and stood against it. I’ve seen the bodies, shredded and burnt. Watched the cold murders in all manner of grim, torturous ways from the agonizing saw and hack of a butcher knife beheading to the spectacle of soaking caged men in gasoline and lighting them on fire. I’ve watched these savages bury women in the dirt up to their necks and quite literally bash their brains out with palm-sized stones in a collective gathering of wicked fervor. I’ve seen the dead hanging from cranes and paraded down main streets, grimly swinging above the living. I have walked among the dead - broken and bloated, discolored by the sun and decomposition, the uniquely sick odor of human death forever etched into my mind and memory. Every time I’ve seen this, it has been accompanied by the repetitive chant, the glorification of the highest authority, the full-throated song of praise to the One who granted them the moral authority to dispose of human beings in these ways. Allahu Akbar. God is Great.
It is shameful the way some people choose to equivocate. It’s something more than shameful, but I can’t find the word that expresses the nature of the evil I’m talking about. To justify what we are seeing now, perpetrated by an Iran-supported Hamas against the people of Israel is beyond wrong. It is beyond shameful. It is beyond evil. It is unthinkable. It is a kind of evil so profound that it has its own dark gravity, capable of pulling the hearts and minds of others inside if they aren’t willing to resist. For those who believe they need not think about it, that “both sides do bad things,” or that Israel is somehow just as bad as the Palestinians and that their presence and oppression of the Palestinian people somehow balances the scales, let me educate you about a few things.
The Jews didn’t occupy Palestine. Jews lived in the area that is now Israel for quite literally thousands of years before the Islamic faith even existed. Iron Age settlements from the 14th century BC have been unearthed by archaeologists showing that Jews had a thriving society in the region nearly three millennia before the birth of Muhammad. When the Romans arrived in Jerusalem, it was the Jews who already lived there. When the Muslims came to kill and conquer, they built their great mosque on the top of the remnants of the Jewish Temples of Solomon and Herod. The simple fact that the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque are there, atop the remains of Jewish Temples, is evidence enough that the Jews were there first. When the Ottoman Empire came, there was a Jewish diaspora just as there had been when the region was conquered by force in times before. However, Jewish populations remained in their traditional homeland even in the worst of times. The diaspora settled elsewhere, with many choosing various countries in Europe. There, they faced centuries of persecution. From the Spanish Inquisition to the pogroms of the 19th century, European Jews had been second-class citizens in Europe for hundreds of years. Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Poland, France, and Spain had expressly anti-Jewish laws. You can look as far back as the medieval period. At various times in medieval Europe, Jewish populations were required to wear a yellow patch, often in the form of a hat or badge, as a means of identifying and stigmatizing them. In 1492, Spain issued the Alhambra Decree, which was issued by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella and ordered the expulsion of Jews from Spain. It gave Jews the choice to convert to Christianity or leave the country. In the 1920s, Romania implemented the Numerus Clausus laws, which restricted the number of Jewish students allowed to attend universities, disproportionately limiting Jewish access to education. Finally, leading up to the Zionist movement, Russia implemented The Pale of Settlement. This was a region in the Russian Empire where Jews were confined to live. This policy was accompanied by various restrictions on Jewish residence, education, and employment. By 1897, this continued persecution gave rise to the Zionist movement.
The Zionists are not imperialist occupiers. It was a plan to purchase land in the Jewish historical homeland and move back to that part of the world to escape the persecution they faced in Europe. That movement began in 1897 by Theodor Herzl and his contemporaries at the First Zionist Congress in Switzerland. The express intent was to go back to Eretz Israel and establish a Jewish homeland in the place of the historic Jewish culture. Individuals who wanted to return to their historic homeland, along with the Jewish National Fund purchased land in what is now Israel from willing Arab landowners with the intent to move there and settle. The region was not Palestine at that time. It was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, and landowning Arabs who sold their properties to Jewish settlers did so not under compulsion or threat, not under conquest, not at the point of a sword or the muzzle of a gun. They did so in order to profit from the sale of the land. Obviously and rightfully, the new owners of the lands moved in and settled. This brings us to the hopelessly idiotic assertion by some Palestinian apologists that the Israelis are an apartheid State. After centuries of persecution in nearly every country into which they tried to assimilate, it’s understandable that the Jews in Europe might come together and try to imagine a way to “go back where they belonged,” to the historical homeland that held more centuries of their ethnic history than anywhere else in the world. It makes sense, perhaps, that they would attempt to do so as settlers on purchased land rather than as conquerors. That their own suffering and persecution would make them seek a way to return to that homeland peacefully.
Palestinians have more rights within Israel than they do in many Arab countries. Far from being an apartheid State - a term of derision used to make it seem as though Israel is a racist and oppressive State devoted to making the Palestinians into second class citizens - Israel’s government provides a number of protections for Palestinian citizens that would not be afforded to them in many Arab Muslim countries. These include:
Citizenship and Political Participation - Arab citizens of Israel have Israeli citizenship, which grants them the right to vote and participate in the country's political system. They have representation in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) through Arab political parties. While political participation is not without challenges, Arab citizens of Israel can influence Israeli politics through their votes and elected representatives.
Legal Protections - Arab citizens of Israel are protected by Israeli law, which includes legal rights and protections. Israel's legal system allows them to seek redress in the courts, and they have access to legal representation. Discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion is prohibited by Israeli law.
Education and Healthcare - Arab citizens of Israel have access to the country's education and healthcare systems. While there have been disparities in funding and resources between Arab and Jewish communities, efforts have been made to address these disparities in recent years.
Freedom of Movement - Arab citizens of Israel can move freely within the country, including traveling between cities and regions. They also have the ability to travel internationally with an Israeli passport.
Employment and Economic Opportunities - Arab citizens of Israel have the right to seek employment in Israel and can work in various sectors of the economy. While there have been employment disparities and economic challenges, they have access to economic opportunities within Israel.
Freedom of Religion - Arab citizens of Israel, like all citizens, have the freedom to practice their religion. Israel recognizes various religious communities and provides religious services and institutions for different faiths.
Consider this compared with many Arab Muslim nations and their treatment of Palestinians. Lebanon, for example, hosts a significant population of Palestinian refugees, many of whom are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were displaced during the Arab-Israeli conflicts. However, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have faced longstanding challenges, including restrictions on their employment opportunities, limited access to public services, and limitations on property ownership. These restrictions are partly a result of Lebanon's policy of non-assimilation, which has aimed to prevent permanent settlement and encourage return to Palestine. And Syria - prior to the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, Palestinian refugees in Syria had certain legal rights, including access to education and employment. However, as the conflict has continued, Palestinian refugees in Syria have experienced displacement, violence, and loss of rights and services due to the ongoing conflict. Some Gulf states have hosted Palestinian communities, and Palestinians have had varying degrees of access to employment and services. In some cases, Palestinians have been treated as guest workers with limited citizenship rights, but they are not afforded the kind of access to education, employment, and the political system that Palestinian citizens of Israel are guaranteed. Given all this, the assertion that Israel is an apartheid State is as ridiculous as the moral equivalency game so many seem to want to play.
Israel is not an aggressor nation. One of the more despicable arguments I’m seeing today is that “both sides do bad things.” The truth is, since its founding, Israel has never - not even one time - launched any attacks on its Arab neighbors without first having been attacked by them. From the Israeli War for Independence in 1948 through to the attacks of October 7th, 2023, every conflict Israel has been involved in began with an attack on Israel by an Arab Muslim enemy. In 1948, stating that Israel’s very existence was a provocation and vowing to wipe it off the Earth, an Arab army consisting of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon all attacked Israel. Israel fought back and defeated them all. In 1967, Arab neighbors again threatened Israel. In the years leading up to the war, there was a rise in Arab nationalism and anti-Israel rhetoric, particularly by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser's vocal support for Palestinian resistance and his decision to deploy Egyptian troops to the Sinai Peninsula increased tensions in the region. In May 1967, Egypt, under President Nasser's leadership, blockaded the Straits of Tiran, a key waterway connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. The blockade effectively closed off Israel's access to the port of Eilat and was viewed by Israel as an act of war. This time, Israel acted swiftly and was highly successful. Within six days, it had captured significant territories, including the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. East Jerusalem and the Old City were also captured, placing these areas under Israeli control. Under the ceasefire and subsequent peace agreement defined in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, Israel ceded all of the territory it had captured. In 1973, The Yom Kippur War began when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. Yet again, Arab Muslim neighbors bent on the destruction of Israel in violation of the 1967 ceasefire and UN Resolution 242 attacked Israel, capturing the Golan Heights and crossing the Suez. The Golan Heights would be used for decades much in the same way Gaza was used on October 7th - to launch wanton and indiscriminate attacks into Israeli civilian populations. Routinely, Arab enemies chanting “Death to Israel” have aligned and either attacked Israel together as nation states or financed, trained and equipped their terrorist proxies to do so in their place. Routinely, they commit the worst kinds of atrocities in so doing. Routinely, they return to hide behind civilians and hostages, using them as human shields and propaganda instruments so their deaths can be exploited in the event of a justifiable counteroffensive.
It doesn’t take a whole lot of common sense to identify the bad guy in a given situation. The bad guys are the ones chanting for Death to an entire nation of people. The bad guys are the ones who want to exterminate absolutely every member of a country and erase its memory from history. The bad guys are the ones who behead babies, who kidnap and torture children, who rape women and drag them naked and bleeding through the streets singing out and laughing that God is Great. The bad guys are the ones throwing grenades into shelters full of children huddled crying between their mothers’ knees. The bad guys are the ones sending thousands and thousands of rockets, unguided and indiscriminately into population centers. The bad guys are the ones who stole a grandmother’s phone, used it to open her Facebook account, and then film her murder from her account to make sure that all her family and friends got to watch her die. God is Great, they sang. The bad guys are the ones who machine-gunned children, babies, mothers and the elderly inside their homes in the middle of a sacred night. The bad guys are the ones who burned an old woman alive in her home because she was too infirm to take hostage. God is Great, they sang. Allahu Akbar, the chant from a thousand voices rising up to whatever they call Heaven as the bodies bled and burned. The bad guys are the Hamas radicals who did all of this, the Hezbollah enablers who stoke the fires, the Iranian Mullahs and Ayatollahs who financed Hamas, equipped them, and trained them. The bad guys are the Taliban, freshly equipped with American weapons, offering to ride through Iran and Iraq and Jordan to conquer Jerusalem in the name of Allah. The bad guys are any and all who celebrate this kind of atrocity, and there is simply no moral equivocation anywhere in any of this.
I’ve seen wars. I’ve been to war. This was not a war. This was terrorism, it was barbarism, and it was evil. It was an attack not just against Israel, but against humanity, against love, against morality, against the beating heart and the sacred soul of humankind. It was evil, and it should be called evil and nothing short of it. What follows will be a war. The answer to evil can only be to fight it, and the Israelis will surely do that as their existence depends on it. We should all stand with them as they lead this fight. The lessons of history may well have taught us nothing else, but they should have taught us that to remain silent in the face of such evil plunges the world into a kind of darkness that never fully heals. To allow such evil to run rampant is to invite it to every shore and into every home. That simply cannot be the future. We simply cannot allow it.
So eloquent, Francisco. Thank you for voicing the thoughts of all those who abhor terrorism. May G-d protect Israel.