Why Are You Here?

I truly don’t understand the Israel/Gaza protests happening around the world but especially in the United States of America.  I’m especially puzzled by the protests on college campuses, especially the “elite” ones that are costing parents over $100,000 a year.  So I have to ask those students, why are you here?  If you truly believe in your cause, why aren’t you in Gaza?

All through history, students your age have given up their studies and rallied to causes by actually being on the front line.  Gaza awaits you.  After learning to rape and murder, you can go to the beach and play volleyball.  What’s stopping you?

Okay, let’s say you consider Gaza too dangerous for the moment.  What about Iran?  They might consider you a spy and hang you, but you made the effort.

Tajikistan?  Syria?  Help your brothers and sisters in arms now, instead of simply wearing a symbolic keffiyeh and then getting your meal ticket punched before you go to your dorm room and ponder your future as a well-educated, well-paid cog in the capitalistic system you so abhor.

Fellow Jews, those of you standing in solidarity with your Palestinian brothers and sisters—although you should check if any of them are Palestinian—Gaza awaits you. You saw how kindly they’re treating the Israelis hostages.  Time for you to take a stand and trade yourself in for one of those hostages.  Should any remain alive.

You, my fellow brothers and sisters, probably aren’t great students of history.  Perhaps you’ve forgotten all those German Jews who assured themselves that nothing could happen to them because they were stoutly German.  Even those whose grandparents had converted to Christianity were sure they were safe.  Too bad.  So sad.  So stand with your Arab friends and maybe even travel to their countries with them because you’ll be received with a welcome that might be unexpected.  Just write your will first.  And don’t worry that you’ll be remembered as an ignoramus.

Black Americans forget all that crap about Jews and Blacks marching side by side, working for civil rights, Jews going down south to register voters, risking their lives so that you might have a voice.  It might surprise you, if you ever visit “Occupied Palestine,” to realize over two percent of Jews in Israel are from Ethiopia because Jews don’t turn their backs on other Jews in need and in danger.

Now what is this crap about Israel occupying Gaza.  Flash back to October 7, 2023.  Gaza wasn’t occupied—except by Hamas and the 80 percent or more who support their calls for “Death to the Jews.”  So all of a sudden Israel invades Gaza?  Why?  Could it be the slaughter of its citizens?

Let’s talk about European colonizers.  Over half the Jews in Israel are from the Middle East.  They had to leave their own countries because they were forced out or fled in fear of their lives.

Colonizing?  Some of you might not know this because you’ve never picked up a Bible in your lives and probably couldn’t pinpoint Israel on a map, but Jews have always been in Israel since the time of Abraham.  Ask the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Turks.  Oh wait, you can’t.  Their empires are gone.  But the Jews remain.  No matter your effort to dispossess us and kill us off—tried before many times—we’re here to stay.