Iran’s Attack on Israel
6 min read
Israel is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago.
After World War II, at an elite prep school, classmates of former U.S. Ambassador John Loeb said, when shown images of concentration camps, “Well, we don’t like Hitler, but at least he killed the Jews.”
As repugnant as those words are, they’re not as abhorrent as Holocaust denial, a refusal to even acknowledge that Hitler killed Jews.
Today we are facing a similar scourge of disinformation. We are now hearing people say that it was the Israeli government who killed 1,200 Israelis on October 7. Whether they believe their outrageous statements is unclear. What we do know is that ignorance about the history of the Jewish people and Israel abounds.
In recent years, ethnic studies classes have sprung up in schools across the country. These classes focus far too much on the oppressor/oppressed narrative, assigning a binary classification to every group of people.
In a plot twist no one could have foreseen, the Jewish people, the most oppressed people of all time, have now been classified as the biggest oppressors.
In a plot twist no one could have foreseen, the Jewish people, the most oppressed people of all time, have now been classified as the biggest oppressors. This new label has fueled much of the antisemitism we are now seeing, especially on college campuses.
In order to dispel the lies that have infested the minds of students, it is time to demand that Jewish history be part of the ethnic studies curriculum. Facts have a way of leading the way out of the darkness.
No, Israel is not a European colonist state. Only approximately 30% of Israel’s population is of European origin. European Jews who immigrated to Israel were not colonialists. They did not represent a foreign power and never embraced any European connection.
Endless pieces of archaeological evidence show that Jewish people are indigenous to Israel and have lived there for over 3,000 years. Jewish presence in Israel preceded Muslim presence by at least one millennium.
The late Charles Krauthammer said, “Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity: It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store.”
No, Israel is not a racist or an apartheid state. Arabs represent 20% of Israel’s citizens and have equal rights. They are part of the Knesset and the Supreme Court. They have a notable presence in universities, hospitals, and the entertainment industry. In fact, Arabs who have Israeli citizenship have more rights and opportunities in Israel than they would have as citizens in any Arab country in the world.
Israel may be the only nation that has airlifted Africans to its country, giving them citizenship.
According to Democracy Index published by the Economist Group, in 2022 Israel’s Democracy Index ranked higher than that of the United States. It is particularly noteworthy that Israel’s democracy is considered stronger than the United States’, given Israel’s unique challenges fighting terrorists in its midst.
No, Israel does not engage in ethnic cleansing. In 1948, the Arab population in Israel was 156,000. Today it is 2,100,000.
Conversely, in 1948, the Jewish population in Muslim countries was close to 1,000,000. Today it is under 12,000.
No, the Jewish people are not a privileged group. For 2,500 years, Jews in Europe and Northern Africa were persecuted wherever they lived, facing expulsions, pogroms, and genocide.
In the United States during the first half of the 20th century, Jews were discriminated against and not permitted to work in many fields of employment. They were also not allowed to own or rent certain properties. Jews were not accepted as members of many clubs and organizations, and were excluded from resort areas. Many resorts would post signs such as, “Always a view. Never a Jew.”
Colleges and universities enforced quotas to restrict the number of Jewish students and professors.
These laws and policies were eventually overturned, but unfair treatment of Jews continued and certainly still exists today. That the Jewish people were able to succeed despite the many hurdles placed before them should be a source of Jewish pride and an inspiration to others who believe they face injustices and inequities today.
No, the Jewish people, a mere one fifth of one percent of the world population, do not control the world, but they do punch above their weight in many metrics of academic and financial success, by factors of five, 10, 25, 50, 100 times and more, depending on the metric. We should not shrink from our success, nor should we apologize for it or defend it.
We are the ones who are always accused of the most absurd crimes. No, we did not poison wells to spread disease. No, we did not kill Christian children to use their blood to bake matzah. No, we were not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. No, we did not create Covid. No, we did not use laser space beams to start wildfires.
Don’t Let Others Define You
For far too long, we have let others define who we are. It is time for us to tell our own story.
We are the ones who march peacefully, proudly waving our flags, and singing with hopefulness. They are the ones who scream, harass, and burn flags, calling themselves progressives when in fact they have regressed into the world’s oldest hatred.
They are the ones who tout freedom of speech, when for years they have shouted down any pro-Israel speaker during college campus events, denying them their right to speech.
We’ve extended our hands in peace numerous times, only to be met with total rejection without any counter offer, and renewed violence.
They are the ones who have been utterly silent about the 350,000 people killed in the Syrian war, and the 377,000 killed in the Yemen war. The lives of innocents killed during war seem to matter only if they can blame Jews.
We are the ones who have extended our hands in peace towards the Palestinians in 1947, 1948, 1967, 1973, 1994, 2000, 2008, and 2019, only to be met with total rejection without any counter offer, and renewed violence.
When offered a land of our own, a land consisting mostly of seemingly worthless desert, we are the ones who grabbed it with both hands and made that desert bloom.
We are the ones who created a modern, democratic, multiethnic country in an area where only repressive, monocultural regimes existed.
We are the ones whose mission is to repair the world.
Amidst our utmost sorrow, we are the ones who dance with unbridled joy in the streets of Jerusalem.
Throughout 2,500 years of exile, we are the ones who looked eastward towards Jerusalem.
We are the ones who fulfilled Theodor Herzl’s seemingly impossible words, “If you will it, it is no dream.”
Ours is the greatest story. We need to broadcast it to the world.
Why does the article say "2,500 years of exile"?
The Romans destroyed the Holy Temple in 70 CE (AD). There were communities of Jews remaining in Perssia since the previous exile, but that doesn't change the situation in the Land of Israel".
Great piece. Wish you had a forward button so I can send to some friends who are unsure about where to stand amid all the hostilities in the Israel Hamas war. Love these stories but they are preaching to the converted. We need, like you write, to educate the masses. Thanks
You can just send them the link: https://aish.com/dispel-the-lies-by-telling-the-jewish-story-to-the-world/
An impressive treatise that should be posted in every Holocaust Museum and learned by every Jewish child.
I'll just add that, pointless as it is to tell the Jewish story to a world for whom the only good Jew is a dead Jew, it is crucial to tell the Jewish story to Jews who are ignorant of their people's heritage and history. I realize that there are non-Jews who truly love the Jewish nation and appreciate the role that G-d assigned them to be a light unto the nations. These fine people will merit to be part of the ultimate redemption, but they are not the majority.
Anti-Semitism was predicted in the Bible, the Prophets, and the Scriptures. It has a purpose: to refocus the Jewish People when they forget their mission. G-d loves us and does not give up on us. He keeps sending reminders. Let's get His message, and thus end the hatred, ushering in a perfected world with the coming of Mashiach.
I admire and respect the Jewish culture, because several of the best humans in history have been Jews, from Albert Einstein (who did not like Zionism) and many others like Erich Fromm, Sigmund Freud, and many more.
Jew-hatred is irrational and no amount of truth-telling will change that fact.
We've been hated for every reason in the book and its opposite. Too rich-too poor, too separatist-too involved, too controlling-too meek like sheep to the slaughter, and so on.
We can't win and no explaining will make a drop of a difference.
Our Torah sources say, "Why is [Mt.] Sinai so called? - Because hatred (Sin'ah in Hebrew) for Israel descended from there" (Tractate Shabbat 5:2).
Likewise, an established rule: "Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said, the halacha [i.e. fact] is well-known that Esau hates Jacob (Midrash Sifri, Numbers 69).
This refers to their descendants. Isaac told Esau that Jacob's on top when he fulfills his mission. When he doesn't, Esau has the upper hand. Let's fulfill the Torah!
I think you missed an important reason: arrogance.
I don't like to be told by a Christian or by a Muslim that they are the ones that God has assigned to be a light unto the nations; nor what I need to do to be part of THEIR redemption. Why would they be comfortable hearing that from a Jew?
Why is it so hard to accept that we are all equally part of God's creation?
Stop justifying -to who? ....for what? .....SG MM 2610
tremendous article!!!! congratulations Aish!!!!!
Allow me to agree and disagree with this article. How can you say that we ‘need to tell the world’ about our history (agreed) when SERIOUS Jewish history - as opposed to ‘bubba mayses’ is totally ignored in our community???? WADR lists of Nobel prize winners and inventors are not telling our story - they come across as arrogant. Find me a Jewish school in N America that teaches systematic, serious Jewish history - I know of only one, in Toronto.
Jews are responsible for a disproportionate number of the world's best inventions amongst which are laser,stainless steel,cell phones,texting,cherry tomatoes,defibrillators, countless medical lifesaving devices, techniques and technology and the music and lyrics for many seasonal hymns-which is entertaining as most anti semites today have just no idea of the Jewish brain behind their favorite things.
Please send this to all the mainstream newspapers - Washington Post, New York Times etc to "broadcast it to the world". Aish readers are not the ones you have to convince.
Yes!! Jews took a desert and made it bloom. G_d bless the Jewish Nation.
It was another wilfully blind, cognitively dissonant and selective vision of history. The opening paragraph "Israel is the ONLY.." Marjorie, come down to Australia and study the indigenous populations living in the same areas for up to 65,000 years. This may dispel the notion of Jewish exceptionalism that underpins the tone of your article. If you are a Professor of HIstory at Stamford et al, please forgive me. May I suggest you go up the halls to the South/Central American or Inuit et al departments. I suspect a lawyer, Rabbi, or true academic may suggest your utterance balances on the acceptance of the word "nation". A Rabbi in Jerusalem when asked whether Jews should be vegetarians answered "you have to eat a lot of meat to answer that issue."
Cherry-picked factoids are misleading
The treatment of indigenous Australians by the historic white government and general prejudice doesn't exactly help that part of your argument. They've been there a long time, but have been denied progress since the prison ships arrived.
Geoff, you are absolutely right. Any claim to Jewish exceptionalism based on anything other than the fact that God designated them to be exceptional with God's giving them the Torah on Mt. Sinai (an event accepted as fact by billions of Christians and Moslems, BTW) is simply apologetics and 'cherry picking.'
The Lord said that the nations would be blessed by the Jewish people, and we have been. He also said to bless Israel and we would be blessed, and if we curse Israel we would be cursed. Seems like the Lord told us definitively about their 'exceptionalism'.
Exactly!
The Chinese also have been in the same place for all of history. But they were not expelled and persecuted for most of it as were the Jews. The correct comparison to ancient people who were conquered by other cultures: whether remaining in the conquered country or dispersed from it, they no longer exist as identifiable peoples.
As for the Australian aborigines, it is greatly to their credit if they still retain any of their original heritage.
Is there evidence that specific indigenous people lived on specific land, analogous to sovereign states, for long periods of time?
The British Isles have been conquered by the Romans, the Germanic peoples, the Vikings, the Normans, the French, and the Dutch. These may all have been "Europeans", but not the same peoples and cultures. Did any of the Australian indigenous peoples have the same land, bear the same name, speak the same language, and worship the same God that it did 3,000 years ago? Even 1,000 years ago? 500?
Slight correction. I don't think we were ever conquered by the French or the Dutch. Normans were French, in a way. King William of Orange was Dutch so perhaps that is where the idea came from. Moreover I am not sure the Irish would agree with some of this, although of course many would not want to include them in the British Isles. British history is a complex and disputed area! Oh - needless to say I am British. Well, English. Well, Welsh in ancestry. I think! My wife is Welsh. But she says Scottish in origin!
Anti Semitic is truly an ancient rot in the minds of antisemitism. It is hurtful, irrational and dangerous. It can be surprising when it surfaces in someone you didn't expect to hold such views and sadly so often the truth isn't listened to or heard. Knowing we are on the right side of history and part of the great bigger picture in Ha Shems heart and plan. Thank you for the great article. Armed with facts is a helpful armor!
It is a good article. However ...
I was initially puzzled by where the accusations of "colonialism" and "racism" and "apartheid" and "ethnic cleansing" were coming from. These were definitely not part of "Zionism" as I understood it. But then I read about the "Religious Zionism" which is now represented in the government of Israel. Now, I understand what is being said. It is NOT about the settlers who arrived decades ago.
it is also not about the Jews living in Judea and Samaria (aka "the west bank"), and who are not guilty of any of the accusations you mentioned at the beginning. "Religious Zionism" has always been a significant part of the Zionist movement and the Israeli public, and similarly are not guilty of any of the accusations you mentioned at the beginning. it is only the antisemitic news media that falsely accuses religious Jews or the residents of Judea and Samaria of these things. the antisemitic "main stream media" uses the pejorative term "settlers" to refer to Jews who live in our ancestral homeland, particularly in Judea and Samaria, as if to imply that we do not belong in our own land. the article points out how these accusations are not true.
SO beautiful! Ty!
An outstanding, totally accurate article that needs to shared with the world!!
to quote Rashi, the great commentator on the first verse in Genesis "So that if the nations of the world will say to Israel, 'You are bandits, for you conquered the lands of the seven nations' Israel will say to them, 'The whole earth belongs to the Holy One, Blessed is He; He created it and He gave it to the one found proper in His eyes. By His wish He gave it to them, and by His wish He took it from them and gave it to us.'" (Rashi, Bereishit 1:1). " that should set things straight.
Excellent article, and right on target. Thank you!
Excellent article! Although no amount of facts can change the minds of hardened antizionists, this article will give courage to Jews so they can speak up for themselves in forums like city councils and school boards
GREAT!
beautiful article.
Thx
Beautifully and perfectly written! Now we have to share it with the world!
"...but (Jews) do punch above their weight in many metrics of academic and financial success, by factors of five, 10, 25, 50, 100 times and more, depending on the metric..."
That's a pretty astounding fact, especially in light of persecution. What can it possible be attributed to?
IMHO, resilience, determination & most of all siyatta d'Shmaya (Divine assistance!)
it can be attributed to hard work, an emphasis on education, refraining from alcoholism, and of course G-d's help.
This are the facts and article I've been hoping for. I will reread it and reread it. And yes, we must get this out to the public. Thank you. This is the beginning.
I am proud to be Jewish. One of my favourite stories is David versus Goliath, small against the big, the world against Israel. We must stand up against the enemy of Israel. Hatikva.
Thank you for putting this factual information out there. The truth will prevail and we need to remind ourselves and those seeking the truth of actual historical facts. When lies are repeated over and over again people start to believe them. Each of us needs to become an ambassador of the truth of our history. So proud to be a part of this great nation!
Prachtige eenvoudige uitleg,
Een artikel om over na te denken en over te discussiëren met anders denkenden.
Maar, wil een discriminant en dwaalgast horen dat zij verkeerd zitten?
Zullen ze proberen om te doen wat nu gaande is?
Omgekeerd evenredig/ vervangingstheorie?
Ik zend het naar kennissen en vrienden.
♥️ AM YISRAEL CHAI
Hear, hear. Well said! I am not Jewish myself, but I felt a vicarious pride reading this. Yes indeed. And dear Jewish friends - don't forget it even while planning with wisdom, justice and charity for the future.
Thank you Professor, for being one of the lights in this sea of terrible darkness we Jews find ourselves in.
Bless you - thanks Esther. And, G-d willing, I shall continue to do so. Much love.
Thank you! Great article!
Simply, "thank you." I am sharing with some close to me who will appreciate this article.
Thank you for simply expressing our history. Sadly those who dislike or are indifferent to the Jewish people will continue in that mind set. Education is the answer but who will educate the teachers? We can do no more than live the best lives we can and protect ourselves as best we can. And be proud.
I agree this was an excellent article that presented provable facts clearly, but I also agree that, unfortunately, it's very unlikely that those who need it6s info most will read it, or accept it if they do. Ironically, the people who consider themselves freethinkers are the most narrow-minded, and so-called liberals / progressives have shown themselves to be restrictive and regressive (as the writer points out.)
That's what irrational, rabid hatred does to those who fall that low; they can no longer realize the truth even when it's staring at them.
Consider that they're seething with jealousy whenever they're confronted with evidence that our nation is eternal. You can almost feel sorry for them. May Hashem protect us from their venom!
You are correct, the ignorant who have been fed a diet of lies and hate will not find the truth. Because they do not wish to find the truth. There is no cure for stupidity. and / or ignorance. US Army units were ordered to photograph the people found in Nazi Death Camps, simply because General Eisenhower realised that one day someone would claim that the Holocaust never occurred. Iran has been spreading claims that the Holocaust never happened for years; ever since the Mullahs took over: shame on the Mullahs.
I loved this line:
When offered a land of our own, a land consisting mostly of seemingly worthless desert, we are the ones who grabbed it with both hands and made that desert bloom.
I love this essay---the writing as well as the content was phenomenal.