This past week at a high school in Scottsdale, Ariz., students in an Amnesty International and UNICEF club gave a presentation called “A Call to Action: Gaza’s Humanitarian Emergency.”
This presentation included a brief “background” on the region:
This “background” - which was presented to a group of high school students at Desert Mountain High School as fact - is not accurate and if this is what is being taught in universities, then the anti-Israel protests at college campuses make more sense.
An example of this misinformation is the fact that Palestine was always the traditional homeland for Jews and Jerusalem is Judaism’s holiest site. For thousands of years, Jewish people have faced Jerusalem when they pray because the Holy Temple was located there. (Now all that’s left is the Western Wall of the Temple, also called the Kotel.) The Temple was the spiritual center of the Jewish people for centuries and the original name of the region was Judea, which is where the word Jew originates. (And today the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque stand on top of this site.)
More of the history of the region is explained in this video called “The Palestinian Refugee Problem Explained (Nakba and the Arab narrative)” on the travelingisrael.com YouTube channel. It’s a great example how there are two versions of history out there, which has led to disastrous consequences.
At one time, the word “Palestinian” was used for anyone who lived in the Palestine region - both Arabs and Jews (and Muslims, Jews and Christians). The Jerusalem Post newspaper was originally called The Palestine Post. Any Jews who lived in the Palestine region were called Jewish Palestinians or Palestinian Jews. I recently came across this 1970 interview with Golda Meir, when she explains that she held a Palestinian passport and that she was Palestinian before 1948. Sadly this interview shows that not much has changed in the past 53 years.
The history of the region is complicated but what’s clear to me now is that people are not doing their research, which is leading to hatred and acts of violence.
For instance, the following content shown at this high school club:
So much inaccuracy in the above slide - did they do any research? Some blindly believe these accusations without doing any further research yet claim that there’s no real proof of the Oct. 7 massacre - despite the fact that Hamas filmed the brutal murders while wearing GoPro cameras and posting the videos on social media (in some cases, they used their victim's’ own phone to film it then posted it on their Facebook page so their family members could learn about their death on Facebook.)
What this slide fails to mention are the numerous suicide bombings - killing civilians on buses, in cafes, at a pizzeria, on pedestrian malls, in a hotel during a Passover seder, etc. Targeting civilians. And people wonder why there’s a border fence? What would other countries do? Not to mention all the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel for years, including on Oct. 7 through today.
They also don’t mention the fact that in 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to give control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority and evacuate all the Jews living in Gaza (about 20 settlements). This means that since 2005, Israel hasn’t been “occupying” Gaza (though their map identifies Gaza as a territory that is internationally recognized as Occupied Palestinian Territory and says Israel cut it off from receiving food, water and electricity - even though Hamas is supposed to be in charge of all of that now. (And what happened to all the water pipes that countries donated to Gaza so the Palestinians could have water? Oh yea, Hamas turned them into rockets.) And how about the billions of dollars of humanitarian aid sent to Gaza over the years, what happened to that? The leaders of Hamas are billionaires and have a life of luxury in Qatar while the Palestinians in Gaza live a life of poverty. Does that raise any red flags for anyone about how Gaza’s elected officials feel about its citizens?
Not surprisingly, this presentation barely mentions any details about the Oct. 7 massacre, when terrorists broke through the border fence and brutally massacred about1,400 people and that there are more than 250 hostages currently in Gaza - including men, women, toddlers and babies.
The IDF says that they are not fighting Palestinians (or trying to commit genocide, as some claim) - they are fighting Hamas, who uses Palestinian civilians as human shields. Hamas has said that they don’t care about Palestinian civilians - with one Hamas leader saying that since they’re refugees, it’s up to the United Nations and UNRWA to take care of them. Hamas’s main mission is to destroy Israel and people around the world are cheering them on. (Why aren’t the “humanitarians” speaking about all the thousands of people being killed in other Arab countries? Why only when Israel is involved?)
Podcaster Jordan Syatt recently talked to Israeli Defense Force Sniper Rudy Rochman, who was one of the first soldiers on the scene in Kfar Aza. On this episode, Rochman describes the horrors he saw on Oct. 7, as well as answers some of the propaganda about Israel and what needs to happen in order for there to be peace for both Israelis and Palestinians in the future.
When I was talking about these two different versions of history with my teens, my 13-year-old asked, “What if we have been told the wrong version of history?”
Great question. Those who are convinced the Palestinian narrative is true obviously don’t see Israel as a country who just wants to live in peace. The picture they paint of Israel doesn’t seem to acknowledge all that Israel has done for the world - all the medical and technological innovation, the humanitarian missions where doctors help in countries struck by natural disasters. Instead they accuse Israel of genocide and rip down posters of the hostages, crumpling up the pictures of babies, toddlers and other civilians and tossing them on the ground in an act of protest.
How do you choose what version to believe? Do you base it on the history you grew up - which comes with books, literature, news reports published before the Internet and archeological evidence or do you rely on TikTok videos?
Do you stand with a country that sends down leaflets and calls and texts cell phones to warn civilians to get out because they’re going to blow up the building (because Hamas stores its weapons in schools and hospitals)? Or do you celebrate those who broke through a border fence to murder, rape and kidnap civilians of all ages, whether it’s a child in their bed or an elderly woman in her home and shoot 260 young adults at a music festival? Do you support burning families in their homes and beheading babies and raping women and young girls?
It seems surreal to even ask that, but then again, seeing all the pro-Palestine/anti-Israel rallies seem to glorify the actions of those who did these horrific acts. They praise what they call “freedom fighters” and justify these acts. The ADL Center of Extremism had recorded a significant spike in anti-Semitic incidents across the United States since Oct. 7, stating that preliminary date indicates that reported incidents of harassment, vandalism and assualt increased by 388 percent over the same period last year. In Arizona this week, a man was arrested after sending a an email to a Scottsdale rabbi, threatening to execute him and “every other JEW I can find tonight at midnight of your Sabbath.”
I understand that the protesters see themselves as humanitarians rooting for a people they feel were wronged. I think there must be Palestinians in Gaza who truly want to live a peaceful life but have been taught hateful things about Israel their whole life.
And I’m sure there must be some who don’t support Hamas but can’t speak out about it because it would put their life or their family member’s lives in danger. Obviously they have a much different perspective of Israel than I do and I hope there’s a day soon when they’ll be free of Hamas and can live a life of peace.
UPDATE: Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne held a press conference about this event on Nov. 8. Watch that here.