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<\/a>Israel Must Increase Its Advocacy \u2014 and Jews Must Continue Speaking Up<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\nAnya Gillinson<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n When will Israel answer the decades-long smear campaign against it? How can a nation known for breakthroughs in medicine, science, and agriculture \u2014 and home to the most ethical military and the Middle East\u2019s only democracy \u2014 struggle with self-advocacy?<\/span><\/p>\n As a Soviet Jew raised in Moscow, I saw Israel as the guardian of my identity. After millennia of persecution and the Holocaust, Israel became a beacon of freedom and safety for the Jewish people. I excused Israel\u2019s public-relations failures as the cost of survival. Surrounded by hostility and judged by the harshest standards, Israel focused on defending land, people, and principles \u2014 not narratives. Key conflicts shaped this posture \u2014 from 1948, 1967, and 1973, to the Intifadas, wars in Lebanon and Gaza, and the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre.<\/span><\/p>\n The deepest wound is internal: too many Jews refuse to stand together against evil. Unity and principled advocacy are imperative. After three decades in New York, I\u2019m devastated by Zohran Mamdani\u2019s victory; he is a Social Democrat, an anti-Zionist, and an antisemite. Yet 33% of New York\u2019s Jewish community voted for him. I cannot comprehend voting for a mayor who is an antisemite.<\/span><\/p>\n Since October 7, Israel has failed to communicate why it had to wage war on Hamas and prevent Hamas\u2019 plan to destroy Israel. The opposing side advanced a narrative, amplified by the media and anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda \u2014 casting Palestinians as victims of \u201cIsraeli colonialism\u201d and branding Israel\u2019s war as a genocide.<\/span><\/p>\n Hamas massacred 1,200 people and took 251 hostages \u2014 and vowed to repeat the massacre again and again. Israel\u2019s goals: return the hostages and eradicate Hamas to prevent future attacks. Yet the IDF and Netanyahu are cast as murderers, and a campaign to eliminate a terrorist organization is labeled as genocide.<\/span><\/p>\n Israel\u2019s story is factual and moral. Israel\u2019s war is not genocide; it targets Hamas terrorists, not Gazans. This is legitimate self-defense under international law. The IDF\u2019s morality is rooted in courage, justice, and protection of the weak; Hamas attacks civilians and uses civilians as human shields, while the IDF takes extensive precautions to protect civilians. Hamas embeds its terrorists among civilians, seeking their deaths to feed a media campaign. The casualty story is distorted: the IDF estimates that two civilians are killed per Hamas terrorist \u2014 among the lowest ratios in recent warfare. Civilian deaths, tragic in any war, do not constitute genocide. If Israel sought genocide, the toll would be vastly higher.<\/span><\/p>\n The world must know that Hamas obstructs aid \u2014 attacking workers, firing on distribution sites, and blocking aid \u2014 while the IDF strains to deliver it. These tactics sow chaos and spawn false reports blaming the IDF for deaths and famine, even as Hamas hoards fuel and medical supplies.<\/span><\/p>\n Israel cites extensive aid deliveries, daily pauses, secure corridors, and controlled entry to challenge famine assessments. This data gets scant media coverage. Israel hasn\u2019t failed deliberately; it neglected to adjust to the change in political choreography.<\/span><\/p>\n Israel must remind its people of their history, and clarify that it fights to defends all Jews, not only Israelis. It should use the media to change the narrative about the Middle East, ground claims in data, and pair them with images of Israeli victims from October 7.<\/span><\/p>\n An antisemitic mob gathered outside a Manhattan synagogue, chanting \u201cDeath to the IDF,\u201d \u201cDeath to Israel,\u201d and \u201cWe need to make them scared,\u201d during a Nefesh B\u2019Nefesh event. Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani issued a perfunctory note \u201cdiscouraging the language,\u201d then effectively blamed the synagogue, claiming that houses of worship must be free from intimidation and should not promote activities that \u201cviolate international law.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n First of all, promoting the rights of Jews to live in Israel does not violate international law (unless you believe Israel shouldn\u2019t exist, which Mamdani does). Second, what about the rights and freedom of the congregants? Mamdani\u2019s posture is as hollow as Putin\u2019s desire for peace. Emboldened by elected antisemitic leadership, the mobs blur protest, hate, and violence.<\/span><\/p>\n Yet fault also lies with us Jews: freedom is our faith\u2019s core, and with that, comes responsibility. Instead of urging Israel to communicate the facts, too many Jews stayed passive \u2014 or boosted Zohran Mamdani, who believes Israel, not Hamas, is responsible for the massacres.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAm Yisrael Chai!\u201d is a Jewish cry of an uncompromising will to live \u2014 \u201cThe People of Israel live.\u201d Rabbi Stephen S. Wise proclaimed it in 1933 in defiance of Hitler; survivors heard it after Bergen-Belsen\u2019s liberation; Shlomo Carlebach made it the anthem of the Soviet Jewry movement. Across the years, the cry affirms Jewish resilience and frames a narrative: \u201cThe People of Israel live.\u201d Our story starts and ends with this cry. In between, lie the facts \u2014 and without facts, history turns to fiction and democracies become dictatorships.<\/span><\/p>\n Anya Gillinson<\/strong> is an immigration lawyer and author of the new memoir,<\/em> Dreaming in Russian. <\/span>She lives in New York City. More at <\/span>www.anyagillinson.com<\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em> Israel Must Increase Its Advocacy \u2014 and Jews Must Continue Speaking Up Anya Gillinson Trucks carrying aid move, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS\/Hussam Al-Masri When will Israel answer the decades-long smear campaign against it? How can a nation known for breakthroughs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[33,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126648"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126648"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126716,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126648\/revisions\/126716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![](\"https:\/\/www.algemeiner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/2025-02-13T131855Z_1_LYNXMPEL1C0LR_RTROPTP_4_ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS-GAZA-CEASEFIRE-AID-1.jpg\")
Trucks carrying aid move, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS\/Hussam Al-Masri<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
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