Ex-Lone Soldier: Check Facts Before Slamming Israel

I woke up Tuesday, May 15, to a large amount of hateful, anti-Israel, ignorant Facebook posts regarding the riots on the Israel-Gaza border the day before.

I was taught to avoid debating with stubborn, narrow-minded people — that it is a waste of my time and words. But after reading some highly uninformed words from both Jewish Americans and Israeli-Americans, I feel it is my duty and responsibility to burst your politically correct bubbles and spread the hard truth.

The inconvenient truth. The ugly truth. The truth that is too complicated to grasp, so you settle for simplistic, catchy, politically correct truths. The truth that doesn’t sound very good on news media: Hamas doesn’t mind how many Palestinians are killed.

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And contrary to popular belief, the IDF wants as few Palestinians killed as possible. The PR is unfortunately working great for Hamas, and we are once again at fault. For trying to survive. To thrive. To do great things. To invent. To contribute. To better the world. To win Nobel Prizes. To win Eurovision.

First, it is important for me to stress that I hurt for the 62 Palestinians killed in Monday’s riots. And I hurt for their families. My heart goes out to the innocent lives taken.

The weapons may have been ours, but it is Hamas who is pointing them.The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot continue. But as long as Hamas is in control of the Gaza Strip, peace remains a distant dream.

Hamas is once again using the Palestinians, inciting them to hate on the wrong guy. Instead of using their money to grow, thrive, and prosper, Hamas is using it for war purposes — to purchase weapons and ammunition.

Abu Mazen is cutting off the Palestinians’ resources because they are encouraging and choosing a culture of war and violence. They are taught to hate and die for Allah instead of to love. As long as the Gaza Strip’s potential and future are in the hands of Hamas, things will remain unsettled. Their people will continue to suffer, Israel will continue to be the “bad guy,” and peace will be heard of only in songs and inauguration speeches.

After the events, an important fact that came up in retrospect is that Hamas publicly declared that 50 of the “innocent Palestinians” killed were Hamas “militants.” These people’s agenda is clear: They wish to infiltrate Israel and kill as many Jews as they can. Israel, therefore, has an absolute right to defend itself against such attacks.

The radical Hamas leaders are paying innocent Palestinians (young and old) to go on suicide missions on behalf of them, while they sit comfortably in their homes. Far from the bloodstained fence, where their people are dying for what they think they want.

The Israeli army and government have a right to protect this one, only, beautiful country so that you have a place to spend your summer vacations, eat hummus, and buy Michal Negrin hamsa jewelry for your friends and family back home.

And in return? You go and damage our name internationally when you should be our biggest supporters and strongest ambassadors. Where is your Israel pride? Where is your Zionism? Where are your love and passion for the only country we have? Where are you when we most need you?

It is incredibly difficult, frustrating and complex to negotiate peace with a people who chose a listed terror organization to run them. What’s easy, though, is to write a few big, sophisticated words about a massacre, a blood bath, a brutal siege, and hit POST.

I believe that people need to check their facts more thoroughly before they criticize a country’s handling of security situations at its borders. Today’s social media platforms enable quick and easy communication, yet also impulsive, irrational and intuitive posting and tweeting.

This phenomenon leads to information overload, much of which is incorrect. I strongly advise people to think twice before every post and share and to check their facts carefully to avoid the detrimental spread of falsity on the web.

I am deeply disappointed and personally offended by the Facebook posts I am reading by my own ungrateful, hypocritical Jewish “friends” in the States.

How can you feel free to preach hate from your comfortable couches and lives far away and continue to vacation here and enjoy Israel’s sun and culture when convenient? Shame on you.

We do not expect you to serve in the Israel Defense Forces or to live through the sirens and the stabbings that characterize our daily lives, nor even to try to comprehend the pressure caused by the international big brother watching and criticizing our every move.

We do, however, expect and need you to stand with us, stand FOR us. Spread words of love, peace and tolerance and convince the world that the Palestinians are being used, manipulated, incited, sent on suicide missions — and not by us. By sources from within.

Dear friends, your self-righteous words are not changing anything. Instead of condemning Hamas and advocating new leadership in Gaza, you are only spreading ignorance and falsity and subsequently are only killing more innocent Palestinians.

Lucky for us (and despite his questionable sanity and many flaws), we have someone on our side who recognizes the legitimacy of the Israeli state. And even luckier, he happens to be the most powerful person in America.

On that note, I’d like to personally thank the few, incredibly strong, exceptionally wise, bravely nonconforming Jewish American brothers and sisters who are continuously and undeniably supporting Israel, despite how unusual and absurd it may seem. I am proud of you and deeply appreciate you! Thanks to people like you in the world, great things will happen. Maybe even peace, Inshallah.

Mor Lewit is a student at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, studying business and communications. She graduated from the Weber School in 2010, then returned to Israel to join the army as a lone soldier.