Richard Tren lives and works in Washington, DC. He has been in Israel volunteering for Leket Israel.
As my flight was descending into Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport, Israel’s Prime Minister was wrapping up his address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
The mere presence of Benjamin Netanyahu in DC led protesters to deface the Columbus monument in front of Union Station with “Hamas is coming.” The American and Israeli flags were burned, the Palestinian flag was hoisted, police were assaulted, and the agitators revealed their true nature: pro-war, pro-terror, and anti-Jew.
The appetite in DC, as in London and other Western capitals, for defending civilization is diminishing. It is now common to see people celebrating barbarism. In contrast, Israel is fighting for civilization. It is why Israel must win this war. It is why we must continue to support Israel, and why, if you can, you should visit this country.
If you don’t speak Hebrew, Israel can seem quite foreign, but at the same time, everything feels very familiar. Perhaps this is because in Tel Aviv, as in most Western cities, you will see gay pride flags, shirtless joggers, women in yoga pants, cafes filled with couples and young families, and tattooed hipsters whizzing about on scooters. Yet there is a deeper sense of familiarity because profoundly, Israelis share and defend Western values.
Israelis have a reputation, not unearned, for being blunt, direct, and even a little aggressive. But they are also incredibly warm and welcoming. Within 48 hours of being here, I had a dinner invitation from two people I had only just met. I couldn’t attend because I had already accepted an invitation to dinner from a friend of a friend with whom I had only ever texted.
Israelis are also funny, often in self-deprecating ways. I asked a taxi driver a question and his response was: “Listen, I’m a Jew, an Israeli, and a taxi driver, even I wouldn’t trust my advice.”
Wander around Tel Aviv and everywhere you will see posters of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th. The posters are in shop windows, on apartment balconies, in cafes and restaurants, on cars, and on lampposts. “Bring Them Home” is graffitied on walls and is part of an art installation outside Sarona Market. Yellow ribbons, the symbol for hostages, are ubiquitous and are tied around the side mirrors of every other car.
It is hard not to be overwhelmed by emotion looking at the posters, imagining the horror they are enduring and the unending, raw pain their families must feel.
On a muggy Saturday evening, I found myself at an enormous, peaceful, if noisy, anti-government protest in downtown Tel Aviv. Thousands of Israeli flags were being waved as protesters demanded a deal to bring the hostages home. No flags were burned, no monuments defaced, and there were no calls for the elimination of other countries.
In front of Tel Aviv’s Museum of Art, now a shrine to the hostages, a massive clock counts the days, hours, minutes, and seconds they have been held. That evening the name of every hostage was read out and repeated by the crowd. This is a country traumatized by acts of savagery and evil that would scarcely have been believed had they not been live-streamed by the perpetrators, celebrating their depravity.
Of course, not a single hostage poster has been torn down or defaced. To do so would be unthinkable. Not so in my hometown of DC, and in every city in the West, where not only are posters removed, but they are often replaced with “Free Palestine” or other explicitly pro-Hamas messages.
I stepped out of my house recently to find posters even proclaiming “Queers for a Free Palestine” plastered on several lampposts. I don’t suppose those “queers” stopped to wonder for a moment why Tel Aviv has an annual gay pride parade while Ramallah and the rest of the Arab world do not.
The word “free” that these activists write on posters and scream at the tops of their lungs, does not refer to the ideals of individual liberty, equal rights, and the rule of law for Palestinians. No, the “free” means “free of Jews.”
Pro-Palestine activists in the West take full advantage of the rights they have to freely demonstrate, but don’t seem interested in extending those rights to Palestinians.
Rather, they seem more interested in destroying of the only democracy in the Middle East, the only country that protects minorities, defends free speech, freedom of association, free markets, property rights, and which enjoys the rule of law.
Perhaps to justify their cause, pro-Palestine activists will accuse Israel of being an apartheid state, of committing genocide, and of being war criminals. These charges are only true if Israeli apartheid means the opposite of what was practiced in South Africa. Not only can Israeli Arabs own property and businesses, but they can also vote, serve in the military, sit as judges, and be elected to the Knesset.
Israeli genocide is only genocide if it means the opposite of the destruction of a people. The Palestinian population has risen more than five-fold since the creation of Israel to more than 5.5 million. Far from committing war crimes, John Spencer, the urban war expert, notes that Israel has done more than any other army to avoid civilian deaths. The Israel Defense Forces have achieved the lowest civilian-to-combatant death ratio for urban warfare ever recorded.
It is possible, even likely, that many pro-Palestine protesters have no idea what they are chanting about. It’s also possible they have never wondered why it is that one side in this war does all it can to avoid civilian deaths and why for the other, civilian deaths, both Israeli and Palestinian, are the objective.
Countries that engage in anti-Semitic purges have a long history of failure. Having expelled the Jews in the 15th century, Spain suffered economically, intellectually, culturally, and demographically for generations. Germany, once a global intellectual leader, never recovered from killing or expelling its best thinkers. Other countries that expelled Jews, including Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Algeria, remain despotic hellholes.
On the other hand, countries that have historically accommodated Jews and allowed them to live in peace have prospered. This has less to do with Jews per se, and more to do with culture and policies that protect their minorities. Such countries tend to have a lot else going right, such as enshrining the basic Western values that are the foundation of prosperity.
We cannot allow Israel, the world’s only Jewish country, to fall to the destructive Islamist forces that surround it. For if Israel goes, other outposts of civilization will follow. That, alas, is an argument too sophisticated for the useful idiots in the West to comprehend.
So, visit Israel. Defend it and in so doing defend your freedom and the West. Volunteer for one of the many programs that is keeping its economy going. Bring a hat and sunscreen and enjoy its weather, eat its incredible food, and support its wounded, but brave and resilient people.