15 Critical Q&As on Israel to Share with Your Loved Ones

Control the Conversation—Fearless and Fortified

The world is becoming ever darker. We are seeing more hate, more blatant lies, and more shameless antisemitism than we’ve ever seen before. There is nothing more powerful than an educated Jew and nothing more dangerous than an ignorant one. We’ve thoughtfully prepared this fast-paced list of critical answers that we, and our children and grandchildren need to know in these confusing times. We’d love to help strengthen you through these tough times. Please share this message with your friends and family. Encourage them to engage with us via email at Rabbi@JewishGardens.com

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Why can’t we just give them a Palestinian State?

We already did! And it was an epic disaster.

In 1947, the British offered the Arabs more than half of the land of Israel as an independent state, but they flatly refused and chose rather to go to war with the Jews. Thankfully they failed.

In the 1993 Oslo Accords and at the 2000 Camp David Summit, Israel offered the Arabs an independent state. Once again, they refused and chose to go to war against the Jews in the First and Second Intifada respectively.

In 2005, Israel gave them an independent state in Gaza, and Israel herself forcibly removed every last Jew from what was then a coastal territory. This was called “land for peace.” But in their independent elections, Gazans voted in Hamas—whose charter openly calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state in its place—as the ruling party.

Hence, the “Two State Solution” is the definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and expecting different results!

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Why can’t we give them their own land?

It’s important to understand that there actually is no such thing as a Palestinian People. This Nation was invented in 1967, after Arab forces lost the Six-Day War to Israel. Then they decided that if they couldn’t beat Israel militarily, then they might succeed by fostering world sympathy through propaganda.

Proof that there were no Palestinians before 1967: From 1948 until 1967, Gaza was under the jurisdiction of Egypt, and the West Bank was governed by Jordan, both Arab nations. If they care so much about the plight of the Palestinians, then why didn’t they give them their independence? The answer is clear—because the Palestinians weren’t invented yet!

When the Romans conquered Israel in 69 CE, they wanted to add insult to injury by deleting the Jewish presence from the region. They forcefully changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina and the name of the country of Judea to Palestine, a nod to the ancient Philistine people that lived in the land prior to the Egyptian exodus and the subsequent conquest of the land by Joshua 3295 years ago.

Try to see if you can name a single Palestinian statesman, thinker, poet, or political leader before 1967. What currency did they use? What language did they speak? Can you identify any historical details of these people? Don’t try too hard, because there aren’t any—and that’s because they simply didn’t exist until they were invented in 1967!

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Ceasefire?

Any call for a ceasefire would allow Hamas to reorganize and fortify themselves against the IDF. Hamas refused to return Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped in 2006, for a full five years. There is no way that Hamas would agree to return the 240+ hostages that they are holding just because of a ceasefire.

Anyone calling for a ceasefire—unless they are truly naive to the murderous and duplicitous intentions of Hamas—is betraying their underlying anti-Semitism as they care only for the welfare of Hamas and couldn’t care less for the wellbeing of the innocent hostages being held by Hamas.

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Apartheid?

I am from South Africa and I am well aware of what apartheid means. Arabs in Israel enjoy equal rights to Jews where they serve in the Supreme Court, Government, Army, and Members of Parliament. The only place where there actually is Apartheid in Israel is in the West Bank and Gaza, where Jews are not allowed to even enter Arab areas. Arabs can walk freely everywhere in Israel. The only ones being discriminated against are Jews, who may not walk freely throughout their own land!

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Occupation?

No country on Earth has the title deed to their land like Israel. Everyone else conquered territory, but the Land of Israel is called the Promised Land because it’s the only land on Earth that G-d promised to be given to the Jews. It’s clearly stated multiple times in the book of Genesis—the most popular book in human history.

Israel has been the Jewish homeland for 3377 years since G-d gave it to us in the Bible and it has never been without a Jewish presence. Interestingly, the Bible mentions Jerusalem and Zion 821 times; The Koran mentions them not even a single time! Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Arabs pray with their backs to Jerusalem!

Interestingly, the Torah tells us that the reason it begins with the stories of Creation in Genesis instead of the first law which appears in Exodus, is because “the day will come in the future when the nations of the world will accuse the Jews of having stolen the land of Israel from them. The only argument that will hold water in our defense is that G-d, the Creator of the world, promised it to us.”

It’s fascinating that the entire Book of Genesis was written to serve as a legal defense for our generation and this war in particular! It’s high time that we had the courage to stand up for who we are in front of the world without shame or fear. The Jews were chosen by G-d and our title deed to Israel is in the world’s most published book ever—the bible! No other country on earth can make such a claim.

The world has no respect for Jews who don’t respect themselves; the world has great respect for Jews who do respect themselves…Over 80 million evangelical Christians believe it. It’s time we did too! When we don’t believe in our right to the land, it’s no surprise that the nations of the world don’t either. It starts with you!

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Why doesn’t Israel give Palestinians back their land?

If someone breaks into your home and attacks your family with a weapon, it would be the height of chutzpah for them to ask for their weapon back after you successfully drive them away.

Let’s be clear—if you attack me, you won’t be getting your ax or machine gun back, ever. After the Six-Day War, the Arabs who had attacked Israel from the West Bank and Gaza had the audacity to demand the land back after losing the war that they started. It is the height of chutzpah and should not even be considered!

There are 80 Christian countries and 56 Muslim countries in the world today. There is only one Jewish country—Israel. Arabs have no claim to the land of Israel whatsoever. Islam is just 1500 years old, while Jews have lived in the Promised Land for nearly 4000 years! If the Arabs want to find a home, they can choose from 56 countries. Jews have nowhere else to go.

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Genocide?

The only genocide taking place in the region is that of Hamas indiscriminately firing missiles and rockets at civilian population centers in Israel for the past 18 years, incessantly. Israel has finally had it after the October 7 massacre and has vowed to uproot the evil Hamas regime from the area. Doing so will require them to invade Gaza and find the Hamas terrorists who are embedded everywhere in Gaza, from schools, mosques, and hospitals, to terror tunnels. This is a painstaking operation and will take a lot of time to succeed. But there is no other choice. The status quo is simply intolerable.

In 1948, there were 156,000 Arabs in Israel. Today there are 1.6 million Arab citizens of Israel, comprising about 20% of the total Israeli population. If Israel is committing genocide on the Arabs, they’re doing a really, really bad job!

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It’s all because of settlements!

It’s been said that the reason why the Arabs hate Israel is because of the settlements—Jewish towns and cities built in areas that Arabs consider disputed territory. These are the lands captured by Israel after the Six-Day War. This is a total farce, as Arabs declared war on Israel long before a single settlement was ever established in 1967.

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Siege on Gaza?

How is it even possible to lay siege to a territory which you don’t fully surround? Since Gaza borders on both Israel and Egypt, calling this a siege is nothing more than a blatant lie. Every country has a right to defend its borders, especially when the neighbors next door have voted in a government whose charter openly calls for your genocide. Calling Gaza besieged by Israel is the same as saying that Canada is besieged by the USA—it’s nothing but propaganda that has nothing to do with the facts.

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Israel’s Response is Disproportionate?

On October 7, 2023, roughly 3000 Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel and raped, murdered, tortured, beheaded, and kidnapped innocent Israeli civilians. There might be truth to the fact that a proportionate response is in order, but not a single one of our soldiers is willing to behave that way toward innocent human beings.

When Hitler started World War II, the Allies needed to do everything they could to win the war. The fact that there were millions more civilian casualties in Germany than in England doesn’t make England guilty of war crimes. Japan gave us Pearl Harbor, so we responded by giving them Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

You don’t win wars through responding to attacks like a boomerang. You need to swoop in with ferocious might and root out the source of the attack regardless of where it is entrenched. Hamas started this war, and Israel is going to make sure to finish it. If you’re going to start a war, you’ve made your bed and now you’re going to have to lie in it.

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Free Palestine?

This slogan is a pathetic oxymoron, as it calls for freedom for a group of people who apparently don’t want freedom. Arabs in Gaza have very few human rights: women are treated as second-class citizens with little or no protection from violence; they cannot travel without the permission of a male relative; and they have strict codes of dress which are enforceable by execution. Children are forced to build Hamas’ terror tunnels, resulting in the deaths of countless children laboring in dangerous working conditions.

Using the “Living Shield Doctrine,” Hamas uses Gazan civilians to protect their weapons; Israel uses weapons to protect her citizens.

If pro-Hamas protestors on US college campuses had any idea of how oppressive Hamas is to its own citizens, they would be appalled. LGTBQ protestors are cluelessly rallying for Hamas—an organization that routinely executes gays and lesbians!

Those who stand with Gaza, should try to stand in Gaza and see how that works out for them. They are nothing but misguided bigots whose pathetic naivete is eclipsed only by their own shameless animosity toward the Jews.

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Ethnic Cleansing?

It’s a documented fact that the Arab population within Israel has grown at the same rate as the Jewish population in Israel. The fact that Israel is attacking Gaza is because Hamas, who was elected by Gaza to rule over it, started a war with us on October 7 and is currently still holding over 240 Jewish babies, women, and men hostage in Gaza. We will stop at nothing to bring our citizens home. It’s absurd to think that only Jews have to defend ourselves for defending ourselves!

The flourishing Jewish communities of the Arab world were forcibly expelled during the War of Independence in 1948: Algeria’s 140,000 Jews are now down to 50; Morocco’s 265,000 Jews are now 2,000; Tunisia’s 105,000 Jews are now 1,700. Libya’s 38,000 are now down to zero; Egypt’s 75,000 are down to 20 Jews. Lebanon’s 24,000 are now 100 Jews; Syria had 30,000 Jews and now has 100. Iran’s 100,000 Jews are now down 9,800. Iraq’s 150,000 are down to 10 Jewish souls; Afghanistan’s 5,000 Jews are now down to 1 Jew. Oman went from 5,000 Jews to zero. Yemen’s 63,000 Jews are now down to 50 and Bahrain’s 1,500 Jews are now down to 35.

On the flip side, all Arabs who left Israel in the War of Independence did so on their own accord. They were told by the Arab armies that they would return as soon as the Arabs had won the war—thankfully, that never happened, but they’re still trying to make it look like it was our fault that they left!

There are no hardly any Shuls in Arab countries today but the call of the Adhan rings from the Mosques of Israel five times each day, all over Israel. To call this ethnic cleansing has nothing to do with reality.

And one more thing: When the pathetic pro-Hamas rallies call to “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea,” what they mean is from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. They are calling for a single Palestinian State that would wipe Israel entirely off the map. This call is a shameless call for ethnic cleansing in a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

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Never again?

Never Again isn’t about what happens to us, it’s about how we respond to what happens to us.

Never Again will we be like sheep to the slaughter. Never again will we be passive. Never Again will we wait for others to have mercy and compassion upon us. It means that never again will we ask for the permission of the world to defend ourselves from those who are trying to harm us.

Never Again means that, from now on, we will fight for our own self-determination. Never Again means that, from now on, we will use all resources and options necessary to defend our mothers and daughters, babies, and elderly.

Never Again means that, from now on, we will fight with military might, flex political muscle, and increase in personal spiritual engagement to provide maximum protection and effectiveness to our cause!

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How to react to anti-Semitism today

The goal of terrorists is to strike terror into the hearts of as many people as possible. This is why the brute savages of the October 7 massacre filmed their atrocities, so that you would watch them and be afraid. We cannot allow fear to set foot in our hearts. This would be a victory for Hamas.

Nothing gladdens a bully like seeing his victims cower. Nothing disarms a bully like seeing his victim confident and unafraid.

The one thing we should never consider is to hide our Judaism through removing our Mezuzahs and hiding our Jewish practice. Now is the time to be more Jewish than ever before. Lay Tefillin for Israel, light Shabbos candles for Israel. Give more Tzedaka (Charity) than you’ve ever done before. Stand united with your fellow Jews, even with those with whom you disagree.

This will not just weaken the bullies, it will also draw G-d’s Divine intervention upon us here and in the theater of war in Gaza.

Remember that the one thing that all anti-Semites of history have in common is that they never fail to fail. That’s why we are still here. Have trust in G-d Almighty and He will protect you, like He did for all our ancestors before us.

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Why is there a double standard when it comes to Israel?

We’re going to get a little spiritual here, so hold on tight:

The Talmud tells us that when we allow a double standard with regard to our internal spiritual values, the Gentiles have a double standard with regard to us too. We tend to invest great effort in our material, financial, and worldly interests but we spend very little time and effort on our spiritual and Jewish needs. We will fight to enter Ivy League schools but will be happy to graduate with our Jewish education when we’re in the 6th grade. We read every financial and political journal out there but we have given the Torah nothing more than a cursory look, at best.

When we can create a healthy balance between the spiritual and material needs of our lives, then the Gentiles will treat us to the same standard as they treat others. How’s that for an empowering solution to anti-Semitism?

Why do they hate us?

3335 years ago, the Torah notified us that we were going to be the victims of anti-Semitism—clearly, it’s by Divine design. Our Nation is compared to an olive because it needs to be squeezed in order to produce its finest oil. Instead of recoiling with horror from the blatant anti-Semitism that surrounds us, try to reflect on the deeper Divine purpose behind it. Instead of crying out in pain when you’re feeling crushed, make some oil!

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Closing Thought

We will win this war of swords like we always do. “Behold the Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” But when it comes to the war of words, it’s up to us Jews to stop being woke and wake up. When we can courageously and confidently embrace our Torah, our Jewish identity, and our G-d by warmly welcoming Him into our conversations, our homes, and our daily experience, it’s then that G-d will find no further need for the anti-Semites to provoke us. Once the oil is produced, there’s no further need to crush the olive.

This is not a war that we can subcontract to the IDF or the US Army. The anti-Semites constantly remind us that we are active duty soldiers in the army of the Jewish People—the Army of G-d. It’s time for us to act like it.

The world has deep compassion for dead Jews who are helpless but zero tolerance for living Jews who are strong. I’d far prefer to be strong and hated than dead and pitied.

Everything will be good in the end. If it’s not good, it’s not the end.

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Rabbi Dovid Vigler
Chabad of Palm Beach Gardens
6100 PGA Blvd, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33418
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