Failing our Jewish Youth in Discussing the war in Gaza.

I love the holiday of Shavuot, the festival commemorating the giving of the Torah, where we engage in all-night Torah study, Tikun Leil Shavuot. My wife and I usually attend classes both in our synagogue as well as at our JCC, and this year was no different. The lectures vary in topics, and we usually feel enriched by the experience. However, this year I left at 3AM somewhat disturbed. It followed a lecture I attended where a father was openly discussing with his daughter the ‘horrific acts of pain and violence Israel exacts on the Palestinian population’ throughout this war and beyond.

The lecture was labeled as a Dialogue with Gen-Z Jews. A rabbi was tasked with moderating the conversation between the two and it was difficult to see both grownups tiptoeing around the young woman’s ambivalent feelings towards Israel. Although concerned with its security, she expressed her difficulty with the ‘indiscriminate killing’ in Gaza by Israel. She’s been frequenting both, the campus Hillel, where she joins her fellow Jews who identify as supporters of Israel and the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP), who protest against the war and Palestinian’s suffering.

It’s easy to sympathize with the student and the innocence of her youth. We’ve all been there at some point in our past, protesting for or against one thing or another. While we cannot impose our views on our children, it is the responsibility of parents and teachers to help cohere the situation to the younger generation. Despite trying to empower them to be independent thinkers, we do our kids no favor by allowing their questionable lofty ideas to ferment without trying to explain the complexity of life through the arc of history as decisively as we can. The Israel war against Hamas is an example of an existential and just war being conducted in front of a biased world and a hostile media that vilifies Israel. Our children need to know that the Israel is a democracy, and that Hamas is an oppressive terrorist organization committed to killing Jews!

While Israeli soldiers try to clear weapons directed at Israel and eliminate terrorists who are committed to killing Jews, there is another front to this war, the one being fought on TV screens, Newspaper covers and social media, and which is directed at shaping the West’s public opinion against Israel.

Just like ISIS directed its PR to recruit young man and women to join their ranks, Hamas and its agents in Doha use every tool to lie and fabricate stories that would promote the claim of Genocide perpetrated by Israel.

Many of our young Jewish student fit the profile of a typical target for their blood libel and distortions, in which the IDF shoots at desperate Palestinians who come to collect food rations.

The moderator’s tentative questions, trying to build consensus and satisfy the mixed audience, together with the father’s constrained reply, in an attempt to be acceptable or admirable in his daughter’s eyes, prevented the conversation from going anywhere other than avoid a necessary confrontation: Is Israel guilty of criminal behavior and indiscriminate killings? Is it avoidable in a war they didn’t start? Do they have the right or obligation to pursue the war until all hostages are released and Hamas is eliminated from control of Gaza? No one asked these pointed questions!

Sitting in the audience, it was hard not to like the student on stage; a kind and generous young Jewish woman, caring and involved, she represents the best of our Jewish heritage and upbringing. However, had she lived in Israel, she’d have finished her army service by now, been called to serve in the reserves and would be sadly busy attending some of her friends’ funerals. Yet having grown up in the diaspora, she’s been exposed to a never-ending barrage of Israel and Jew hatred. She has read, watched and listened to daily accusations of Israel being a western colonial power, guilty of inflicting apartheid and genocide on the poor Palestinians. While she may be aligned with Israel, living in this toxic environment, she would need to be armed with tools to guard her from falling for this anti-Israel propaganda.

This situation describes a clear and present danger for our young, who arrive on campuses financed by foreign funds (over $10 billions in the last decade), that established Muslim faculties and placed left leaning ideologs in position of influence around campuses who attack Israel and create an environment that is open for harassment of its Jewish students. It would be hard for any young adult thrusted in this environment not to be swept up into their mass movement. She would need her parents and teacher’s help in being prepared to make sense of the brainwashing machination unleashed here at US campuses.

I believe that our children deserve a different approach. A concerted effort must be made on the part of the larger Jewish community to inform and educate our youth regarding what they’ll be confronting when they leave the cocoon of our Jewish institutions. Handing down our love for Israel and Zionism to the next generation, does not prepare them to stand up to the lies and distorted truths that will be coming at them. The war in Gaza is a binary situation and our youth deserve to be armed with clear answers to the attacks coming at them.

Israel was attacked in a brutal and hideous way; its citizens were raped, murdered and kidnapped. Israel demanded that Hamas to lay down its arms and release its hostages. Instead, Hamas shot over 20,000 missiles and drones against Israel while embedding itself among its civilian population. More importantly, Hamas maintains in both its charters a clear commitment to kill every Jew, wherever they are.

Young students have difficulty in  accepting the ugly nature of war. They need to understand that war has rules about ‘acceptable  collateral damage,’ and that according to military experts, Israel has been waging war along those rules.

In criticizing Israel, the west has forgotten that the allies dropped a million ton of bombs over Germany and two nuclear bombs on Japan. It was essential in order to end the Second World War, and despite all odds, both Japan and Germany have become strong allies with the US (after a long period of rebuilding).

We continuously hear the never-ending hypocritical refrain about cease fire, peace, two state solution and other tired slogans. We need to remind our students of the old paradigm, that if Palestinians laid down their weapons, there would be peace. But if Israel laid down their weapons, there would be no Israel.

If the narrative that “the Palestinians just want to live in peace” is true, then where are their protests against their Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders who maintain terror. We must remind our students that an environment where Palestinian children learn math by adding Two dead Jews + Two dead Jews = four Dead Jews, does not represent a partner that wants to live in peace.

Lastly, our youth should be encouraged to direct their passion for peace to protesting against Russia when it sends 500 drones and kills tens of innocent civilians in one day, and to condemning Turkey, when it arrests and kills dozens of its Kurds, and to China, when it places a million Uighurs in concentration and re-education camps.

Someone must point out to them that only when Jews are involved that students protest.

Without educating our children with a clear message, we’re subjecting them to falling prey to the confusing reality around them. In a world where aggressors are appeased, the only way to end this barbarity is in allowing Israel to win the war.