Stop Silencing Me

Stop silencing me.

Stop telling me to be quiet.

Stop telling me that you’ve heard enough.

Stop telling me to tone it down when I talk about Israel.

Israel is my home and the home of every Jew everywhere. Israel means everything to me and it might to you, too. Just because I express it differently doesn’t make me annoying. Just because I choose not to be silent when confronted with incorrect facts and ignorant thoughts, doesn’t make me irritating.

You tell me that you already know the facts– but it means nothing. You tell me that my arguments are annoying– but it still means nothing. You tell me that I get too tense when I talk about Israel– but it really means nothing.

I want you to understand what Israel means to me before you silence me. Israel is the only safe haven for Jews. Israel is where our ancestors walked thousands of years ago. Israel is not just a country, it’s my whole world. Expect me to repeat facts about Israel because people still ignore them. Expect me to argue about Israel because it enrages me to see disregard for the truth. Expect me to get tense when talking about Israel because it pains me to witness the constant terrorist attacks that take place there. Expect me to do all of this because it’s my duty to defend Israel.

Over four hundred attacks occurred in Israel from October 2015 to October 2016. Two months after a wave of stabbings occurred I could tell people were already moving on to the next thing. My phone would buzz and I’d look down to see a news update on a stabbing that occurred. Maybe you look down at your phone and sigh and move on. I can’t.

I wonder if you see that this is what Palestinians committing acts of terror want, for you to “move on.” I wonder if you see that they want you to look down at your phone and shrug it off. That they want you to ignore the blood of innocent Israelis spilling all over our home. That they don’t want you to flinch when you hear about the death of another Israeli. That they attack in waves to make us weaker. That they want us not to care about any of this anymore.

But I do care. And I want you to look down at your phone and instead of sighing, fight for Israel. I want you to defend the country that has sacrificed so much for us. And most of all, I want you to recognize the deaths of innocent Israelis and think to yourself that Israeli lives do matter.

You might be thinking that you can’t possibly be helping the enemy by doing nothing. However, in Edmund Burke’s famous words, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” we are reminded otherwise.

You help evil triumph every time you don’t criticize the Palestinians when they attack innocent Israelis. You help evil triumph every time you don’t post on Facebook about Hamas placing children on the roofs of homes in Gaza as human shields. And you help evil triumph when you don’t write letters to Congress criticizing the Palestinian Authority for naming streets and schools after terrorists that kill three month old babies in their cribs.You are helping evil triumph every time you silence me.Go ahead. Go criticize one Israeli soldier for shooting a Palestinian when they were already down. Go criticize Prime Minister Netanyahu for restricting journalists entry into Gaza. But just know that while you could be using your time criticizing Hamas for valuing their weapons over the lives of children, you choose to criticize and scrutinize Israel, the most democratic and free country in the Middle East, for every little move.

I am not going to be quiet. I am not going to shut up. Israel is the only home we have as Jews and I will defend it to my last breath.I refuse to be silenced.