What Boston.com Got Wrong

Facts Are Not Optional: A Rebuttal to the Natick Walkout and Boston.com’s Irresponsible Coverage

Last month, I stood silently with a group of Natick police officers behind approximately 20 students near Natick High School as they walked out of class to protest what they called Israeli “genocide” in Gaza. I later published an opinion piece about the walkout in The Times of Israel, offering my firsthand perspective and factual rebuttal to the slogans and claims made at the event. I listened closely. What I witnessed was not a thoughtful plea for peace, but a loud, misinformed outburst fueled by slogans designed to legitimize terrorism and demonize Jews. This was not courageous activism—it was ignorance put on display.

Ross Cristantiello’s piece in Boston.com took an already troubling situation and amplified the harm by glorifying it as a brave stand for justice—without doing the most basic due diligence. He never even reached out to me for comment or clarification before publishing his piece. Had he done so, he might have learned that in the days following the publication of my article in the Times of Israel, I became the target of intimidation. Unknown anti-Israel activists left Polaroid photos of my house on my driveway in a nearby suburb. One bore the handwritten message: “Shame on You Free Palestine.” Another was marked with the phrase “Free Palestine,” conveying a clear and chilling message: “We know where you live.”

These are not harmless gestures. They are deliberate attempts to silence dissent and intimidate those who speak out in defense of Israel and against antisemitism. But such facts would have undermined Cristantiello’s simplistic blame-Israel narrative—one that portrays those who slander the Jewish state as innocent, righteous youth. That isn’t journalism. It’s editorial negligence dressed up as progressive reporting.

Let’s be honest: calling Israel an apartheid or genocidal state while chanting “Free Palestine” isn’t activism—it’s antisemitism. The phrase “Free Palestine from the river to the sea” is a euphemism for the elimination of Israel. It’s the same phrase shouted by Hamas operatives as they carried out the atrocities of October 7—burning, beheading, and kidnapping civilians.

Cristantiello allowed students’ statements to go unchecked, helping spread dangerous falsehoods. One student even characterized my article as an “irritating,” bad faith effort to slander students. That comment is not only dismissive—it’s intellectually dishonest. My piece was not written to “slander” anyone. It was written to hold public actions accountable and to correct the blatant misinformation that was being shouted on a public sidewalk under the guise of moral clarity.

Let me be clear: If you repeat falsehoods about genocide, apartheid, or colonization—terms with precise historical and legal definitions—you are engaging in misinformation. If you align with slogans like “Free Palestine from the river to the sea,” you are aligning with a documented goal of eliminating the world’s only Jewish state. That isn’t activism—it’s incitement. And when such messages are delivered by American high school students in a climate already charged with antisemitic violence, it becomes not only irresponsible—it becomes dangerous.

So yes, if challenging historical illiteracy and moral inversion is seen as irritating, then I’ll gladly be irritating. But don’t mistake moral correction for malice. If these students had a single verifiable fact or historic precedent backing up what they chanted, I would have welcomed the debate. Instead, what I witnessed was the blind repetition of slogans created and weaponized by terror groups—not young advocates for peace. For instance, one student yelled, “There is no justice in genocide!” But do they even know what that word means? Genocide, under international law, is the deliberate attempt to annihilate an entire people. That’s not what Israel is doing. Israel targets Hamas—an internationally recognized terrorist group that uses civilians as human shields. Civilian deaths, while tragic, are not intentional. If genocide were truly occurring, the death toll would reflect that. In fact, the Palestinian population has grown significantly—from approximately 1.3 million in 1948 to over 5 million today.

By contrast, the Holocaust resulted in the systematic murder of six million Jews—one-third of the global Jewish population—through gas chambers, mass shootings, starvation, and forced labor. That is genocide. So is the Rwandan genocide, where 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered in 100 days. What is happening in Gaza—while deeply complex and tragic—is not remotely comparable, and to use the term “genocide” irresponsibly does a disservice to the victims of actual genocides.

How should we interpret the repeated chants of “Free Palestine”? Let’s not pretend it’s about coexistence. It’s about eradication. And everyone who chants it should be honest enough to admit that.

Hatcher Cheeseman-Meyer, a senior at Natick High and one of the protest organizers, said he feared appearing threatening to Jewish students. He should be concerned. He also said, “Frankly, I just don’t have the energy to be scared of one guy with a phone camera and a public blog.” But why be afraid? If you’re going to engage in public protest, be ready to face public scrutiny. If you’re old enough to spread charged political messages, you should be mature enough to defend them with facts—and perhaps learn something in the process.

He also criticized school leaders for promoting “Zionist voices.” But what exactly does he mean? Zionism is simply the belief that Jews, like all people, have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. If that offends you, it’s worth questioning whether your problem is with Zionism—or with Jews having any homeland at all.

To the students: if you want to be treated as adults, prepare to be challenged like adults. You protested publicly, on public property. I gathered that most of you were seniors—and that’s even more concerning. If you’re leaving high school with such a narrow, distorted understanding of world affairs, it speaks poorly of our education system. I wish you’d apply your passion to other global issues—such as the real genocides being ignored in places like Syria, Sudan, and China. But no—when Jews defend themselves, suddenly it becomes an international crisis.

Hatcher Cheeseman-Meyer, you distorted history. You justified terrorism. And now you complain because someone responded? Actions have consequences. You don’t get to amplify Hamas propaganda outside your school and then hide behind your age.

To Boston.com: what you published was not journalism—it was a puff piece full of distortions that embolden hate. Mr. Cristantiello, before writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict again, I suggest you study the subject thoroughly. Based on your understanding of geopolitics, perhaps local Boston crime reporting or wildlife conservation would suit you better. Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. Articles like yours won’t resolve the conflict or educate anyone. Instead, you’ve helped create a platform for misinformation. You failed to ask hard questions. You didn’t challenge accusations of apartheid. You repeated claims without context, and you misrepresented a valid, fact-based rebuttal as some personal attack.

Let’s also not forget that Palestinians have been offered statehood multiple times—1937 (Peel Commission), 1947 (UN Partition Plan), after the Six-Day War in 1967, at Camp David in 2000, and again in 2008 under Ehud Olmert. Each time, the offers included the vast majority of the West Bank and Gaza, and often East Jerusalem as a capital. Each time, they said no. Even President Bill Clinton, who personally oversaw the 2000 Camp David negotiations, admitted that Yasser Arafat walked away from a deal that gave Palestinians nearly everything they wanted. Why? Because the goal has never been peaceful coexistence. The goal has been the dismantling of the one Jewish state.

This isn’t about justice. It’s about hatred. It’s not about borders—it’s about Jewish existence. And when hate like that goes unchecked in American schools, we have a moral obligation to speak up.

Israel has a right to exist as a sovereign nation, and Jews have a fundamental right to live in peace and security—whether in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. When those rights are challenged or denied—whether through terrorism in Gaza or public displays of hate and misinformation in a high school protest in Massachusetts—we must speak out clearly and unapologetically. Silence is not neutrality; it’s complicity.

This isn’t Gaza. It’s Natick. And if you’re echoing the same chants as Hamas, then maybe—just maybe—you’re not the freedom fighter you think you are.