You can have your own opinions, but you can't have your own facts.
The accusations that Israel is a racist, genocidal, colonial country of inequality and oppression are absolutely false. Only the most biased observer can possibly make those accusations in the face of historical facts.
In a 2 minute read, you can learn why:
I reject any voice that seeks to contextualize the Hamas massacres of October 7, 2023 as part of a legitimate response to historic and contemporary injustice or oppression. Targeted mass civilian slaughter is unjustified, and those who perform it are untrustworthy partners for diplomatic solutions.
I reject the view that a military response to terrorism is unjust or invalid, even in the face of additional civilian deaths. This is because there is no alternative action to stop the terrorism. If you have the hidden alternative solution to terrorism, and the power to implement it, then by all means you should make that happen. In the meantime, the brutal and blunt tool of military action must be applied. To call for a cease fire in the face of active terrorism against civilian targets is at the least stupid and at the most complicit with the terror itself.
I reject the exaggeration and misuse of the terms of civil justice in the present conflict:
1) Israel is not engaged in genocide, which is the intention to erradicate an entire people from the face of the earth. Palestinian Arab civilians in Israel are equal partners in the modern state. The Arab population of Israel is both safe and growing. The violence of the present conflict is not against Israel's Arabs at all. The Hamas terror group is what has provoked Israel's current military action in Gaza.
2) Israel is not a colonial nation. Israel is not a transplant from some other European nation, stealing land, killing the native population, and farming and mining resources to send back to the homeland. The entire model of colonialism is completely contradicted by what Israel actually is. Israel's population is the outgrowth of 4 historical sources, none of which are colonial:
First, the Jewish people have always existed in larger and smaller numbers in the Land of Israel for 3,000+ years, including peaceful growth and development of specifically Jewish towns and villages under the Ottomon Empire and the British Mandate from 1300-1948.
Second, Israel's majority Jewish population in the ares of the UN partition plan in 1948 asserted that native Jewish populations did exist at that time, were widespread, and should rule where they had a democratic majority.
Third, after WWII and after Israel was already a legal and recognized country, it welcomed the refugee populations of Jews from the Holocaust.
And fourth, over 900,000 Jews were expelled from Arab and Muslim nations of North Africa and the Middle East after the establishment of the State of Israel, knowing that the only place that would take them was Israel.
Therefore the entire initial Jewish population of Israel is comprised of native citizens, legal immigrants, refugees from WWI and expelled refugees from Arab Lands. None of the population of Israel are colonists representing a foreign nation who receives financial benefit from their existence.
3) Israel is a vibrant democracy. This almost goes without saying, but the electoral process, free speech, free press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom of sexual and gender identity and equal access to the tools and protections of society are affirmed for all her citizens, over 10% of whom are Arab/Palestinian citizens of Israel. This absolutely is not true for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank or Hamas in Gaza, let alone Syria, Jordan or Egypt.
4) Israel is not racist. Israel is a multi-racial and multi-cultural society. Over 50% of Israeli Jewish citizens are of mixed or pure non-European lineage, and over 12% of the society is non-Jewish! In other words, Israel is not "white." Israel is, in fact, much more "black and brown" than the United States. Israel has advocated for and protected the rights of all minorities, Jewish or not, in all expressions of religion, education and governance. Did you know that one of the Supreme Court Justices is an Arab Muslim? Did you know that over 8% of the Israeli Parliament are Arab representatives? Such multi-cultural and mutli-racial demographics are unheard of in the region, or in most nations of the world.
So, those are the facts. Whoever you are, you need to start there.
