ISRAEL UNDER ATTACK

In a blatant act of anti-Semitism the San Francisco-headquartered company Airbnb has targeted Jews living in Judea and Samaria with a boycott. They have joined the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) Movement against Israeli Jews. The former Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren stated in a recent Twitter post: "Airbnb blacklists Jewish apartments in Judea and Samaria - not Palestinian apartments, not apartments in Turkish occupied Cyprus, in Moroccan occupied Sahara, not in Tibet or the Crimea." 

This comes in the same week over 500 missiles were fired from Gaza at Jewish homes, schools, hospitals and businesses. Whether it is terrorism or boycotts, media bias or by any other method this is rooted in hatred of the Jews. Anti-Semitism often masquerades as sympathy for the Palestinian people, yet those who hold such views ignore the stated intentions of both Fatah and Hamas, the two main Palestinian political parties. Their charters still call for all Jews to be removed permanently from the Holy Land. If there is no room for Jewish people in the land in which they have dwelt for over three-thousand-years then where on this planet may they live? Airbnb’s decision to target Jewish Israelis is in effect, economic warfare. 

I will not be doing business with Airbnb, a great company that has chosen to allow hatred to guide their choices. 

BORDERING ON INSANITY

The State of Israel must constantly face choices that most nations never even consider. One of the big battles America now faces is whether protecting its borders is a moral thing to do but in the State of Israel this issue is front and center and always has been.

Like any sovereign nation, Israel has a right and a duty to protect its citizens within its territory but Israel must contend with constant attempts by the United Nations to redefine its borders while simultaneously defending them against terrorist attempts to penetrate them. And when the Israelis respond to terrorists attempting to sneak across their borders or when they storm the fences as bomb-throwing rioters, the Israelis’ actions are routinely cast as moral failures while the protestors are cast as the downtrodden who are acting based on their moral rights. Of course they do have human rights, but Israeli soldiers have to make split second decisions on how to respond; many of whom are aged 18 to 20.

The international media generally demonstrates only passing interest in the obvious connections between the protests and simultaneous acts of terrorism. The Israelis are generally characterized as heartless defenders of questionable borders while the rioters and terrorists are presented as people who just want to live normal lives, their rage being constantly justified by an outrageously warped idea of journalistic fairness. This type of unsymmetrical media reporting seems more driven by ideology than an interest in reporting facts. Unbalanced reporting from the media almost always leads to greater conflict. 

Having just written the bulk of this blog post I saw a news report from last night in which Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official stated: “The protests will continue” and “we are moving toward the next escalation”, openly admitting that HAMAS, along with other groups is organizing the protests. Hamas, its charity branches and military wing, have been on the terrorist lists of many Western countries including the United States since 1997, a designation they have repeatedly earned by their actions.

HAMAS (Supported by Iran) to the southeast in Gaza, Hezbollah (Supported by Iran) to the north in Lebanon, the Syrian war to the northeast (Supported by Iran), Islamic radicals intruding from the south in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula (Supported by Iran) and terrorist attacks within from the PLO with Iran supporting each terrorist front. Such is the insanity on Israel’s borders. 

Please pray for truth to prevail, for fair and honest reporting and for these conflicts along the Israeli/Gaza border to be resolved. And as always, pray for the peace of Jerusalem.