The World is a Paradox

PA President Abbas's Fatah tweeted this picture in October 2015 glorifying the stabbing of Israeli civilians, yet the world stays silent about this incitement.

This planet has become a paradox, in which right is wrong, good is evil, and silence is a course of action.

The past couple of weeks have proven to be horrifically violent for the tiny Jewish state. Palestinian terrorists have made a point of attempting to accomplish one goal, and one goal only: to kill as many Jews as possible. Furthermore, the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, is not only not condemning these terror attacks that his own people are perpetrating; he is, instead, condoning, encouraging, and celebrating them. During this terrible time in Israel’s history, the world has sat back and said nothing – absolutely nothing – about these abhorrent occurrences. They have said absolutely nothing about the Palestinian incitement that has been raging across PA television stations, kindergarten classrooms, and the streets of Judea and Samaria for far too long. However, if a single Palestinian-Arab individual dies in an effort for Israel to protect herself, the entire world is up in arms.

In conjunction with this recent wave of terror attacks, national campus groups, most notably Students for Justice in Palestine, have not spoken a word about the intellectual and moral oppression of the Palestinian-Arabs, a group that they claim to so deeply care about, by their own government. They have not spoken a word about the fact that, in order to create a functioning, blossoming Palestinian state in the future, the incitement of Palestinian youth must stop. They have not spoken a word about the vehement anti-Semitism pulsing through the veins of the Palestinian Authority. They, instead, condemn Israel for what they refer to as the ‘occupation’, cite Israel’s ‘wrongdoings’ for the reason that Palestinian-Arabs are committing horrific deeds in the first place, and rise up in anger when a Palestinian-Arab is killed in an act of self-defense by Israel. They call for a third intifada as a form of ‘justified resistance’. They condemn Israel for any use of force, force which is utilized as a protective measure to keep Israelis safe, while either remaining silent or outrightly praising the murder of innocent Jews by Palestinians.

So, here is what needs to happen:

  1. Students for Justice in Palestine must stop their selective outrage.
  2. Students for Justice in Palestine must begin practicing what they claim to preach; they must condemn the intellectual subjection, the outright censorship, and the moral oppression of Palestinian-Arabs by their own governing forces.
  3. Students for Justice in Palestine must cease to cover their ears whenever they hear something that does not fit their narrative of the helpless Palestinian whose rights are squandered by Israel.
  4. The world must stop dehumanizing the Jewish people by justifying and keeping silent about the indiscriminate murder of Jews.
  5. The world must stop dehumanizing Palestinian-Arabs by justifying their barbarism and imposing a separate moral code on their actions, by stripping them of any sense of agency.
  6. The world must stop dehumanizing the PA President, Mahmoud Abbas, by assuming that he is not morally high-functioning enough to condemn terror and to be held accountable for his own lies.
  7. The world must stop claiming that Israel’s building of houses and Israel’s security checkpoints are a legitimate excuse for stabbings and suicide bombings.
  8. The world must stop claiming that terrorism is simply a synonym for justified resistance.
  9. The world must learn to think critically about the lies that they choose to believe.

This planet has become a paradox, in which right is wrong, good is evil, and silence is a course of action.

Lilia Gaufberg is a senior at Clark University and the President of the school’s pro-Israel group called CHAI. She is also an alumna of the 2014-2015 ZOA Student Leadership Mission to Israel and is a current ZOA Campus Fellow.