THE PITCH: “THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PALESTINIANS ETHNICALLY CLEANSED AND MURDERED BY THE EVIL ZIONIST REGIME!” Or so the read the headlines. Gaza is once again in the news after the United States officially opened its embassy in Jerusalem and and to no surprise, thousands of angry Palestinians stormed the border fence of Gaza with Israel in an effort to tear it down and invade Israel’s territory, their “Day of rage.” Headlines like these are the common narrative for most -“Pro-Palestinian” activists, echoed by many celebrities and world leaders on the political left. Even more, media outlets like CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, among others, often publish headlines which read, “Israel Attacks Gaza,” or Palestinian Youths Killed by Israeli Soldiers.” And just like that, David is painted as Goliath and Goliath puts on the mask of David. What is worse is that most of popular society drink up these mainstream media biases like milk. But for people like me, this milk is pretty tough to swallow, in-fact, I have become lactose intolerant because of it. Take it from me, the Arab-Jewish guy who has been on both sides of the fence quite literally. I love to travel, and if you have not noticed by now, my favorite place to visit is Israel. When I was last there I noticed the reality on the ground was very different from what the media usually describes as a war-torn desert region of the world full of ruins and camels. Israel is a vibrant, thriving democracy, the only functioning one in the Middle East at the moment. In Jerusalem, the Holy Capital, you could sleep with your windows and doors open. In Tel-Aviv, you will feel like you are in Miami or Cancun, except everything is in Hebrew. In fact, most of modern Israel is pretty calm and quiet, safer than other regions and it is one of those regions I will now turn my attention to, that is – Gaza.

Since ancient times, Gaza was first home to an ancient people called the Philistines, if that name sounds familiar, it should, because not only is that the name of the ancient mortal enemy of Israel from which the giant Goliath of Gath was said to have hailed, it is where the name Palestine comes from. Remember, it was King Hezekiah who last dealt with the remnants of the Philistine kingdom after-which the Philistine culture vanished from the earth. Generations later, the Roman legions laid siege to Jerusalem and destroyed the city along with the Jewish Temple and her people carried off into exile. The Romans renamed the region from Judea to Palestina, as a means of further humiliating their conquered enemy by naming the land after an ancient enemy and attempting to blot out any trace of Jewish connection to the Homeland. Since then until the 20th Century the land was commonly known to most people in the world as Palestine. Jews, Christians and Muslims were all considered Palestinians because they lived in that region. There was never an independent nation in that region called Palestine, it was always a political territory of one of many empires who occupied the Holy Land for the last two millennia. It was only after Israel’s independence in 1948 and the liberation of Jerusalem in 1967, that angry Arabs who had lived in that region resisted against Israel and took on the name of Palestine as their identity, with no historic connection to the ancient Philistines. It was Yasser Arafat who ultimately promoted this title as a banner for the Palestinian people to rally behind, the banner of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, AKA – the PLO. Over time different factions grew from the PLO, among them are today’s Hamas and Fatah, the former being the more radical militant wing and the latter being the seemingly diplomatic wing, although it is a well-known fact Fatah often funds and supports terror activities. In yet another one of Israel’s numerous attempts for peace with the Palestinians, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, to give into the hands of the Palestinian Authority for the establishment of an independent state. As fate would have it, the plan quickly backfired when Hamas was elected to power, chased Fatah out of Gaza and began a rocket campaign against Israel. Since then countless rockets have been fired from Gaza onto Israeli cities, targeting civilians and military alike. In response Israel has carried out several wars and operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the last one being Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. That was only one month after I had left Israel that same year and was able to visit this region myself and see the conflict with my own eyes. Below are some of the photos I took at the time.

Let the evidence clearly demonstrate the true aggressor of this conflict! Here are hundreds of exploded rocket fragments recovered and collected over the years by Israeli forces. I took these photos in the town of Sderot, not far from the border fence with Gaza. This little town gets pummeled with rockets whenever there is a conflict going on. The Israelis have a siren warning system in place, but even that only gives the women and children of Sderot a mere 15 seconds or less to drop whatever they are doing immediately and run for cover to find a safe bomb shelter, which the town now has no shortage of, because you never know when or where the rocket will hit. What struck me the most were the bomb shelters placed on children’s playgrounds, children whose youth is suddenly ripped away from them by the brutality of terrorism. These bomb shelters are often painted or built into playful images to somehow lessen the trauma for the children. Now that Israel uses the iron dome, Hamas decided to start building underground terror tunnels, and now that Israeli forces have stopped those, Hamas now sends the people of Gaza to storm the border fence with Israel, in an effort to tear it down and “tear out their hearts,” referring to killing Jews. Hamas uses these people as human shields, setting Israel up for world condemnation as they are forced to defend Israeli civilians only yards behind them. They burn tires, throw Molotov cocktails, fly burning kites, and wearing masks, waving swastikas and wielding knives in a radical fervor shouting “Allah Haikbar! (God is Great).” The media portrays these people as “peaceful protestors,” but all evidence shows their intentions are anything but peaceful. The stated goal of Hamas, Fatah and all who openly wage terror against Israel is not just the complete demise of the Jewish State, but the complete and total annihilation of the Jewish people. And they have the nerve to accuse Israel before the world of genocide! We know that genocide is the deliberate targeting of a specific race or group of people for the purpose of complete and utter extermination, which I testify to the world that Israel does no such thing, BUT THAT IT IS HAMAS AND THE RADICAL ISLAMIST FACTONS WHO ENCOURAGE THE GENOCIDE OF THE JEWS, CHRISTIANS AND ALL WHO STAND AGAINST THEM! The people of Israel have every right to their natural and historic homeland! No apologies! They must defend themselves from all enemies on every side, and of duty ought to use every resource under their power to protect themselves! I support the Israel Defense Forces as they protect Israel from the real invaders, any other nation would do the same exact thing when faced with a similar situation! There is absolutely no excuse Palestinians can give to justify these brutal actions. We do not desire to kill anyone, but if your intention is to invade my country and harm either myself or my family and people, believe me when I say I will not hesitate to shoot and make sure you never threaten us ever again! We want peace as much as any rational minded human being, but unfortunately, we live in a very real world where people hate us and war becomes the necessary means of survival.

I conclude by saying this; as I have always said that the root and key to ending all this hatred is a complete recall and reformation of Palestinian education. Palestinian culture, textbooks and classes in both Gaza and the West Bank indoctrinate their students from the crib to adulthood to believe that Jews are naturally evil and that their duty as good Palestinians is to murder as many Jews as they can. Israeli textbooks never once indoctrinate their children in such fashion. Some people paint this as a conflict with both sides to blame, when I stand firm in my belief that, while Israel is not perfect, we have absolutely NOTHING, to apologize for! Golda Meir once said, “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” Indeed, as she also warned us, that if the Arabs lay down their arms, there will be no more war, but that if the Jews do so, there will be no more Jews. It seems there is a double standard in the mainstream media and world governments, that every other nation on earth has the right to defend its existence by any means necessary, except the Jews! Well, here is one more Jew who no longer cares about world opinion. We are in a fight for our very existence, between a Jewish state which champions and defends the principles of democracy and coexistence versus a regime which seeks the complete annihilation of another people. The people of Gaza who are trying to break the border fence into Israel are not peaceful protesters but dangerous and brainwashed militants seeking to kill Israeli civilians and Israel must and will always do whatever necessary to defend all of her people. Israel is like a very nice house in the middle of a very bad neighborhood, everybody wants a piece of it, so we must be tough and aggressive as a matter of defense and survival. Over six million Jews were led to the slaughter by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and before that Jews were always the target of society and we now say in the twenty first century, NEVER AGAIN! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

The next time you hear someone call the IDF war criminals, remind them that Israel’s Defense Forces are made up of normal young men and women fresh out of high school, doing their part to protect their only country on earth. They do not want to kill anyone, but will do whatever is necessary to protect the people of Israel. Stay tuned for my next report, as I show you what it is exactly that they fight so hard to protect.