Free speech, it is a cherished natural right. It is also, however, a grossly underestimated responsibility, one which some individuals take for granted and abuse on a daily basis, and yes, I am talking about radical left groups like Students for Justice in Palestine.

Oh boy, here I go again, and no I won’t shut up thank you very much.

For one, they present the public with a very biased view of Middle East history while at the same time accusing people like me of doing the exact same thing.

I really can’t make this stuff up folks, you can go read a book and brush up on the subject yourself, but since I’m feeling pretty generous and also happen to really love world history, allow me to present a brief factual account of Israel’s side of the story and address certain troubling statements made by students on our own campus at Florida International University.

One of the most famous claims SJP makes is that Israel stole the land from the Palestinian people.

Correction, prior to May 15^th, 1948, there was never an independent Palestine, and the lands they claim we stole were won fair and square after their fellow Arabs from Jordan, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in 1948, and 1967. So according to international law, Israelis could do pretty much whatever they wanted in lands captured in their defense, and that includes settling in ancient Judea and Samaria, regions with huge cultural and historic significance to Jews.

Plus the term “Palestinian” referred to not only Arabs, but also Jews and anyone else who was a citizen of the Ottoman occupied and later British occupied territory of Palestine which was, prior to World War I, only considered the south-west back water regions of Syria.

Another thing, the security wall around parts of the West Bank was originally put up to stop suicide bombers, snipers, and other terrorists from harming Israelis and attacks have dramatically decreased ever since, so it seems to me the wall is very effective for protecting many Jews, Christians and Muslims living, working and praying , shopping and dining,  every day in places like Jerusalem.

Anti-Blackness? Really? Do they even know that a significant portion of Israeli and Jewish culture is black? Have they never met Black or even Arab Israeli soldiers? I have, but for some reason certain media outlets choose not to cover their stories. I wonder why…

Oh and by the way, thanks  to SJP for the newspaper shout out! I’m sure you really liked my previous articles on Zionism. Well there’s plenty more coming so get ready, you’re gonna really love what I have in store next!

As I was saying, both Arabs and Jews have shared the same homeland for centuries prior to this conflict, and there were both good times and bad.

For the most part, Arabs and Jewish neighbors tended get along very well, even intermingling cultural customs and traditions, but there are also plenty of times where radical religious sects came to power and carried out several massacres upon Jews living throughout the Middle East and other parts of the world.

You see my friends, Jews haven’t always had the freedom we enjoy today, in fact only 70 years ago we were still a people with no country, wandering for centuries since being forced into a near 2,000-year exile by the Roman Empire, although there were always a few remnant Palestinian Jewish communities surviving from Jerusalem to Safed.

I am part Arab on my father’s side, and I’d like to clarify that my father’s people are united by one of two things, the Arabic language which became dominant in the region especially with the rise of Islam in the 7^th Century.

For the most part the region of Palestine was a desert wasteland for many centuries, although Arabs began to arrive and settle from the 7^th Century and on, but especially after the Crusades from the 11^th to 13^th Centuries.

Since that time Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, Jews, Druze, and other communities have almost simultaneously coexisted as the indigenous people of the region of Palestine.

In fact, many thousands of Jews lived throughout Arab countries of the Levant, North Africa, Ethiopia, and even as far as modern-day Iran.

Jews were constantly a minority, and an easy scapegoat for Christian and Muslim Empires to pin the blame on when something goes wrong, directing the people’s fury away from the government and onto us.

If we really had so much power, how have we so easily been targeted and so brutally slaughtered throughout human history, surely we would do something to protect ourselves right?

You see, we did, because for years people told us, “Jews go home,” so we did, and we fought, bled and died for it, and called it by its ancient name, Israel.

You see my friends, Zionism, contrary to popular belief, is not racism.

The people who claim this fail to take into account the thousands of Jews from India, Ethiopia, and other parts of the non-European world, but you know how they like to paint us all as old white guys.

It’s simple, our people were walking targets for international anger for millennia until some of us decided enough was enough and that it was time for that age-old dream, recited in our daily prayers, and prophetically spoken at every religious holiday and an inseparable part of Jewish identity, the longing to return to the land of Zion, into a tangible reality.

In all that time though, when Arab/Muslim rulers actually ruled Palestine, why did they never claim independence? Oh but when the Jews do it it’s wrong right?

The double standard is astounding!

Now on to another famous claim of theirs, that Israel is a racist state which commits genocide upon the Palestinian people.

Yea guys, we’re such a racist state that we actually invited our Arab neighbors to help build up the country together in our declaration of independence.

We’re such a racist state that we promised the United Nations partition of Palestine to protect every religious/ethnic minority living in the country, which we do to this day.

We’re such an apartheid state that Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis can vote in elections, women can openly drive, own businesses, men and women are free to love whomever they want, and believe whatever they want, and even serve in the Israeli army together, an obligation for Jewish citizens, an option for Arabs. That says something about Arab Israelis  who volunteer to serve in the IDF, doesn’t it?

The “genocide” they refer to, are the operations of the Israel Defense Forces working within the West Bank and around Gaza responding to and preventing terror threats against Israeli citizens because Hamas and Fatah have never once ceased to indoctrinate their people to hate and rage against us from the cradle to adulthood, conditioning them with a victim’s mentality to provoke global sympathy for them, while provoking hate toward Israel.

Yea, there is a genocide alright, and it happens when mothers teach their children that to kill a Jew is somehow pleasing to God, in the name of the “occupation of Palestine.”

It happens when fathers place their children in front of Israeli soldiers to provoke them to kill a child and blast Israel all over the media.

While real genocide is happening in Syria, Myanmar, China, Sudan, Nigeria, and other parts of the world, the United Nations somehow focuses most of its condemnation on tiny Israel, where there is absolutely no genocide occurring.

What members of SJP and their supporters are really after is the demise of the Jewish state, replacing it with one called Palestine, so according to them the only people in the world who have no right to self determination are the Jews, now if that is not racist, I don’t know what is.

Members of SJP support the legacy of Yasser Arafat, a known and very dead terrorist who was responsible for the deaths of countless innocent people. My job is to dismantle that legacy of terror, piece by piece. And mark my words, I will not rest until the memory of Arafat and the PLO, Hamas and Fatah, are wiped from existence.

The State of Israel is a vibrant, thriving, and technologically advanced democracy, filled with culture and rich diversity. We protect our identity as a Jewish State because we literally have no other homeland on Earth, and so we will fight those who threaten her with all of our might, and we will never apologize for that.

I remember debating with one of their members on Tuesday, March 5^th, 2019, reminding them of all the terror attacks committed by Palestinians against Israelis, when my friend recalled the suicide bombing of a Sbarro’s Pizza in Jerusalem 2001, which killed 15 people including 2 Americans and wounding 130 people, the SJP student simply replied, “They deserved it!”

Our jaws dropped open in disbelief, and I really don’t have to explain why such a grotesque statement is just plain wrong for any normal human being.

So long as we have breath, we will continue to raise our banners, and proudly wave our beautiful blue and white with that big blue Star of David, and I also happen to have some fond Arab Israeli friends who would be happy to join me.

So the next time you see people passing out “free Palestine” stuff, just tell them that Palestine is already free, and from the river to the sea, Israel will stay free.

By Uzi Darwiche/ SpiritofZionBlog.com 

PS: Israel isn’t perfect, no country is, but we fight to make it better, and as a future Israeli, I plan to fully support the rights of the Ethiopian Jewish community.