I am Jewish. 

I will always be Jewish no matter how much I hide, not that I want to. People on campuses not limited to Salisbury University are hiding their Jewishness and the word “Zionist” has been branded as a slur for people who want to kill Palestinians. That is not what Zionist means to Jewish people. Zionism is the belief in the existence of a Jewish homeland for the Jewish people. 

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, yes I am a Zionist. I believe in a Jewish homeland for Jewish people. I believe in a space where Jewish people can be safe. However, I also think that other people that aren’t Jewish should be allowed to live there too. It should be a space for all people to be safe, not just Jewish people. I don’t believe in a two state solution because I believe that at some point, everyone will live together in peace on one land. I don’t believe there should be separate lands because separation leads to misunderstanding leads to hate leads to fear on both sides.

I don’t condemn Israel’s actions because the media has been spreading more and more propaganda put out by Hamas, a known terrorist group that advocates for the extinction of Jewish people in Israel, and the extinction of all Jewish people.

To get things straight, I usually tend to be at odds with the leaders of Israel and certain Jewish people because they are Ashkenazic (European Jews). They don’t understand our land’s history or the importance of Arab people in the creation of Israel, or that some Arab people are Jewish or allies. 

Not all Arabs are Muslim and there are many other groups besides Muslims, Christians and Jews in Israel, including Druze, Zoroastrians, and Bedouins with inherent tribal religions. There is also recently a large Asian population because Israel pays for migrant work for people from Thailand and other Asian countries. Israel is not only for Jewish people, nor should it only hold Jewish people. All kinds of people are important in the making of the country and all kinds of people should be welcome there.

I usually disagree with the Ashkenazic people because I’m Sephardic (Middle Eastern Jewish). This is because my mom is Egyptian. A lot more Jewish people in Israel are Sephardic or Mizrahi (different flavor of Middle Eastern Jewish). Some people are native to the land of Israel. Some people were kicked out of their previous Middle Eastern countries for just being Jewish.

Israel offers a place that will always accept Jews. That is very comforting to a people that are always hated in whatever country we go to. We wouldn’t need Israel if people would leave us alone in our original countries. We have been abused throughout the centuries with the Spanish inquisition, Turkish expulsion, Ukraine programs of murdering Jews, vampires being invented as a Jewish stereotype of eating babies and drinking blood, or more recently the Holocaust and the expulsion of native Jewish people from Muslim lands. 

My grandparents and all Jews were kicked out of Egypt in 1956 just for being Jewish. In my grandparents’ case, they were native Egyptians and their family had lived there for hundreds of years. If they had never been kicked out, they would have never lived anywhere but Egypt. It was their home and they loved it. 

It is very complicated because some Jewish people are native to the land of Israel and some are not and are not very understanding. It’s the one land Jewish people have gotten to live in without getting kicked out, and we’re tired of running. Especially the native Israeli-Jewish people, who have always lived there. Jewish people in general want to live in peace with their neighbors and would even welcome them to live in our country with open arms, but Hamas (the terrorist group that wants to wipe out all Jews) wants to kill us all. 

They hide in the homes of children, hide rockets under baby cradles, and dig tunnels. They took 250 people hostage last year on October 7th during the Nova music festival, when Israel was doing nothing else than enjoying the music festival. They also killed 2,500 Israeli people during the event. Not all of the murdered and hostages are even Jewish. They just hate Israel because it provides a safe space for Jewish people.

This issue doesn’t come down to identity politics such as “Jewish people are white and they hate Palestinians and murder kids playing soccer,” or whatever. The issue is that the Hamas terrorists abuse the Palestinian people and steal their money and food to support their weapons  and attack Israel. They also are cowards and hide in areas where there are a lot of people on purpose and use human shields and hurt Palestinian people.

If they had just not attacked and not taken 250 people hostage, this never would have happened. This war won’t end until they give us our people back and stop terrorizing innocent people who may or may not be Jewish. Hamas also treats the hostages horribly and rapes women. Some of the hostages have died. Some of the female hostages might be pregnant with a terrorist rapist’s baby. It has been exactly 1 year since October 7th, 2023. It is a dark time in Jewish history, and if Israel can defeat the terrorists and liberate the Palestinian citizens from their evil overlords, life will be better.

So in other words, free Palestine, but not from Israel; from Hamas.

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By ZOE CLARKE

Editor

Featured image courtesy of AFP via Getty Images

The Oct. 7 massacre was covered by SU student journalists last year, but censored by the official student news source of the time.