Dov was Right

y son Natan is very proud of having been a very early user of Facebook. He saw Facebook’s potential way before most people caught on to the addictive social networking site. Four years ago, I caved in to Natan and let him set up my Facebook account.

At 21, Natan is too young to appreciate what it meant for me to find friends I hadn’t seen in over two decades. The early days of my Facebooking were heady indeed and life seemed fuller for having allowed social networking into my life. Every once in a while, I still find someone I cared about and had lost touch with, via Facebook, but those occasions are now rare, the heady early days long past.

Facebook has become part of the fabric of my life. I read my newsfeed two or three times a day, catching up with friends, the news, and the newest video clips to go viral. I play word games and Bejeweled Blitz to wake up in the morning, take a break from work, or to wind down at night.

Sometime after I became active on Facebook, my husband did, too. He wanted to see what the fuss was all about. That’s when we discovered that there seems to be a generational cut-off point for Facebook. Dov is eight years older than I and his buddies, it seems, just don’t appreciate or understand Facebook to the same extent as my own generation.

Feeling wiser than Dov in this one particular arena, I didn’t hesitate to express my annoyance at his insistence on posting links to articles echoing his right-wing Middle East political sentiments. Since we were Facebook friends, I was embarrassed by this inappropriate use of a social networking site. Dov and I didn’t agree on what was and was not an appropriate use of prime Facebook real estate. He stuck out his chin in that pugnacious way of his and I just rolled my eyes, continuing to cringe whenever he posted one of THOSE links.

Then there was the incident with the Mavi Marmara. It happened the day after my 49th birthday. Israel was forced to board this flotilla for flouting Israel’s Gaza blockade. The blockade was meant to prevent weapons from flowing into hostile territory and was a legal blockade according to international maritime law.


The Israelis who boarded the flotilla were armed with paintballs. The Mavi Marmara people lay in wait for the Israelis, beating them with iron bars and attacking them with knives. There was footage! But the mainstream media suppressed the truth and made the Israelis sound like brutal barbarians while painting the Mavi Marmara participants as saintly martyrs.

Having previously lambasted my husband for posting pro-Israel articles I was forced overnight to take up my fork and eat humble pie. I was so distressed by the slanted media reports of the Mavi Marmara incident that I was unable to rest or sleep. I realized that as a patriotic Israeli, I had no choice but to exploit Facebook as a platform for combating the rampant universal delegitimization of Israel.

Dov was right to have been posting those political articles. I had been very, very wrong.

Since that time, a year and a half ago, I have become a member of an unofficial Facebook group. The members of this group spend their days at their computers, posting every pro-Israel link they can find and countering the lies said in the mainstream media about the Jewish State.

I know that a lot of people find us very annoying. They think we abuse social networking for our political cause, just like I thought my husband was misusing Facebook for this purpose. I know that some of my friends, even those who share my politics, have stopped following my newsfeeds and some have unfriended me altogether over my insistent and constant politicization of the social networking site.

I care. It wounds me. But I care about Israel more.

I felt vindicated when members of the Israeli Knesset encouraged Israelis to keep on posting pro-Israel articles on Facebook. It seems that we are an important asset in combating the PR war against Israel’s enemies. We tell the real story when the media is quiet. We report the daily missiles emanating from Gaza and targeting our civilian population when the media will not. We expose the false propaganda spread by the other side by citing the facts, when the media would rather print the falsehoods for the sake of higher ratings.

And that’s because we don’t live by ratings or even by how many people send us friend requests on Facebook. We live only by our consciences and our strong moral sensitivity for right and wrong.

Maybe you think I have an inflated sense of self—that I fancy myself a sort of true-life, contemporary superhero? Maybe you think that some things shouldn’t be discussed in public: religion and politics. I don’t, CANNOT worry about that anymore.

As far as I’m concerned, the truth must out lest my people and my country perish. More than that, I believe that the world has failed to identify the enemy in its midst. I fear for world order. It’s a life and death situation. And like it or not, no one is safe. It’s coming to a theater near you.

Conflict Resolution

For months now, I have been watching the relationship between America and Israel crumble. I have listened to what Ed Koch calls, "…the deafening silence," of American Jews to the stance their elected president has chosen to adopt toward the only country the U.S. can depend on without question as a true and unwavering friend. I have been waiting for Americans to speak out.

The wait has been sheer torture for someone like me, who cannot separate politics from the mundane, who cannot maintain the apathy toward the roiling of the Middle East arena that seems to be associated with a certain type of maturity I do not possess.

I know how I appear: I am someone on a soapbox for a cause that is not popular, for a cause that for some, has become an embarrassment. My cause is the 27 state peace plan: 26 states for the Moslems, one small state for the Jews.

I lecture, I become strident, and I plead. I post too many pro-Israel articles on Facebook knowing that my friends may have "hidden" me. Some of my friends comment that there is no point to these efforts. Others just tell me straight out: they are sorry for my pain, but do not share my agenda.

But I feel such urgency that I cannot quit being a nudnik on behalf of Israel. Sometimes I fear my non-Jewish facebook friends find me "too Jewish," and then I chide myself for being a Jewish Uncle Tom. I am this person, this too Jewish person. It won't change and I can't be anyone else.

At last, the Jews made a rally. The attendance was paltry—a mere 3,000. The Jewish population of New York alone, where the rally took place, stands at 1,970,000. It hurts, hurts to the core. They said it was the driving rain. But I don't believe the rain kept too many people away. How can only 3,000 Americans plead the case of 6 million Israeli Jews?

When my friend Ann Goodman's son Yosef was buried after perishing in a military accident, a huge crowd of us did not let the wild storms keep us away from the cemetery. I remember feeling that we were all one, that soaking wet, frozen crowd, and that the rain was an initiation rite of sorts showing our caring for the Goodman family during the worst of an unspeakable tragedy and our devotion to giving Yosef the honor he deserved for serving and protecting us.

The rain over Har Herzl that day felt like the very heavens were crying over the loss of this defender. The more it rained, the more I felt comforted by what it meant that such large numbers would gather as one in spite of the inclement weather. The stormy weather seemed to fit the situation.

I feel let down by those Jews in America who chose not to attend the rally—rain does not come close to serving as a valid excuse for the nonattendance of most American Jews at what might have been a major event, but fell far short of this goal. I feel that their absence, silence, and expressed lack of concern have dealt a huge blow to the cause I hold most dear in my heart: the Land of Israel as a haven for all Jews, everywhere. I feel hurt, ashamed, let down, depressed, and angry.

Even through the gloom of these emotions, I want to thank the 3,000 who did brave the weather to show support for Israel.

Today, I took the time to listen to the video clips of several of the
speakers at the rally. Pamela Geller was the best of the bunch. She spoke irrefutable truths and is a rousing and gifted speaker--a gift from God to my cause! She asked the crowd, "Where does history start? Where should we start history? Who decides? Should it start 5, 768 years ago with the Jewish people? Should it start 1400 years ago with Mohammed when he beheaded an entire tribe, the Jews of Medina, the Qurayza tribe? Who decides?

Does it start in 1921 when the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem wiped out the Jews in Hebron? Does it start in 1929 when the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem wiped out the Jews again? Does it start in 1941 when the Mufti went to Iraq and aligned with Rashid Ali and wiped out the Jews of Iraq? Where does it start? I am asking you."


Rabbi David Algaze also spoke. His speech could not compare with Geller's for fire and passion. But I received a reward for staying with him until the end. "The Arab Israeli conflict is not about territory. The Arab Israeli conflict is about the destruction of any non-Islamic state in the Middle East. It is not about territory. Territory will not solve it … The only peace the Arabs will accept is the destruction of the State of Israel and that is not going to happen," said Algaze.

As Rabbi Algaze continued his speech, he wrapped up with an important point, one I have often pondered and have been unable to get across in an adequate manner to my friends: Sometimes there is no way to resolve a conflict. That is the case here. The conflict between Israel and the so-called Palestinians cannot be resolved. Pursuing the two-state solution, imposing a peace process, it's all wrong-headed and cannot have a positive outcome for the simple reason that the Arabs will never accept the State of Israel in any form. They will never accept our presence in the Middle East. We will always be an infidel nation. That is the Islamic dialogue. Period.

Over the summer, I took a trip to my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While there, I visited an old friend whom I had not seen in 30 years when both of us were teenagers. Leslie taught me guitar and had a huge impact on my musical tastes and preferences. She also woke up my political awareness, though we somehow ended up on opposite sides of the fence as adults.

Leslie and I have since been trying to find a way to dialogue without butting our heads too hard. Sometimes we fail. But there is one thing on which we agree in absolute faith: we will not apologize for Israel's right to exist.

Leslie and I discussed the conflict during my trip to Pittsburgh and at one point, she asked me, "So, what is the answer to the conflict? How can we achieve peace?"

I tried to tell her that there may not be a way to achieve a resolution but I fear I was not as articulate as Rav Algaze. Leslie looked at me in astonishment, like, "C'mon…there has to be a solution."

But Rav Algaze was right on when he said, "…you know the problem that we have in the world…the problem is the people who cannot accept that a conflict has no resolution. Not every disease can be cured, not every social ill can be resolved. Not every problem can be fixed. Sometimes, we have to learn that we are going to live with a problem. And to be able to deal with it, Israel, America, the world, have to accept the fact: we have an implacable enemy and that enemy is called Islam."

Islam is not only a religion. Islam is a political platform to control the world … those who propose a two-state solution are proposing the suicide of the State of Israel."