Jewish

June 25, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

If You Don’t Like History, Don’t Erase it, Teach it!

History has always been written with blood, sweat and tears, but never with disappearing ink. Unless you are H. G. Wells, armed with a pen, you cannot erase, ignore or alter the past. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be stopping a wave of people across our nation, advancing a politically motivated cultural revolution. This American cultural tsunami has taken our country by surprise, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. While I recognize that the protests are justified and that our system needs reform, I cannot understand or condone the riots, violence, looting or the accusation of “systemic racism.” Additionally, the bringing down of statues, paintings and other artifacts seems very far removed from the tragic murder of George Floyd.

There is a great danger in rewriting history, because it eradicates key events that future generations would end-up knowing nothing about. A powerful and sad example of that is what has happened with the Holocaust. A survey was taken in 2018 yielding terrifying results. Two-thirds of millennials in America do not know what Auschwitz was, and 25% do not know that six-million Jews died in the Holocaust. So, when historical revisionists creep in with their altered narrative, much of our young population doesn’t have the know-how or even the motivation to check the stories’ accuracy. Add to that the dwindling down of Holocaust survivors and pretty soon nobody will remember the Jewish catastrophe.

In a letter to General Dwight Eisenhower dated April 15, 1945, General George Marshall reported what he saw when he visited the concentration camp at Ohrdruf: “But the most interesting – although horrible – sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as ·to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda.”

General George Marshall’s discernment was very sobering. It is mind boggling that after witnessing such horrors in the camps, anybody would entertain the idea that one day, people would deny it or change the narrative to serve their own agenda. But almost prophetically, General Marshall saw the horrors of the Holocaust as potentially being denied, minimized and forgotten. It has only been seventy years, and a large percentage of our current youth doesn’t know what took place during the years of Nazi Germany. This is a chilling reality!

I do not like this part of history any more than an African American likes the horrible US legacy of slavery or a Native American likes the carnage that his ancestors endured when the first pioneers set foot on what became the USA. Likewise, I do not like the Holocaust years because of their bloody legacy in general, and because of the loss I experienced in my own family in particular. My maternal grandfather Maurice Weinzveig was taken during a round-up in Paris in the summer of 1942, sent to Auschwitz. He perished in the smokestacks, one of the six million Jewish Holocaust victims. I wish this never happened, but I cannot erase it from either my memory, my family’s collective memory or history. You do not see me destroying German property, loathing anybody German or even boycotting companies that were instrumental in the development of the systematic attempt at the destruction of all European Jews. Allow me to elaborate.

What about IBM and the Holocaust? Most people are completely unaware of the fact that IBM, with the help of German inventor Herman Hollerith, was instrumental in tallying and identifying Jews all over Europe. In 1933, computers didn’t exist, but the IBM punch card system was developed and used by Nazis for “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” This all happened with the full knowledge of the IBM New York headquarters. It is terrifying to think that the Nazis were that organized, but the fact remains that many concentration camps inmates were registered upon entry with punch cards compatible with the IBM system. It is another part of history that is despicable and that I wish I could erase, but I cannot. You also don’t see me boycotting or destroying IBM property. By the current logic, I should go around and destroy any IBM computer I can get my hands on, just because IBM was instrumental in the killing of six million Jews and six million additional victims. This is absolutely ridiculous! Shame on IBM for their involvement in the Holocaust, but please, do not campaign for the destruction of all things IBM.

What about the Ford Motor Company, founded by Henri Ford, a proven antisemite who was admired by Adolph Hitler? In a previous article, I already made the point that the Ford Motors Company of 2020 is not that of 1920, but the founder’s name “Ford” remains in the name of the corporation. By the current standards, should we ask that the company be renamed because of the ugly, xenophobic past of its founder? And if we were to be consistent, we should also tear down the statue of Henri Ford located in River Rouge Michigan. Then you have the case of Father Charles Coughlin, the antisemitic Catholic Priest of the 1930s who used his very popular weekly radio broadcast to spew his venom on the air waves. Should we ban Catholicism and destroy all Catholic Churches and statues? What about Charles Lindbergh involvement with Hitler, Göring and even his consulting for the Luftwaffe (German Air-force)? Should we take down his statues in Minnesota, California, Georgia and other locations? Do you see where this is going?

It is much more important to tell it like it is and warn people about the ugliness and danger of racism and antisemitism than to topple any statue. Bringing a statue down will not stop people from being racist. Educating people on how to fight racism will go a lot further. Granted it is painful to relive parts of history for the purpose of teaching it to the next generation, it is crucial to do so. Following the logic–if you can call it logic–used by protesters and rioters today, all that they deem offensive must be destroyed. But where does it end? It simply doesn’t because various people will keep getting offended by all sorts of things that have taken place in history. Rewriting history is ignoring the problem and ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away. Teach history, teach the good the bad and the ugly history so that it can be identified, condemned and alleviated in the future. The alternative is an Orwellian universe that even those pushing statues off their pedestals today, do not wish for tomorrow. There is still time to stop the suicide of Western Civilization, but the clock is ticking!

June 18, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

The Proper Way to Support BLACK LIVES, and Why it MATTERS!

Growing up as a Jew in France in the 60s and 70s wasn’t without its challenges. My own mother who had lost her dad in the Holocaust at age 15, had developed a fear about telling people that we were Jewish. So much so that she even forced me to learn German in school as a second foreign language, just in case the Germans would invade France again, so that I could get by. It was not until she was in her early forties before she was comfortable telling others that we were Jewish. But all this never stopped me from making friends of different backgrounds at school. Two of my earliest buddies were Vietnamese and African. Every time I told my mother about a new friend, this fearful question always arose, “Do they know we are Jewish?” to which I always answered that they didn’t care and neither did I. Racism never had a foothold in my life. It never made sense to me to hate somebody based on color, race or creed. It didn’t when I was a teenager and it doesn’t today as a middle age adult.

When I moved to the United States in 1985, it quickly became evident that there were racial tensions between blacks and whites on many levels. Economically, culturally, politically to name just a few. Blacks and whites were clashing. Inter racial relations have not improved, they have actually gotten worse, to the point of injustice and wrongful deaths that we have witnessed in 2020. There is a serious problem affecting America today that cannot be ignored, and that is a reason why the movement known as Black Lives Matter–founded in 2013– has gathered so much momentum and picked the interest of so many. Such a movement appears to be giving the African American community the voice and momentum that they need to push reform forward. Philosophically, this is a good thing, but practically, the BLM ideology sends a very different message–if you know where to look. To be sure, I am not saying that black lives do not matter. Of course they do, as all lives matter. I am simply saying that before we blindly join and support the BLM movement based on somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction, from a mix of compassion, rightful indignation and misplaced guilt, we should investigate who the BLM supports and promotes. It is not always the easiest thing to do as a lot of the connections are no longer evident from their website. But let’s consider the following:

To put it simply; Black Lives Matter supports BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions). I have tried my best to expose the false narrative used by BDS proponents for several years. The BDS movement (officially co-founded in 2005 by Mahmoud Abbas and Omar Barghouti), has been pushing for a total boycott (academic, cultural and economic) of Israel and those who support Israel and Israeli products and companies. It has made great strides towards convincing people across the globe that Israel was the perpetrator of crimes against humanity, oppression, invasion and persecution. The BDS movement is not interested in social justice in general or they would also call for the boycott of many other countries that truly commit crimes against humanity such as Venezuela, China, Iran, Sudan and many others, but they don’t. Their only agenda is Israel and the Jewish people worldwide. They are not even hiding it as California University Professor Asad Abu Khalil said, “The real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel….That should be stated as an unambiguous goal. There should not be any equivocation on the subject. Justice and freedom for the Palestinians are incompatible with the existence of the state of Israel.” Likewise, BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti stated, “A Jewish state in Palestine, in any shape or form, cannot but contravene the basic rights of the land’s indigenous Palestinian population…definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian – rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian—will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

While it is challenging to find the connection between BLM and BDS, it is not impossible. BLM is part of a larger network known as M4BL (The Movement for Black Lives). Dots become a lot easier to connect once we realize that M4BL is an umbrella organization under which you can find other groups such as Black Lives Matter. Once this is established, it takes no time to find out that M4BL supports BDS. They claim that “3 billion dollars in US aid is allocated to Israel, a state that practices systematic discrimination and has maintained a military occupation of Palestine for decades.” or “The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people.” They even propose some actions to be taken against Israel as they encourage people to “Fight the expanding number of AntiBDS bills being passed in states around the country. This type of legislation not only harms the movement to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but is a threat to the constitutional right to free speech and protest.”

Additionally the Movement for Black Lives cites as resources: www.BDSmovement.net and www.blackpalestiniansolidarity.com. Both these websites are clear supporters of the BDS ideology and the flawed Palestinian narrative. So, the connection between BLM and M4BL is undeniably clear, and their antisemitic slant is also very obvious. I do not want you to miss the irony here: A movement that claims to fight racism of all sorts and promotes social justice, is also promoting the destruction of Israel and the hatred of Jewish people. So before we support BLM and donate to the cause, we must examine our hearts. Is it OK to fight for justice and equality for African Americans while supporting the oppression and destruction of Israel? Whichever way you look a it, it is hypocrisy. Not to mention the global support for BLM including anti-racism gatherings in Paris where some people were shouting dirty Jews to the crowd. Again, where is the connection? So, where do we go from here?

Inequality can only be remedied by true reconciliation and true reconciliation only comes from God. The problem that seems to arise out of the BLM movement is that reconciliation is spoken of, but submission is what is meant. There are some strong similarities between the “reconciliation” promoted by BLM and the one promoted by groups like “Christ at the Checkpoint (CaTC.) claiming to seek reconciliation between Israel and Palestinians in the name of Christ. When reconciliation is simply a word spoken to force the other side to submit unilaterally, then we have a problem. Reconciliation is a two-way street that includes compromise and humility. I have seen very little of that coming from BDS promoters as well as those who defend the BLM movement. What I am even starting to see, is more and more parallels drawn between the tragic murder of George Floyd and the deaths of Palestinians. Some people are even borrowing visual elements such as the Middle East head scarf worn by Arafat and the Palestinian flag, to incorporate them into images of George Floyd. There is absolutely no foundation for this connection, but that doesn’t stop people from drawing it.

As a French/Jewish immigrant to America, I have come to realize that injustice and inequality is very real all around us, and that is a tragedy. I have been speaking and writing against antisemitism for over twenty years, and I know that it is very real, as Satan infuses that hatred daily in the heart of men. Racism will continue to exist everywhere, but it doesn’t mean that we have to adhere to it. As God’s word tells us that through the blood of Messiah, Jews and Gentiles have been reconciled into one new man, without any separation between them. Racial reconciliation is not something we have to work on, but something we need to grab hold of and believe in, in complete faith, because of what Yeshua did on our behalf; Jews and Gentiles, blacks and whites.

Ephesians 2:11-16 drives the point home better than I ever could,” 11 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separate from Messiah, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Messiah Yeshua you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Messiah. 14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, 15 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, 16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.”

So, I support black lives today as much as I have supported them my whole life, but not through a manmade movement that has a shaky foundation at best. I support black lives because of my Messiah who supported all lives, enough to die for them. We all should support black lives and it definitely matters how we do it!

June 12, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Do We Still Need to Explain the Swastika in 2020?

Apparently, the short answer is YES, and it is unfortunate. The swastika is an old symbol that was hijacked by Nazi Germany and should have been retired in 1945 at the very latest. It goes back thousands of years in history and is meaningful to Buddhists, Hindus and a few other Eastern religious groups. The symbol was mostly seen as a good luck symbol until it was discovered in a few different places including German pottery. Before you knew it, the swastika was assigned the meaning of the “pure Aryan race”, leading to its usage on every Nazi medium possible as often as they felt it necessary. It was adopted by the Nazi Party in 1920 and replaced all other flags by 1933.

While the original design can still be found in other cultures, clearly predating the Nazi era, there is an unspoken international agreement that the swastika was retired at the end of World War Two. It is also understood that the counter-clockwise symbol is the original one from Eurasia, while the clockwise one is the one adopted by the Nazis. I am not sure that the girls knew the difference. Would a business person making a new kind of fun shaped caramel crackers, call and market their products as “Krazy Karamel Kracker”, taking the chance of being remembered as the KKK candy manufacturer? Of course not, because anything that would create the KKK acronym has also been retired from the vocabulary of decent people.

So, I was very disturbed when I was made aware of a couple of Penn State students who recently took a picture of themselves and posted it on Twitter, both displaying a drawn swastika on their shoulders, while smiling at the camera. The message that they tried to convey was unclear, but the symbol they used was crystal clear. There has not been an answer or explanation from the students using the symbol. Silence can be a wise choice at times, but when accused of using an unequivocally antisemitic symbol, silence is not the appropriate answer. The use of that symbol by the students can only be explained in one of two ways: Ignorance or malice. Maybe a little bit of both is even more accurate.

I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I will first assume that the two girls didn’t have any idea of the weight that this symbol carries. I personally don’t think that it is the case, but it is always possible. If it was the case, it will validate why we still need to educate people about this dark period of human history.

I am more inclined to believe that they knew the meaning of the symbol, thought that it was cool for shock value, and didn’t really care if they offended anyone. If that was the case, it could still be argued that they don’t really understand the gravity of such a symbol. Unfortunately, there seems to be a resurgence of the use of the swastika symbol among teens in America.

Then, there is the possibility that they simply are antisemitic and wanted to display their xenophobic ideology online to the world. This remains unclear since they have made no comments during or after their actions. The blond student on the left (Ryann Milligan) happens to be a Rehabilitation and Social Services major, where she will be trained to help people and be an advocate for others…Scary! Maybe it is still time to switch majors?

Penn State did issue a statement condemning the girls for their actions: “The reported anti-Semitic post is deeply disturbing and sickening. The University is contacting the individual alleged to be involved. We will continue to speak out against hatred and intolerance.” I personally find their statement extremely vague and non-committal at best. There is also a petition going around to expel the students, and it has already garnered almost 100,000 signatures. Penn State also tweeted: “A public university does not have the power to expel students over speech, no matter how morally reprehensible it may be, but the university does have the power to condemn racism and address those who violate our values.”

It is uncertain if the students will be disciplined or not, but what I can guarantee you is that regardless of malice, ignorance and discipline, they need to be educated. They need to take a trip to Auschwitz or at the very least to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. They also need to read Elie Wiesel “Night”. If that is too much to read for their millennial brains–and I say this without malice as millennials have a different way of gathering and retaining information–maybe they should watch “Schindler’s List” or the French documentary “Nuit et Brouillard” (Night and Fog) filmed in 1965.

I too often hear people complaining about the fact that Jews talk too much about the Holocaust, that we are “obsessed with its memory.” Well, I might not be obsessed by its memory, but I lost my grandfather in Auschwitz, and I am greatly offended when a couple of American teenagers make light of the very symbol that represents the people who killed my grandfather within a total of twelve million innocent victims, six million because they were Jews (1.2 million of these being children.)

So don’t tell me we need to tone down Holocaust education, we need more of it! As a matter of fact, I welcome the fact that H.R. 943, “The Never Again Education Act” was signed into law on May 29th, 2020. It was introduced, as the text says , “To authorize the Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to support Holocaust education programs, and for other purposes.” Section 2.4 of the Bill delineates exactly why it is important to educate people about those events, and it sounds like it could have been directly addressed to the three Penn State students. It reads, “As intolerance, antisemitism, and bigotry are promoted by hate groups, Holocaust education provides a context in which to learn about the danger of what can happen when hate goes unchallenged and there is indifference in the face of the oppression of others; learning how and why the Holocaust happened is an important component of the education of citizens of the United States.”

This is a huge milestone in Holocaust education and a win against those who belittle the Holocaust, make light of it and even those historical revisionists who deny that it ever happened. But if Holocaust education happens in the classroom, it starts and continues in the home. Parents are responsible to instill in their kids the values that are morally right. Sad to say, but we still need to explain to some people what the swastika represents, and seventy-five years after the Holocaust, we shouldn’t have to! Unfortunatelly, as long as people use the swastika like a cool tattoo to be paraded online or anywhere else, we need some of us to tell them that they are dead wrong. They are targeting the Jewish people even if they don’t realize it.
This being said, we must respect all human beings created in God’s image, especially at a time when our country is so divided by racial inequalities. But let us not let the xenophobia of some become the guilt of all.

June 3, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Is Israel the “One-Size-Fits-All” Response to the Ills of the World?

Early in 2020, everybody was talking about impeachment, and just like that, by March COVID-19 became the sole topic in the News, and again, just like that, at the end of May, the virus took second fiddle to the George Floyd death/race riots. What a year this has been so far! For many people, these events are all related to a plan to stop President Trump from re-election at any cost. While the anti-Trump agenda could very well be a driving force in the current events, my desire is not to get political at this point.

The virus is very real and has tragically taken many lives, and the last thing I want to do is to appear as if I am trying to minimize its devastating effect on us all. As to the protests, they are justified from the standpoint of the frustration and reaction to injustice and the wrongful death of George Floyd. There is no way to look at what happened to him and not declare foul play. I am disgusted by the tragedy that took place against Mr. Floyd and my prayers go to his family. The protests are justified and something must be done in America to solve our racial inequality and police brutality.

A peaceful protest is one thing, but when it turns into violent riots coupled with uncontrolled looting, it affects many people and businesses that have no connections to the issue, and it will ruin them… some for good! we must stand against that. As a matter of fact, standing up against riots and looting as one American people regardless of color or creed might be a great starting point to initiate dialogue and hopefully, reconciliation.

But there is another common denominator to these events that I need to bring to your attention, and that is the fact that they have all been linked one way or another to Israel and/or the Jewish people. The proverbial “Scapegoat of Humanity” can be found as the responsible party–partially or fully– in any of these crises. Even though they might appear as childish, ludicrous and unsustainable theories to most people of goodwill, these are circulating in the news and are being believed by more people than you would expect.

President Trump’s Impeachment: At the apex of the embarrassing impeachment scheme against President Trump, a Christian Pastor–and we should use the term very loosely regarding that particular individual– claimed that the impeachment was a “Jew Coup.” Rick Wiles, who has been known to be a virulent antisemite, was blasting that conspiracy theory from his church pulpit, doing much damage to the real Bible-believing Christians who read their Bible properly and cannot help but love Israel and the Jewish people. Wiles has since been banned from YouTube, but his videos can still be found circulating on the web. Wiles was also described as a Trump supporter and his site had mistakenly and tragically been accredited by the White House. Rick Wiles is a shameful individual who does not represent biblical Christianity and is only helping to further the 2000-year old divide between Christians and Jews. Does he know that the Messiah he claims to believe in, follow and serve was a Jew, as well as all of His disciples and all the writers of the Bible (except for Luke)?

The Corona Virus: Posts have gone viral on the web regarding the fact that the virus was a hoax invented by Jews to profit from it, or worse, that it was created by Jews for profit as well. And then, there are those who call it “The Jew-flu”, claiming that Jews spread it more than anybody else on the planet. This has contributed to a lot of antisemitic hate speech, not that we needed any more of that! Israeli politician and human rights activist Nathan Sharansky said “’They are blaming the Jews [for coronavirus], accusing us of trying to destroy the economy in order to make money.’…In Iran, the state-controlled media is blaming “Zionists” for the epidemic and warning people not to use a coronavirus vaccine if it is developed by Israeli scientists.” The Website NGO Monitor, keeping NGOs accountable, listed a myriad of NGOs that posted antisemitic tropes linking Israel, global Jews and COVID-19. Unbelievably, 20% of Britons believe that Jews are behind COVID-19. They obviously completely ignore the massive numbers of deaths in various Jewish communities because of the virus, especially in orthodox/Hasidic circles. They also ignore the fact that these very same Jewish communities that were hit very hard are now turning around to donate plasma.

The George Floyd Death: While there is no way on earth that the death of Mr. Floyd could be seen as accidental, there is still a way for antisemites to profit from it and link it to their anti-Israel agenda. It didn’t take very long for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) proponents to compare the method used by the police officer who murdered George Floyd to the methods used by the IDF on Palestinians. In reality, neither American cops nor the Israeli Defense Force use these methods. Simon Wiesenthal Center Director, Abraham Cooper remarked very wisely, “We Jews know all about antisemites connecting non-existent dots to denigrate our people.” Additionally, rioters chose to vandalize a synagogue with graffiti saying, “F*** Israel, Free Palestine!” What does the death of George Floyd have to do with the Jewish people? Nothing at all, but don’t let that fact stop the irrational hatred against my people! And then there are those who literally say that “The police violence happening tonight in Minneapolis is straight out of the IDF playbook,” claiming with zero evidence that US police officers train in Israel.

This Israel “One-Size-Fits-All” response to the ills of the world is dƒespicable. It continues to plague our Jewish people wherever they live. It is groundless and yet it feeds into the agenda of Jew-haters. I am not saying that there were no Jewish people supporting the impeachment proceedings. I am not saying that not one Jewish person profited from some business opportunity created by the pandemic, and I am not saying that Jewish people are always accused of ills they are not responsible for. What I am saying is that mankind can be found responsible for many things hurtful and destructive, but it is because as a human race we have rebelled against God and taken matters in our own hands. It is not because we are black, Jewish, white, or whatever else!

Like the Amalekites of old, the Pharaoh who enslaved our people, Haman who schemed to destroy all Jews and all the other people who made it their personal struggle to hurt Israel and the Jewish people, our enemies are influenced by a false narrative that Jews are evil, blood-sucking creatures hell-bent on taking over the world. This comes straight from Satan’s playbook, and that playbook IS the “One-Size-Fits-All” for all the ills of the world. It is time to give credit to whom credit is due!

May 20, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Can Some of Israel’s Foes Become Her Friends?

For over twenty years, I have labored ardently at exposing global antisemitism and its morphing trends. At some level, that task has become part of my daily routine within my ministry to my people. It has been emotionally, intellectually and even physically draining at times. Unfortunately, I do not see antisemitism slowing down any time soon. Everything seems to indicate that it is on the rise, now even including the deaths of Jewish people (San Diego, Pittsburg, Paris.) That is why when something positive takes place, it comes as a breath of fresh air in a suffocating world of xenophobic hatred. It recently happened through one of my reliable sources.

One of my many sources on the topic is a site called canarymission.org. They do a very thorough job of exposing those who loathe Israel publicly. They are not interested in character assassination, but simply in exposing the people by name, position and quoting their own words to illustrate their antisemitism. They let people decide what to think based on quoting Israel’s enemies verbatim and. as far as I can tell, they have always been fair. They describe their mission as follows: “Canary Mission documents people and groups that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews. We investigate hatred across the North American political spectrum, including the far right, far left and anti-Israel activists.”

In April 2020, they published statements made by five “ex-canaries” as they call them. These people, whose identities are being kept private for safety reasons, have done a 180º on Israel and the Jewish people. They have recognized the indoctrination that they had been victims of, and have decided to think for themselves. Imagine that! These people were anti-Israel activists involved with groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement (BDS.)

They have been under a lot of pressure from these organizations and various people supporting their agendas. Courageously, they changed sides because they realized that they had been lied to. In all fairness, we must also admit that as much as the Palestinian narrative is based on a premise that is historically unsustainable, Israel is never 100% squeaky clean either. Regardless, these young people have chosen to seek the truth, not just what they think the truth is or what they are told the truth is. They went out of their way to research, compare, study and think for themselves, something that goes against what they experienced in college. Their conclusion changed them from foes to friends of Israel.

One “ex-canary” said: “I have come to renounce SJP because my experiences in the Holy Land have opened my eyes to several key points. Jewish people are not “colonists”, rather, the Jewish people are historically indigenous to Israel… Israel [is] being unfairly held to a higher standard…”

Another one stated:” although I am very visibly Muslim, the Israeli employees treated me with the utmost respect and kindness as if I was one of their own… Seeing that truly made me so ashamed that I ever thought so negatively of people who literally did nothing to deserve so much hate being aimed towards them. I am very fortunate to be among those who have realized the error of my ways and use the opportunity to better myself and better the community.”

Yet, another one spoke about BDS, “I used to be involved with the BDS movement and would boycott certain companies and support the movement at my university. I no longer support this movement because it is aggressive and preventative to creating efficient dialogue… Many people back this movement because of their antisemitism and I refuse to participate in a movement that furthers the oppression of a group of people.”

They had a lot more to say about how they were misled and indoctrinated against Israel. Their campus experience was not uncommon and continues to plague thousands of gullible college students. Equipped with common sense and honesty, these students sought the truth. As it turns out, they actually applied biblical principles to arrive at the truth.

• They did their own research (Deuteronomy 29:29; Acts 17:11)
• They stopped lying (Deuteronomy 5:20)
• They put any preconceived notion about Israel aside (Isaiah 29:20-21)
• They chose to respect all people as humans (Proverbs 25:21)
• They refused to commit character assassination (Exodus 14:14)
• They didn’t rejoice over the fate of their enemies (Proverbs 24:17)
• They ended up loving their former enemies (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 5:43-45)

We can all learn from them (and incidentally, from the Bible) and certainly hope and pray that more of Israel’s foes will seek the truth and become her friends…Israel could use a few more friends right now!

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