Since the horrific and barbaric October 7 attack on Israel, the world has witnessed a meteoric rise in antisemitism. Still mourning the loss of life in Israel, Jews across the globe are confronted with pro-Hamas rallies, violence in the streets, and increasingly hostile social media posts, all clearly revealing that the centuries-old scourge of antisemitism had been bubbling just beneath society’s surface. For years, the rallying cry since the Holocaust has been “Never Again,” yet here the world found itself – again – with mothers, babies, the elderly, and youth mercilessly tortured and murdered. While the reaction for some was shock, in the words of one Hamas supporter: “It was the happiest day of my life.”The loud minority in the United States is just that – loud. But their pro-death stance by no means reflects the viewpoint of the majority of Americans. A recent Harvard-CAPS poll revealed that 74% of Americans believe Hamas’s attack was genocidal and 80% said they support Israel over Hamas, including 57% of those aged 18-24.Many young people have become indoctrinated by tenured liberal professors who teach that Israel is an apartheid state, a colonial project established in 1948 that purposefully displaced the indigenous population. Indeed not a Christmas can go by without Arafat’s most enduring piece of propaganda – that Jesus was a Palestinian – being trotted out in a variety of outlets.
History tells its own story
The spectacular crash of two lies, that Jesus was a Palestinian in Palestine and was also killed by the Jewish people who did not live there, is about as logical as pro-Hamas rally-goers claiming that Hamas is not even in Gaza or that Israel orchestrated October 7 against itself.
DURING WORLD War II, 400 Orthodox rabbis traveled to DC in 1943 to advocate on behalf of European Jewry. They were alone in their mission and president Franklin D. Roosevelt famously refused to meet with them. This time, in the worst tragedy since the Holocaust, Christians want the Jewish community to know, “You are not alone.”Many Christians look back at the Holocaust and read stories of Europeans, many of them professed Christians, failing to help their Jewish neighbors. To do so would have put their own lives and their families lives at risk, tying their fate to their Jewish countrymen. So we ask ourselves, what would we have done? Would we have been courageous enough? Discerning enough to see through the propaganda and lies spouted by the media and society? Today we can answer that question at this moment. The consequences we might face now are nowhere near what Europeans were confronted with during the Nazi regime. What will we do now, when the Jewish people face another existential threat?The participants of the January 31 advocacy day made their choice, linked arm and arm with their Jewish brethren, and declared boldly to our nation’s leaders, “We stand with the Jewish State of Israel. While the world might have failed at Never Again, Christians across the United States, and indeed around the world, want our Jewish brothers and sisters to know that you are never alone.”The writer is the US director of the Israel Allies Foundation. The IAF works to educate and empower pro-Israel, faith-based legislators worldwide.