The story highlighted a post on the group’s Twitter account which read: “Rabbi Podolsky is leading us in a recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish for the hundreds of innocent Jewish and Palestinian lives killed over the last few weeks. #jewsagainstapartheid.”
The tweet had a photo attached showing the rabbi at a recent demonstration in Los Angeles, with people holding up a large sign with names.
Joe Truzman, research analyst for The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), pointed out on Twitter that the names of several PIJ and Hamas operatives were included on the list for whom IfNotNow recited kaddish.
“Interesting, they’re mourning quite a few Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades militants. Basem Issa – Gaza Brigade Commander. Sameh Mamlouk – Commander of the Missile Unit Northern Brigade. Abu al-Ata’s brother, Mohammad al-Ata,” he wrote.
The organization responded to the article on their account, saying: “tl;dr [too long, didn’t read]: apparently, the Jerusalem Post staff believe that mourning the loss of Palestinian life is bad.”
tl;dr: apparently the Jerusalem Post staff believe that mourning the loss of Palestinian life is bad. pic.twitter.com/0qUqhSXNYi
— IfNotNow (@IfNotNowOrg) June 1, 2021
Not quite, IfNotNow. The Jerusalem Post does not think that mourning Palestinian life is bad. But it does believe that saying kaddish for terrorists is over the line.
How can a so-called liberal organization grieve over the lives of those who invested everything in killing innocent people? How can it sympathize with those who terrorize their own people, who use them as human shields as they seek shelter?
However, IfNotNow is not the story here.
The story is about the new generation in the Western world that automatically sides with the Palestinians.
We in Israel know that our army is doing everything to avoid collateral damage and save lives of innocent people, while the enemy is targeting them. We know that the IDF is the most moral military in the world, and goes above and beyond to spare the lives of its enemies.
But we also know that Israel suffers from a disadvantage in the battle of narratives in conflict. The logic behind it is simple: since World War II, the West has adopted the idea that the weak side is always right.
To be honest, Israel had (rightfully) benefited from this notion: after the war, the Jews were the persecuted people who lost six million innocents, and who had the right to build the own land.
Israel developed into a small, weak state surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs, but who miraculously defeated five enemy armies.
However, after the Six Day War in 1967 — when the country captured the West Bank and Gaza — a weaker party entered the equation.
Living in Israel and seeing reality makes one realize that the weak is not always right.
When things are simplified and twisted — as they tend to be on social media — the world sees the West Bank as occupied territories, Gaza as one big prison, and Israeli Arabs as second-class citizens.
The world ignores context and facts. It buys into lies and fake stories. One recent example appeared in the New York Times which published a front page with photos of the Palestinian children killed during the recent Gaza war.
Ignoring how the Times obtained the photos and its reliance on an NGO with suspicious ties to Palestinian terrorism, the fact that some of the children were killed by Hamas’s own rockets – hundreds of which they fired landed in Gaza – was ignored. The Times published at least one photo that was of a different child, as well as one that was of a 17-year-old male teenager who was a known member of a terrorist organization.
Did The New York Times ever do this for the children killed in Yemen or Afghanistan or Iraq? Was it done for the more than 80 young Afghani women killed in a recent car bomb in Kabul?
This war revolves around narratives and perceptions of how Israelis, the Arab world, and the international community come to understand the conflict as well as how social media can shape one’s views on the conflict.
The battle over the narrative requires constant effort. Saying kaddish for Palestinian terrorists might seem like a gimmick but, it is part of a larger campaign to get the world to believe that Israel kills only innocent people. That is the war that Israel must fight as efficiently as it does on the battlefield.