“Never Again” is Now. Stand with Israel.
I have grown up in a world with a Jewish state. I played professional soccer there, wearing the Jewish star proudly on my jersey. I have stayed in my sister’s home in Tel Aviv where she and her husband are raising two beautiful daughters. I have watched my grandfather, a survivor of Auschwitz, race towards the Western Wall with his cane held high.
But on Monday, I was on the phone with my 85-year-old grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, as we watched news reports of Hamas murdering children in their homes. She was in tears, her voice trembling with heartbreak as she said, “I never thought I would have to see this again.”
She said, “again,” because 82 years ago, when my grandmother was the same age as her Israeli great-granddaughter is now, the Nazis murdered her family. She was saved by a neighbor who kept her hidden in her basement.
As a child, my grandparents told me about the heroic acts of this neighbor. But they also warned me about the actions of their other neighbors. The ones who cheered the Nazis on and the ones who stayed silent. Those stories terrified me the most.
And yet, in the last few days as I’ve turned to my community on social media for solidarity and support — I find people I follow, like, and engage with cheering and justifying the actions of Hamas.
Just like my grandparents’ neighbors — people with whom I had once shared dinners — are cheering for the massacre of Jews. My feed is filled with people praising Hamas “freedom fighters,” chanting “from the river to the sea,” and rationalizing that “Israel got what it deserved.”
This is no different from my grandparents’ neighbors cheering the Nazis. Those trying to justify Hamas are normalizing the terrorists’ evil acts — such as kidnapping a wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivor and mutilating Jewish babies. These terrorist murderers are not demanding Palestinian rights or advocating for an independent state, but instead are vowing to obliterate Israel and cleanse the world of Jews.
Conflict is complicated. This is not. A surprise massacre of civilians should not be a divisive issue. Israel is a democratic and civil society where people, press, and dissent are free, where women are independent, people of all religions hold elected office, and the LGBTQ+ community is celebrated. Like all other nations, Israel has the right to exist and to defend itself. Today, Israel is under attack by the forces of evil who once again seek the annihilation of not just a country, but of the Jewish people worldwide.
Today, we need more people like my grandmother’s neighbor who are willing to take a stand against this evil.
To stand with Israel does not mean saying “I stand against violence, but...” or “for context...” or “all sides need to de-escalate.” To say these things is to endorse a genocidal terrorist group bent on exterminating all Jews from this world. The trauma and damage done to the Jewish people is irrecoverable and eternal. And it’s ongoing. This week, the largest number of Jews were murdered in one day since the Holocaust.
There are no “two sides” here. Israel has a right — and a need — to exist.
This is personal. My sister and her two babies are sleeping in bomb shelters as her husband is called to active duty in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). I hugged a friend goodbye before he boarded his flight to Israel to fight. I have frantically called to make sure my former teammates are safe. It’s shocking and terrifying. But when I need courage, I recall my grandfather’s return to Auschwitz with the IDF. He stood on the train tracks of that site of Jewish destruction and defiantly asserted — am yisrael chai — meaning, the people of Israel live.
To ensure that is true today and always, stand against terrorism and in solidarity with Israel.
Ellie Greenberg is a graduate student at the University of Washington studying social work and education.
