Heart for Israel

Lies About Israel- Part 1

Lie #1 “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be Free”- this is a chant that is being heard all over American campuses. But what is the intent of this chant? When asked, many students did not know the name of the river or the sea. The river is the Jordan River, and the Sea is the Mediterranean Sea- so from the Eastside of Israel all the way to the Westside of Israel. Free from what? Most know the answer- it is all Jews- they don’t say that in the chant, but that is clearly the intent. That is a call to genocide!

Most students probably don’t understand what they are chanting. Why should they get rid of all the Jews? The answer is they don’t belong there; they came in and stole the land from the Arabs/Palestinians. This leads to lie #2.

Lie #2 The Jews in Israel are White European Colonialists who stole the land from the Arabs. But is this true? Are the majority of the Jews in Israel White Europeans? If this is the case, then maybe they have a point that we should consider. After all, we Americans should be open-minded about the subject.

So, how many white Ashkenazi Jews live in Israel? There are about 2.8 million Ashkenazi Jews living in Israel. The percentage is about 31-32% of the overall population. The total Jewish population in Israel is about 79-80%. About 20-21 % of the population in Israel is of Arab descent. Apart from the 31-32% of Ashkenazi Jews, there are about 70 % of the Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. They come from Spain, North Africa, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, other South American countries, and the list goes on. The White Europeans are in the minority in Israel, and it doesn’t seem like they came as “colonizers”.

What is a “colonizer”? A colonizer is a person or group sent by a nation or government to claim a territory other than its own, forcibly taking control of the population and resources in that territory. They work for the mother country and send money or resources back to it. It does not seem that Ashkenazi Jews of Europe were sent by the government to make money or gain resources for the mother country. Which mother country sent them? The truth of the matter is that they migrated voluntarily. The history bears out that many were driven out by persecution, pogroms, economic hardship, and early Zionist or religious motivations. There is no evidence that Jews were sent by some kind of state-sponsored program.