Israel

Last month, I tied three yellow ribbons around the trunk of the palm tree outside my home. Two weeks later, I removed them.

Last month, three Israeli teenagers went missing. Two weeks later, their bodies were found, bloody and abandoned.

Last month, Jews scattered across the world’s landscape adorned their homes with pieces of cloth, metaphorical symbols of support for the victims’ families and signs of solidarity with Israel. Two weeks later, we remain connected by a common thread: our culture, woven from the strands of our most precious values of respect, community and peace.

Respect is to be granted towards all people, Jewish or not, in order to initiate and preserve peace. The Torah teaches our people to “seek peace and pursue it,” and to extend “peace, peace to the distant and the close.” Abiding by these principles for centuries, Jewish people have taken the necessary measures in order to maintain tranquility and avoid conflict. Before entering the land of Israel and claiming their promised land, as depicted in the Torah, Joshua and the Israelite army offered peace with the Canaanites. In 2000, the Jews offered Palestine a state in more than 95 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The result? A violent intifada, or uprising that resulted in heavy civilian casualties on both sides.

Despite the Israeli people’s continual efforts for peace and constant strive for recognition, terrorist Palestinian regimes refuse to accept any and all negotiations. Hamas, the lead terrorist group, has released inflammatory propaganda videos making claims such as, “We love death more than you love life,” in order to impose psychological warfare on the Israelis. Unfortunately, these chilling threats have materialized into serious attacks and war crimes. Hamas have proven over time that there is nothing they won’t sacrifice, including their own children, in order to abolish the Israeli state. An organization whose motto encourages hate demonstrates no capacity for humanity and therefore, no prospect of peace.

Hamas justify its preemptive hate and tendency for violence with the claim that Israelis are unrightfully stealing Palestinian land. Before 1948, Palestinians occupied more than 90 percent of what is now Israel. On May 14 of that year, following the end of World War II, the U.N. authorized the Declaration of Israel’s Independence and the Plan for Palestine; these treaties recommended and established land for independent and separate Jewish and Arab states. On May 15, one day after the authorization of the declarations, five Arab nations attacked the newborn Jewish state of Israel. The conflict ended with an unforeseen victory for Israel and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Marked by fear, desperation and destruction, Palestinians fled or were forced to flee their homes. Today, UNRWA (United Nation’s Relief and Works Agency) estimates that five million Palestinian refugees, defined as persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period June 1 1946 to May 15 1948 and who lost both homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict, are eligible for UNRWA services.

Although refugees pose an important variable in the topic of Palestinian statehood, displacement is a consequence of war. In Israel’s relatively short history, it has faced armed challenges from surrounding, hostile Arab states. Israel, by fending off its neighboring aggressors in a series of wars, has justified its necessity and use of self-defense to survive in a volatile Middle East.

With the current conflict brewing between Israel and Hamas after last month’s tragedy, some sources have manipulated statistics in an attempt to portray Israel as the aggressor. However, the reason behind these devastating statistics is not cruelty on the part of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but selfishness on the part of Hamas. Hamas-linked terrorists over the years have been caught firing rockets from schools, neighborhoods and hospitals. Hamas stations its military bases in civilian towns and amidst the community. This comes in addition to Hamas’ suicide bombing campaign (up until 2006).

Thus, when Israel retaliates to the Palestinian bombardment, the military is unable to avoid casualties despite the increasing care for the precision of their strikes. By dropping leaflets and issuing warnings prior to the attacks on Hamas militants, Israel attempts to limit the collateral damage. Additionally, the IDF has set up clinics by Gaza to tend for innocent Palestinians caught in the crossfire.

Is the realization of such a threat a show of Israeli aggression or merely the necessity of self-defense?

Hamas’ tactics put a cruel spin on the numbers that would suggest otherwise. Statistics reported by B’Tselem, which Vox’s Max Fisher rely on, are misleading because they do not account for the perpetrators of the casualties. According to The Washington Examiner, between September 2000 and May 2014, 2,384 deaths on the Palestinian side were of “Palestinians who took part in the hostilities and were killed by Israeli security forces;” 683 were “Palestinians killed by Palestinians;” another 288 were Israeli-identified terrorists.

The solution to this conflict is not for Israel to lay down its arms and surrender to unreasonable aggression. Rather, a ceasefire should be mutually accepted and respected in order to create space for a negotiation that can result in a two-state solution where both Israeli and Palestinian nations can peacefully coexist.

Imagine that you are all alone, surrounded on all four sides by 22 people with vicious intentions. You try to appease the bullies, but they reject your negotiations. You offer your home, your money, your sympathy. They refuse. You stand still in your place, hoping they retreat. They encroach. All you want is to be left alone and all they want is to see you dead. Your only option of survival is to attack first and pray for victory. Do you take the punch?